Up In Smoke

And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him. (Luke 21:38)

Do you get up early in the morning to spend time with Him? Abraham did.

And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD: (Genesis 19:27)

Abraham was looking back at destruction, though, to people who ignored God's word.

And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. (Genesis 19:28)

Lately, as we look back, there is smoke and destruction along our path. We see scenes of it daily in the Gulf of Mexico as thousands upon thousands of barrels of oil burn. There have been smoke and destruction recently in other countries, too.

I started to list some of most recent, but thought of so many others. Across my lifetime alone the list would be long and include the names of countries that no longer exist as well as the names of countries that did not exit when I was born. None of the smoke supernatural. Instead, they were, and are, man made, not for the edification of God but for the destruction of their fellow man.

These fires burn because of things John Lennon wrote about. He imagined a time and place where there were no countries, no religions, no possessions, no greed, no hunger. Yet he died for none of those things.

One of the things Lennon rejected offers a future of hope.

For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God. (Psalms 38:15)

Lennon had part of his dream right -- a time and place where there are no nations, no borders, no greed, no hunger, no thirst -- for the living water offered freely by our Lord holds that promise.

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; (Titus 1:2)

The Bible tells of so many who have sold that hope, sold that promise of eternity, for as little as a bite of fruit, a bowl of porridge, thirty pieces of silver or the personal sin they will not release for the love of God.

We are promised a day when we shall worship as planned.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. (John 4:23)

For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (Romans 14:11)

Deepwater Horizon from Wiki Commons