I went to see the movie The Watchmen opening night, and refrained from writing anything about it to give me adequate time to process the movie. I don’t intended to review the movie at this point other than to say that it is very thought provoking and raised a number of emotional responses in me. Not to ruin the movie for anyone but the concept is an interesting twist on what is a rather common theme in modern literature and cinema. The idea is that as a separated world we are a danger to ourselves, on an unavoidable collision with self destruction. The answer to world peace is presented as a form of the Arabic proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I won’t belabor the examples that I could point to but the enemy that threatens humanity becomes the source of unity. I think back to movies such as Independence Day, were an alien invasion and thereat of world wide destruction leads to common purpose and therefore understanding and peace among the nations. Armageddon staring Bruce Willis is another example; the earth is threatened by a massive meteor that again threatens the human race, so the common enemy to survival draws us near. And recently with The Watchmen, a super being is seen as a universal threat that brings the warring world to a halt and refocuses its energies to a common goal.
Maybe there is some truth to this premise, that which we universally fear draws us nearer to one another. What if instead of a universal fear of alien invasion, super beings, or devastating natural disaster we began to understand and universally fear the Lord our God. Over and over again in the Bible we are taught, and shown that we are to fear God. In fact we are told in Proverbs 1:7 that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;”
What if we as humanity all learned to live in the fear of the Lord our God? What if we as Christians, all over the world began to live in the fear of God? Would we see peace? Well no. The Bible is clear that until Christ’s return and rule we will have war (see Matthew 24:4-31) But we are also told of day when there will be no more death, sorrow, crying or pain (Revelation 21:3-4)
So if you are a believer what do you have to fear? Fear the Lord, and all of these other fears that we have will fade away.
Who Dat?
- David
- What is Pre-Futurist? The big buzz word in our world has been "postmodern" referring to as The Compact Oxford English Dictionary refers to postmodernism as "a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions" This is usually seen as starting in the 1920's and continuing today. As a result of this postmodern era, the church has struggled to find relevance in the modern day world. Often seen as archaic at best and harmful, small minded and bigoted to others the church has been trying to come along side the postmodern person and help them view church differently. Pre-futurist, is about looking to the future and getting ahead of the curve. Instead of treading behind as the church often has, let us be more diligent in looking forward, predicting cultural change, and even initiating some change ourselves.
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