I liked Mr. Fujimoto. When he was not playing tennis he was our 9th grade Science Teacher. His daughter was my friend. This made it all the more perplexing when he gave me detention. I was talking in class. He held me responsible. I was more surprised than upset. So I doubled down and by the end of the year he nominated me for the Science Award. He said, “I like it when people learn from their mistakes.”
In John’s vision of Jesus and heaven, he saw God allowing the judgment of sin on the earth. Seven angels sent judgements like hail, fire, blood, darkness. Have you heard the expression, “It didn’t kill me but it made me wish I was dead”? John says people would rather die than endure the pain. Pain. Plagues. War. But some survived. Did they learn from their mistakes? No. They continued to sin. Many look at this passage and tell us when it will happen in history. I wonder when these things did not happen. Even so there is a larger question for us: how are we responding to pain and sickness and war today?
Like Joseph’s brothers (Genesis 50:20), Satan intends evil, but God uses our struggles for our good to conform us to the image of his perfect Son. God’s discipline can be redemptive: he is not trying to hurt us but to heal us. Hebrews 12:4-13 tells us that God is disciplining his children for our good. But discipline only does good if we learn from it. The same problems of idolatry and immorality which derailed God’s people throughout history create challenges for us today. Our hearts are idol-making factories, buying, spending, acquiring, owning, overvaluing and worshiping things. Never in history has so much immorality been so accessible to so many people through media and electronics. In every century, from the beginning of time to the end, the answer remains the same: turn from sin and turn to the Savior. Today if we hear God’s voice, let us not harden our hearts.
