We see it everyday. We try to ignore it as best we can because we don’t want to face the harsh reality of it. What is it? History, and the undeniable truth that it repeats its ugly self time and time again. I know no one wants to hear that, myself included. We’ve seen some ugly events happen throughout history; the Holocaust, JFK and 9/11 just to name a few. And here’s another ugly truth: despite all our efforts to avoid it, this ugly cycle has been happening ever since the Garden of Eden, it happened back in Biblical times, it’s happening all around us right now and it will continue to happen. That is until the One who rules over all things, Jesus Christ, comes again to set everything straight once and for all!

But here’s some brutal honesty about the human condition straight from Isaiah…

“Our transgressions are indeed with us,
and we know our iniquities:
rebelling and denying the LORD,
turning away from our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering lies from the heart.
So justice is turned away,
and righteousness stands at a distance.
For truth has stumbled in the public square,
and honesty cannot enter.
Truth is missing,
and whoever turns from evil becomes prey.
The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.”

~ Isaiah 59:12-15 (BSB)

The people Isaiah was talking about had no one but themselves to blame for their lamentable situation, and they knew it. They had sinned against God by perverting justice in their society and, as we all know, sin always fills the vacuum left when God’s truth is no longer the priority. It happened over and over throughout the historical books of the Old Testament, Israel would promise to follow God and all his commands, be tempted by something in another land, fall away in pursuit of false gods, become enslaved one way or another and then beg God to rescue them from their enslavement. Because of His everlasting grace and love, God would save them from themselves, Israel would promise to obey God, be tempted and the cycle would repeat itself. In the Old Testament, from Joshua all the way through Esther, cycle repeated itself over and over again!

Jumping forward 400 years to the New Testament, we see sin continuing to reign in the Sanhedrin when they would apply supressing and insufferable rules people were forced to live under that went far beyond God’s Law that was given to Moses. Jesus called them out on their hypocrisies in Matthew 23: 1-36, warning them of their impending doom. We also see much of the same criminal element then that we see today on the evening news: theft, abuse, murder. Read John 18:28-32 and you will see the most blatant example of evil ever perpetrated onto someone, that “someone” being Jesus Christ, the Son of God! And don’t miss the irony in this passage, which was, the most important, well respected, religious leaders of their time actively pursued the greatest act of injustice and evil ever recorded ⏤ the execution of God Himself!

So what was their problem? What’s our problem? And why can’t we just behave? It’s the same problem it’s always been ever since Eve snatched that delectible, mouthwatering piece of fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and sunk her teeth into it: SIN! And ever since then, every single decendant of Adam and Eve’s (all of humanity) has carried that sin “gene”, so to speak, with them. We can’t help ourselves. All we want is to be the gods of our own little worlds, just like Adam and Eve wanted but, if we’re honest with ourselves, we see how relying on ourselves fails us every day. We cannot create the utopias we want to create for ourselves and the reason for that is our sinful natures cannot create anything that does not have, in their very foundations, sin embedded in them. So, we see the problem isn’t that we won’t obey God, the problem is that we can’t obey God ⏤ at least not without devine help!

As I hinted at before, the One who always was and always will be, the Lord Jesus Christ, will return and bring the new heaven with Him. And with Him will also come the demise of all sin⎯FOREVER. The sin that keeps us from ruling over our own utopias as well as the sin that drives us to desire to rule over our little utopias will vanish in the blink of an eye! You can be sure of that! And you can also be sure of this: Jesus’ return is the only event that will stop history from repeating itself.

~ Shalom! Shalom! ☧

* Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.