While every other creature was placed under the control of man who was created in God’s own image, God did not make man a daft creature to be remotely controlled by any other creature or even by God Himself. Man was given the freedom of choice to live as he wished but the creator did give a guideline which included a warning as what not to do and the consequence to follow for the transgression. But man’s greed and stubborn refusal to take the warnings always had its tragic consequences.
In the night of 14th April 1912, the Titanic was warned 6 times by radio from the ship Californian of the danger of icebergs lurking in its path. But the crew’s arrogant confidence in selves and their attitude of we’ll-do-it-our-way made them to turn a deaf ear to the warnings and the crewman John Philips finally yelled at the Californian to ‘shut up’ and the result was loss of over 1500 lives which could have been avoided, had they just heeded the warning. Bible gives endless instances of this stubborn refusal to heed the warnings and its catastrophic and ignominious end. And the first such warning is recorded in Bible in Genesis 2:16,17 “ You may eat fruit from any tree in the garden, except the one that has the power to let you know the difference between right and wrong.’’ And Adam and Eve made the choice to ignore the warning or were trapped or enticed to do so . And there starts the first sin and its after effects of sorrows, frustration and eternal death. Many of the pains that stomp down on us daily could be attributed to this warnings ignored. In Genesis 4:7 God warns Cain just before he murders his brother, Abel. Cain was warned ‘’ Sin is couching at your door , waiting to attack you like a lion. Sin wants to destroy you but don’t let it!’’ But he ignored and become the first murderer. Pharaoh was warned many times to let the people of Israel go , but he was so stubborn till he and his army was destroyed in the red sea. When God decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his family was spared but were warned ‘’ Run for your lives ! Don’t even look back.’’ But Lot’s wife took it in a slapdash fashion and turned into a block of salt. God warned Saul to destroy the Amalekites completely with all their possessions but he ignored the warning and kept everything of value and the result was God decided to remove him from his position. The most important warning the Bible is resplendent with is warning about the most disgusting sin of worshipping idols and other gods of nations. But again, Bible is awash with plenty of leaders and nations who were lured again and again to wander away from the living God to worship worthless objects and how they became despised and dismayed at the end. Even today we have leaders who were commissioned to lead people to the living God, luring the folk to the worthless objects and creations. This freedom of choice and the warnings for the consequences still holds. We have choice to stick to or twist the truth , do or trample justice, have freedom to worship and honor the living God or the worthless objects or other creations , be a true witness or become a false witness like the marthomite priest and his bosses did in last mandalam , do right or choose wrong , choose good or evil, choose life or death, the life is but crammed with choices. Bible says God does nothing without revealing His plans thru His Prophets. Warnings, if heeded, always give honorable escape routes and only the wise choose that route and those who are lured and intoxicated by the glitter of vices look the other way. The crew of Titanic was deafened and blinded to see the danger because they were too overconfident in the strength of Titanic, to them it looked well neigh impossible for a ship like Titanic to be broken by an iceberg, for a moment the Titanic became their god, trusting in its strength. It is this arrogant boasting and overconfidence in the might of self that lead some leaders to develop a better-than- though attitude and look down upon others as weaklings unworthy to care for. The despots who in recent past disgracefully vanished in thin air, never could have fathomed in their wild imaginations that the huge army of men and arsenal of missiles, armored tanks and war planes could not save them from the unarmed people.
Psalmist tells is psalms 10 ‘’In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak. 4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God6 He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.” He swears, “No one will ever dome harm.”11 He says to himself, “God will never notice; he covers his face and never sees.”
As one writer lamented recently about Christian leaders of kerala ‘’ചരിത്രത്തില്നിന്ന് ഒന്നും പഠിക്കില്ലെന്ന്തീരുമാനിച്ച് പുറപ്പെട്ട ഒരു മൃഗമാണല്ലോ മനുഷ്യന് .’’
‘’Let evil people keep on being evil and everyone who is dirty minded , still be dirty minded. But good people will keep on doing right and God’s people will always be holy’’ and ‘’everyone is assured of reward for what they have done.’’ (Rev 22:11,12)
Sajan