SSLS 2016-12-06
2016 4th Quarter
Lesson 11, December 3-9, Out of the Whirlwind
Tuesday, December 6
Today we must ask ourselves two questions: 1) What do I know? And, (2) What does God know?
The hubris of the post-modern mind is summed up in the idea that we are somehow wiser, that we are better than our forefathers. We have all kinds of evidence that the ancients knew quite a lot more than evolutionary based philosophy and science give credit.
In our darkened thinking, we attempt to reproduce–by the most primitive methods possible–the simplistic technology we are willing to attribute in order to explain the mysterious accomplishments of the ancients. How did they build the pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon of Athens, the Stonehenge of Britain, the stone heads of Easter Island, or move the stones of such immense weights for the castles of Japan or the infrastructures found in South America?
We were not there! We have no clue how they obtained and used the very advanced mathematics, geometry, or calculus to even design these massive structures. Yet we often succumb to the temptation that we are somehow wiser than God as we pass through the events of our lives.
God points out to Job the vast expanse of the heavens. He created it all! Despite the technology we have developed to observe the heavens, we ought to wonder in amazement of how the ancients aligned their structures in such a manner as to demonstrate their powers of observation as they worshipped sun, moon, and stars. From the pyramids of Egypt to the dwellings of Chaco Canyon in Arizona, we have evidence that these monuments were intended to aid in astronomical and astrological endeavors. They became the basis for calendars–not merely of days, weeks, or a year, but for cycles measured in decades and centuries.
“Although the earth was blighted with the curse, nature was still to be man’s lesson book. It could not now represent goodness only; for evil was everywhere present, marring earth and sea and air with its defiling touch. Where once was written only the character of God, the knowledge of good, was now written also the character of Satan, the knowledge of evil. From nature, which now revealed the knowledge of good and evil, man was continually to receive warning as to the results of sin….
“As far as evil extends, the voice of our Father is heard, bidding His children see in its results the nature of sin, warning them to forsake the evil, and inviting them to receive the good.” (Ellen White, Education, 26, 27.)