Economist Thomas Sowell grew up in housing project called Bed-stuy, NY in the 30’s and 40’s, he dropped out of High School and joined the Marines.
After the Korean War he graduated with honors from Harvard and went on to earn a master’s and a PHD.
My dad, born one year after Sowell, also dropped out of High School and graduated from Louisiana Tech with an engineering degree.
Back then there was no GED, and you didn’t have to have a HS diploma to get into college…You did have to work hard to get out of college.
Sowell is now 94 and he has written a number of top selling books.
He has been a very influential and a controversial man.
What has made him controversial is described to a degree in his book “A Conflict of Visions”
In that book what he calls “Visions” are what I would call, a WorldView, or at least a portion of a worldview.
A Worldview is the lens through which we look at the world.
The conflicting visions he describes are called, the “restrained”(his own view) and the “unrestrained” vision.
Essentially the unrestrained vision sees humanity as good, capable of unrestrained self-improvement.
Since humanity is capable of this ongoing self-improvement, the current “wisdom” is always going to be better than the old wisdom.
We know better now than they did in the past…we are smarter, more advanced.
The first World War, was called ironically, “The War to End to all Wars.”
Because it would never happen again.
it was believed that people are essentially good and getting better and smarter.
It’s only called World War “one” after the unthinkable happened, World War II.
If people they are not getting better…it is the fault of society…and its restraints.
The philosopher Rousseau wrote about the Noble Savage, he idealized humanity free from all the corrupting influence of civilization…living in a Mauna type existence of perfect harmony.
He later realized that these Noble savages (his word) had wars, practiced slavery, stole wives…were petty and angry and selfish.
Turns out civilization doesn’t mess people up; people mess up civilization.
The restrained vision sees humanity as self-serving and if this trait is properly “restrained” it can lead to the common good.
The collective wisdom of the past is always going to be better than the current group of smart people who see through a very narrow lens of the “right now.
So, two very different views of humanity.
The subtitle is “Ideological Origins of Political Struggles”, so it is not meant to be a theological book.
However, all books that deal with humans are theological in nature.
The conflicting visions deal in different ways with the big questions of:
Who or what are humans?
What is our problem? Clearly we have one, or many of these.
Your answers to those to questions leads to important conclusions:
Who are we: What is our purpose (if we have one)
*If we don’t have one…do whatever you want.
*If we don’t have one…then despair will follow
*If we have one, but we get it wrong…we break ourselves.
What is our problem: What is the solution (if there is one).
Is the problem lack of education? Are we not smart enough?
Is the problem our genetics? Society? Inequity?
What you think the problem is…will form the solution.
Get this wrong… you get everything wrong.
*What was called “bloodletting” was used to cure disease, all the way to the early 20th century.
-Turns out there are a very few diseases that are helped by this, but not the ones that it was used to cure.
-The cure was sometimes fatal
*Get the problem wrong, get the solution wrong.
These conflicting visions of humanity’s, problem, purpose…leads to how countries are formed and governed, what laws are made, when to go to war and how to fight them, how science is applied in cultures…decisions on economics, birth control, education, marriage.
Every aspect of human choices flows from the answers to these basic questions: Who are we, what is our purpose.
What is our problem and what is our solution.
England’s Prime minster, Neville Chamberlin, had a theology that did not consider man to be sinful at the core.
One application of this was that he took Hitler at his word partly because of this view of who humans are and partly because of misguided confidence in his own instincts and ability to read the motives of others…also a worldview issue.
Chamberlin had a flawed “theology”, and it helped led to a devastating political failure.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had a vision of what humans are (not who).
And his view of what the basic human problem is and what the solution is led to the systematic governmental murder of millions of his own citizens.
These questions and their answers are of enormous importance…anyone who thinks this is merely stuff for philosophy class, or Sunday school are ill informed on how things work.
The Word of God begins with this line…
In the beginning, God.
God what?
God was…already. He always has been, always will be.
Then, this eternally existing God made humans.
The Bible tells us who we are.
We are made by God (in his image) …there has been much discussion about what exactly this means.
At the least it means we are personal, volitional, responsible, creative, spiritual not just physical beings.
We are like the rest of the natural world in that we are created.
We are unlike the rest of the natural world in that we alone are created in God’s image.
So, the Bible tells us we are created by God, in his image.
Then it tells us, very early on, chapter 3, in fact, what our problem is.
Sin.
We did not obey the clear Word of God…so we suffered the judgment of God.
As you read the Old Testament, be sure that you marvel at the mercy of God rather than being offended by the justice of God…you will see plenty of both.
The cosmos and all that is in it, rightfully belongs to him…it and we, are his to do with as he pleases.
This offends people…but just ask Job how well it goes when we think we can take God to court and accuse him of being unfair or unjust.
He is free to do what he wants…the cosmos is his, we are his…but in his mercy God provided a solution.
Very early on we see this solution, in fact in the same chapter as humanity’s fall into sin we see the very first proclamation of the gospel.
As God speaks to the Satanic tempter, he says…
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Gen. 3:15
The offspring of a woman here is singular, “he” will crush the enemy.
This is referring to Jesus.
We just sang this gospel at Christmas
Christ, by highest heav’n adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail th’ incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus our Immanuel. (God with us)
If you get the purpose and the problem wrong, you will get the solution wrong…in fact, you will get everything wrong.
So, Paul wrote to Timothy,
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” 1 Timothy 4:16
Doctrine is theological truth.
Who God is, who we are, what our problem and solution is.
Get this wrong, you will get your life wrong.
“Save yourself” is not contrary to salvation by faith and grace alone.
It means that if we fail to understand the revealed truth of God in Scripture and if we fail to believe it by faith…we will be lost.
It always means that if we proclaim anything other than the truth of God and if we fail to live this truth out in front of others…we will mislead them, and they too will be lost.
It is not exaggeration to say, everything is at stake in getting this right.
From the formation of governments and the waging of War to the breakup of families, abortion, crime rates, and a crisis of fatherless children…it all goes to a failure of doctrine…the truth of God failed to be believed and lived out in the lives of people.
Ideas have consequences, wrong ideas have devastating consequences.
This is as old as the Old Testament.
The Old Testament covers thousands of years in the first 11 chapters, then slows down to focus on a single family starting in chapter 12.
In those first 11 chapters we see very clearly that mankind is sinful, and things continually go from bad to worse.
Then in Chapter 12, God spoke to Abram and made this covenant promise.
I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
As we read the Bible we must see that there are three levels or viewpoints in play.
There are the individual human lives being played out choice by choice and day by day.
Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Sara, Jacob, etc.
These famous characters lived, like we do, one heartbeat at a time.
There is the national level as God is raising up a people, Israel…that nation begins with a single man, Abraham.
Then above all there is the covenant making/keeping God who is working through all of human history, at the individual and national level, to bring about his plan of redemption.
It all points forward to the gospel…the good news of Jesus.
In the Biblical narrative we don’t see mankind becoming progressively wiser and better…but continually revealing that we are sinful at our core…sinners in need of a savior.
In fact, in the Biblical narrative things go consistently from bad to worse.
AND
We see God being consistent, always true to himself and his promises.
Let’s get the backstory for on our passage today.
Abraham and his wife Sara have a son in their old age, Issac.
Issac and his wife Rebekah had two sons, Esau, born first and Jacob.
Esau sold his birthright because he was a slave to his own physical appetites.
Jacob was a schemer who only looked to put himself first…and this continually cost him.
Isaac ignored his favored son Esau’s lack of self-control and his immorality.
Rebekah deceived her own husband in order to promote her favored son.
All four of the main characters are flawed…they all suffered in some fashion for their sin but through all this human folly, God’s plan was not thwarted.
Today we are in Genesis 28:10-18
In this passage the three levels of narrative: individual, national, and God is evident.
Rachel sent Jacob away supposedly to find a wife, but in truth she knew Esau planned to kill him as soon as their father died…so she was trying to protect him.
10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place. 12 And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching the sky, and God’s angels were going up and down on it. 13 The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land on which you are lying. 14 Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north, and the south. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.” 18 Early in the morning Jacob took the stone that was near his head and set it up as a marker. He poured oil on top of it 19 and named the place Bethel.
Notice that Jacob is not on some pilgrimage to experience God, he is going to find someone to marry…and, running from the results of his own sinful scheming.
God in his divine grace is pursuing Jacob, though Jacob is not pursuing God at this point.
Jacob is alone, away from home, he has a brother (who is a hunter killer) who wants him dead.
He has a dying father, whom he has deceived.
He lays down in the dark, lonely, wilderness
Imagine his feelings of being alone and probably wondering, like most young men do…about his future. ..if he has one.
He has no iPad; he isn’t distracted by a cell phone…he has only his thoughts to keep him company.
Side note here: Your life would be better if you made space for time to be alone with your thoughts…time for the Holy Spirit and God’s word to critique your thoughts.
Put down that device…some people are terrified to be alone with their own thoughts.
-there is no waking moment where they do not “mindlessly” scroll.
There is nothing more important to think about than our own thinking…to do this in line with God’s word.
Jacob falls asleep and has a dream.
In his dream he sees a stairway (better translation than “ladder”) with a steady stream of supernatural messengers (that’s what the word “angel” means) going up and down the stairs.
Jesus alluded to this dream as pointing forward to him…he is the point of access between heaven and earth.
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” John 1:51
Then, in his dream… the Lord of heaven and earth was standing there beside Jacob.
God reassures him of his covenant with his ancestors and promises to keep him safe…though he has been a fool, he has a future
When he wakes up he is afraid, “What is this place?”
The words of God were comforting but the experience was terrifying.
Whenever humans encountered a manifestation of God in Scripture they are terrified.
When Isaiah had a theophany, the technical term for a physical experience of God, he cried out in terror.
Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. Is. 6
No one could actually see God with physical eyeballs…for one he is Spirit, and two…no human, in their sinful state could survive the experience.
We could more likely survive an encounter with the Sun’s burning surface than one with the full blaze of God’s glory.
Jacob is so moved he makes a little memorial.
He named the place, “Beth-el” which means house of God.
Jacob’s life was shaken and shaped by this experience…he no doubt told of it over and over.
In fact, it was passed down orally through the generations all the way to Moses, who compiled the stories into out first five books of the Bible…called the Pentateuch, or Torah.
Jacob, the deceiver will go on to be deceived by his future father-in-law…one of many lessons he will learn to train him to trust.
God will continue to train him to trust through both his own folly and through God’s continued faithfulness.
You see here in this single night of camping out…the levels of God’s movement.
Jacob, a deceitful, self-serving man, whom God is shaping.
The continued promise of a nation, through which the entire world will be blessed…from that nation will come the Savior, Jesus.
In fact, God will rename Jacob after another divine encounter…his new name?…Israel.
Then above these two levels of narrative…the sovereign God working out his own purposes.
CONCLUSION:
Who are you? What is your purpose?
What is your problem? What is the solution?
Are human’s ruined by civilization or are civilizations ruined by humans?
Are we the product of our genes, do we sin because of biology…or has sin broken our biology.
Is ultimate reality what Carl Sagan believed it to be?
““The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”
Notice how he capitalizes “Cosmos”…he turns it into a thing of personality and worship…he describes worship here…sense of awe
It is because that is how God, not the cosmos has made him.
Ultimate reality what Genesis tells us:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”
This is not about mere intellectual curiosity; it’s not churchy words with no bearing in real life.
Everything depends on getting this right.
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” 1 Timothy 4:16
Watch (pay careful attention): What you do and what you believe.
Persevere: Endure, continue in, keep this up for the long haul.
Don’t stop paying close attention to: How are we to live, what is true to believe.
*”But Terry this is all so complex, I just want to live my life, do some good, enjoy life.”
You can over think this.
But there is no way you will ultimately do good and enjoy life…apart from endurance in paying careful attention to what God has said is good to believe and good to do.
None of this is easy…it is just necessary…we must do the work to watch what we believe and do
Christmas Eve, I told the kids about how “Sad/Glad is not bad”…it is life now in between the comings of Christ.
I will take some emotional risk by letting you in on part of a conversation I had with our daughter via text after Christmas.
I won’t tell you all, just part of it.
Essentially I told her that I was sorry for her suffering, I wish I could take it.
I told her how hard it was for us all to balance the sad/glad.
Her response was good…”I know daddy, it’s all so impossible.”
Understand what she means by that…not that it is literally impossible…she is making choices, living her life, cleaning her house, going to work.
We did the sad/glad…kids laughed, and adults cried.
Impossible, in this context, means we are often faced with choices that seem to be bad and worse…hard and harder.
It can seem impossible to find a way that is truly satisfying, without complexity and trouble.
There can seem to be no way forward…but we have to move forward.
We are faced with two choices sometimes: Suffer or suffer.
But in what seems like a single choice…to suffer: there are really two paths.
Suffer with hope or suffer without hope.
I don’t want to paint a picture of despair…we have this hope as an anchor for our souls, firm and secure.
In our lives, we do have the glad, the goodness of God surrounds us…and will keep us.
But if we do not honestly face the reality of human sin and if we do not rightly number our days…death will come for us all.
and Trouble will come for us all.
If we do not face these facts with gospel hope, then we are setting ourselves up for nothing but ultimate despair.
Holding this all in tension is difficult…it can feel impossible.
But we must do it.
Watch your life and doctrine closely…endure in this.
As you make your way through the Winter darkness of the seasons of Wichita weather, or the seasons of your own life…you must see clearly what is real and true.
In the beginning, God. Today, God. In the future, God.
-In your life, lived heartbeat by heartbeat…God must be kept at the center.
-In his church, his people spread across the world, God is bringing glory to his name.
-Above the nations, wars and warlords, elections, famines…all of it…God is not controlled by the cosmos…he controls it to his own ends.
There are countless stories…of God at work in all of this…we have to watch our lives and our beliefs closely.
Watch the thoughts that control your actions…make sure they are aligned with the reality of God.
Jacob’s epic dream, told of God’s work that has unfolded over millennia.
But Jacob lived like we do…one single hard night’s sleep, in his case, with a rock for a pillow at a time, one thought, one breath, one heartbeat at a time.
Watch your life and doctrine closely…endure in them.
God is at work in the larger movements of human history, God is at work in the small, day to choices you make.
He is Transcendent and he is imminent.
If we lose balance here we will lose our way…if he is only Transcendent he is too big for our small lives.
If he is too imminent, he is too small for the large flow of history.
Since he is both transcendent and imminent…we can live heartbeat by heartbeat as a part of God’s epic plan for the ages.