Ecclesiastes 7:25 I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness: 29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
One of the cold realities we have to deal with in our modern world is the fact that we are now surrounded by, and immersed in a plethora of man-made inventions, which although they bring a lot of benefit and creature comforts to us, yet they can malfunction and go terribly wrong, a fact which can then lead to terrible disasters and loss of life. When God created man in the beginning, He set a number of operating systems in place, which would work smoothly and consistently, with no possibility of risk to the human family, once Adam and Eve continued to walk in obedience to His perfect will. But after sin entered our world, man-made inventions and systems started to skyrocket, and with the dawn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, knowledge and scientific discoveries and inventions began to increase exponentially, just as the prophet Daniel had predicted many centuries before. Let's read:
Daniel 12:1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people".... 4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
However, with the advances we have made in science, medicine, and modern inventions, the risk to our well-being have also increased dramatically, and we now must face the cold reality that things can, and will go wrong from time to time, resulting in catastrophic loss of life and property. For instance, we have many nuclear power plants operating around the world which bring much needed energy and electricity to our homes, but it just takes one malfunction for those facilities to wipe out thousands in an instant, and to render the surrounding lands and homes, uninhabitable for hundreds of years. Then again we have modern jet liners that can travel at very high speeds, which indeed cut our travel times to a bare minimum, yet we must face the fact that any serious malfunction on these inventions, as they travel several miles up in the sky, can result in death of the most horrific order.
Whenever tragedies like these take place, one question invariably surfaces,"Where is God", and as we search for answers to life's tragedies, we must be careful to reason from cause to effect, and not implicate God in our misfortunes, that are a result of the risks that are associated with our modern inventions. God is not to be expected to fix everything that man has made, nor should He be blamed for any sudden tragedies that may occur from the malfunctions of the many products and services we have invented. In addition to these, we should not expect Him to prevent everything that can go wrong in the operation of any of our productions, for in many cases He was not first consulted when these inventions were being built.
When it was time to build the world's first boat, God gave the dimensions and instructions to faithful Noah, who then built it according to the pattern shown. And when the flood of waters came upon the face of the earth, with the accompanying violent upheavals of earthquakes and tsunamis, the ark of God's invention stood the test perfectly, for He protected that which He had invented, since it was done according to His perfect knowledge and will.
In our day, and in our own experiences with the many inventions that might not be originated with God, let us not join with the secular world in questioning the goodness of God towards us in times of deadly man-made disasters, which are the result of those malfunctions of our own devices. As Christians, we must never lose sight of God's great mercies in keeping us from the many evils that we know not of, and therefore, the occurrence of crashes, accidents or serious malfunctions, must be kept in their right perspective, because God's grace and tender mercies towards the human family, far outweighs any tragedy that may occur from time to time.
We therefore end with a passage of scripture which reminds us of this sobering fact, and even though we mourn with those families that have suffered the loss of relatives and friends, yet we should not let these tragic incidents blind our eyes to God's tender mercies that are always renewed to each of us everyday, for as the song says, "Great is thy faithfulness". Let's read:
Lamentations 3:21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. 25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
May God add His blessing to the study and practice of His word. "Good night" and God bless!