The Internet Went Down!
On 4th October the world experienced a widespread internet outage. Then, on October 20th, another one. Such occurrences are annoying and inconvenient, but can also be very serious. For example, the economic consequences can be far-reaching. Few of us understand how the invisible internet system works, the meaning of ‘DNS error’ (which was deemed responsible on at least one of those occasions), or how truly interconnected our world has become. As with many things, we tend to take it all for granted until something goes wrong. But we surely realise that it is complex, and that these outages can cause disruption to thousands of services worldwide, affecting millions of people. The system is only as strong as its weakest link, piece of kit or coding. Nevertheless, despite all this, we increasingly trust it and rely on it.
Our world is becoming ever more unstable in many ways. This should not surprise Bible students. The Bible predicts a time of great before Jesus Christ returns to establish God’s Kingdom on earth in a reign of peace (Daniel 12:1-3; Luke 21:25-28). A formidable time of distress and confusion is described in picture form in the ‘apocalyptic’ book of Revelation.
In the past, God has intervened causing chaos and confusion, and foiling human systems in order to bring about His purpose. Examples are the Flood (Genesis 7), the plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7:14-12:32), and battles during Israel’s conquest of Canaan (Judges 4:12-16). We cannot usually tell whether a disaster is a natural consequence of human error or God’s intervention. But as the all-powerful God He is certainly capable, if He so decrees, of causing widespread chaos far worse than any recent internet outages.
God is also invisible to us. We cannot understand how He works. But He is always there. He never slumbers or sleeps. He is aware of everything that is happening in the world, and can see into our hearts and minds. He never lies. He is all-powerful, and nobody can thwart Him (Psalm 90:2, 121:4; Isaiah 14:27). There can never be an ‘outage’ of Almighty God. With Him there is no unreliability: nothing to break, fail or wear out. No weak link.
Nowadays, however, people seldom think much about God. His blessings are taken for granted until there is a crisis. In life-threatening situations people often resort to prayer. Of course, God hears all prayers. But there is no guarantee that He will answer them. The Bible contains chilling examples of God refusing to heed prayers. He refused to respond to king Saul of Israel (1 Samuel 28:6), to David’s enemies (Psalm 18:41) or to faithless Israel (Isaiah 1:15): and He even told His prophet Jeremiah not to pray any more for Israel when they turned their back on Him (Jeremiah 7:16).
So where do we put our trust? In fallible human beings or in the Almighty Creator and Sustainer of the universe (Psalm 146)?
One day human systems will end for ever, and God will rule. We need, right now, to totally trust in, and rely on, the God of the Bible.
Anna Hart
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