Ever wonder what God’s “State of the Union” would be? The President addressed both houses of Congress and the nation Monday evening, delivering his seventh and final State of the Union address. Fifty-three minutes of speech interrupted seventy times by applause—both partisan and bipartisan. There were no spectacular pronouncements or announcements, just the last review, pundits suggested, of a presidency and administration laying out its final agenda before becoming eclipsed by the election of a successor. So what if God took the podium of earth and gave an address? No doubt there would be plenty of partisan applause- or amen-bursts for him, too. And no doubt it would garner global attention. But how would his review of the past read, and how would his agenda for the future play? And would he need fifty-three minutes? The Apocalypse, amazingly enough, actually captures God’s final address-appeal to earth. While it doesn’t describe him at the podium of a government house, it portrays his global address as three angel beings streaking across the earth heavens, each with a passionate pronouncement and appeal. Combined they are clearly the divine State of the Union for earth’s populace in its final generation. “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’” (Revelation 14:6, 7 NKJV). And behind the first angel appears a second pronouncing the fall of “ Babylon the Great.” And on his heels flies a third angel with the urgent warning for earth inhabitants to resist the “mark of the beast.” And the summation of their combined messages is a description of God’s partisan loyalists at the end: “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12 NRSV).
And did you catch the first angel’s appeal, “Worship the Creator!” Because wouldn’t you know it, the issue of a divine Creator with his seventh-day Sabbath will take center stage on earth just before his return. No wonder the Creator’s partisan loyal supporters are described the way they are! Because as we saw Monday evening, when you’re loyal to your Leader, you’ll stand to your feet even if you’re the only one applauding.
Aren’t you glad God isn’t like the stock market? What a ride this week is turning out to be for investors the world over! The unraveling mortgage crisis here in the U.S. and the ensuing credit crunch, coupled with volatility in the global oil markets and the threat of recession prompted the President last week to announce a $150 billion tax cut bailout for American taxpayers. But the world markets apparently were not impressed on Monday, as one by one from Japan to Hong Kong to India to Europe markets plunged over investor jitters. And had the Federal Reserve not stepped in with its ¾ point interest rate reduction early Tuesday morning, who knows if the sky would’ve fallen on Wall Street! And where does all of this leave us? On the precarious edge of economic recession, perhaps. But nevertheless, secure in the care and keeping of the God whose compassionate commitment to his earth children is unwavering. “For I am the LORD, I do not change” (Malachi 3:6). No volatility, no gyrating, no roller coaster plunges with the Lord of the universe. “Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22, 23). Did you catch that? Unfailing, unchanging—that is the God who stands beside us at every dawn and offers again to walk the new day and night through with us. When the immensity of that assurance sinks into our consciousness, surely it can birth an unshakeable confidence in him, can’t it? What a God to call our Friend! As for the future of our national and global economy, who can say? There is a thought I keep tucked away in the back of my mind. “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them” (I Thessalonians 5:3). I.e., neither predictions of economic security nor pronouncements of financial doom are going to determine earth’s outcome. If the story of Noah teaches us anything, it is surely that when the sun is shining in all its glory and life seems most secure and promising, earth’s history can radically reverse itself, all prognostications to the contrary. Which being interpreted must mean that our deepest security will always lie in the nail-scarred hands of the Savior of this world. After all the sun may be shining and the markets rising on the day Christ returns to earth. “As the days of Noah were,” he once intoned, “so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:37). Which is reason enough for you and me to place our lives, our 401Ks, and all our plans, dreams and ambitions for the future in trust with the one God who will not change though the heavens fall. Because when the sky does fall, I want to be rising with him, don’t you?
Details, details—they really do make a difference, don’t they? As soon as the polls closed in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula this Tuesday night, the state Republican party sent a news release to media outlets announcing the winner of the statewide GOP presidential primary: “In a close-fought victory, Senator John McCain succeeded again (in) the Michigan Republican primary, winning over a traditionally unpredictable voter base in Michigan.” The only problem with the release was that it wasn’t true. Five minutes later the party sent out a second release: “In a close-fought victory, native-son Governor Mitt Romney won an important contest here tonight.” A GOP spokesman later explained: “Heading into tonight, this race was too close to call, so we prepared a release for either scenario. We simply pushed the wrong button.” (SBTribune 1-16-08) Details, details. Click “send” on the wrong message, and we’re all in trouble. Which may help explain why there is such noisy confusion over the origin of earth these days. According to the ancient Scriptures, this planet was created by God in six days, and “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). But subsequently somebody hit “send” to the wrong message, and a critical detail of the divine creation has been omitted! Namely, that the Creator didn’t conclude with six days, but in fact intentionally included the seventh day upon which he “ended his work” and “rested” (Genesis 2:2). But unfortunately the message somebody is sending to this generation omits any mention of that divine gift day. Consequently a billion Christian believers are attempting to prove to a skeptical world the existence of a Creator, all the while abandoning the compelling reminder of the Creator, his seventh day gift day called the Sabbath. And that is why this blog and this community of faith are devoted to “resending” the correct message as far and wide as possible. Because the details really do matter. For Christendom to laudably champion the divine Creator but all the while reject (or at best neglect to remember) the divine Sabbath not only compromises its biblical witness, but confuses its message and cripples its effort to win this skeptical generation. Details, details—because they really do make a difference, don’t they? Which is why it’s time for us all to revisit God’s gift day. For in the gift of the seventh day, God has actually given himself. And that’s a message worth hitting “send” for any day! (Please download the entire “The Sabbath” series 
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I'm reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s award-winning new book, Mayflower, an “electrifying new history” of America’s “most sacred national myth”—the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of the Plymouth Colony. Blending the dispassion of an historian with the dramatic flair of a story-teller, this account is the most detailed and gripping Pilgrim chronicle I have read. After their torturous voyage across the gale-whipped Atlantic on the “tween” deck (the space between the topside deck above and the cargo hold below), the Mayflower’s human cargo of 102 passengers, half of them Puritan the other half adventurers and crew, landed on Cape Cod in frigid November weather (the “small ice age” of North America still gripping the continent). Philbrick’s account of their ill-prepared splashing ashore the mainland in wet and frozen clothing on December 23, the subsequent two harrowing weeks to construct their first building (a twenty-foot square “common house),” the deadly onslaught of a winter even more bitter with so many falling ill or dying that only six of the decimated colony were strong enough to care for the sick, the late night and unmarked burials to hide from any native spies the dwindling of the Pilgrim band—you cannot help but read this narrative with an almost sacred awe. By spring fifty-two of the 102 Mayflower passengers were dead. “We think of the Pilgrims as resilient adventurers upheld by unwavering religious faith, but they were also human beings in the midst of what was, and continues to be, one of the most difficult emotional challenges a person can face: immigration and exile” (p 76). Three hundred eighty-seven years later, here we are, sons and daughters of immigrants from the world-over, ourselves on a voyage this Thanksgiving weekend, occupying the “tween” deck between the past and the future, exiles in a foreign land, “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). And what shall be our spirit? Gratitude and thanksgiving have been the lessons perennially drawn from the Pilgrim story (even though, in fact, the “first” harvest celebration the autumn of 1621 was more akin to an English fall festival than an Anglican or Separatist worship service). But as I read their story again what strikes me most is the dogged determination to be faithful to the vision that launched their movement. No matter the contrary odds, the devastating price, these were a people not unlike the heroes of Hebrews 11, who “having seen [the promises] from afar off were assured of them.” They did not turn back. And neither must we. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1 NIV). For in Christ the Promised Land is assured. The Pilgrims lived with that sense of “the chosen.” Three hundred eighty-seven years later, so must we. After all, it may not be long now to “crossing over.”