A Fabulous Future?
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew 13:44
President Theodore Roosevelt said, “When you educate a man in mind and not in morals, you educate a menace to society.”
Science is learning to control everything but man. We have not yet solved the problems of hate, lust, greed, and prejudice, which produce social injustice, racial strife, and ultimately war. Our future is threatened by many dangers, such as the nuclear destruction that hangs over our heads.
However, the greatest danger is from within. Every major civilization before us has disintegrated and collapsed from internal forces rather than military conquest. Ancient Rome is the outstanding example of the fall of a civilization. While its disintegration was hastened by foreign invasions, in the opinion of Arthur Weigall, a world-famous archaeologist, it collapsed “only after bribery and corruption had been rife for generations.”
No matter how advanced its progress, any generation that neglects its spiritual and moral life is going to disintegrate. This is the story of man, and this is our modern problem.
The Christian believes in a fabulous future, even though the present structure of modern society should disappear and all its progress should be wiped out by self-destruction as a result of man’s failure and folly.
There is a sense in which the Kingdom of God is already here in the living presence of Christ in the hearts of all true believers. There is also, however, the ultimate consummation of all things, which is called the Kingdom of God. This is the fabulous future! It will be a future in which there will be no war. There will be no poverty. There will be happy and peaceful human relations. There will be full and ample opportunity to exploit all our abilities. There will be a state of complete reconciliation between man and God—between race and race—between nation and nation.
Our Father and our God, You hold the future in Your hands—a fabulous future indeed. I long for the day when peace will reign and reconciliation between peoples and nations is complete. I know the day of complete reconciliation will only come when Christ Himself comes once again to take us home. Through Him. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).