Just Because We Could, Doesn’t Mean We Should

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<God said,>”But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”’ (Daniel 12:4)

This verse is in context of the End Times prophecy God gave Daniel, but the Bible throughout shows the progression man has made since Creation.  The focus is on the last half of the verse, ‘Many will go here and there to increase knowledge‘. Not all progression is good, especially when it comes from the ‘there‘ or outside of God and His Word; man’s desire to not be content with what God provided in the Garden and eat from the Tree of Knowledge caused the fall of man into sin. 

Cain’s desire to provide a bloodless sacrifice in the form of vegetables and grains ended up with Cain killing Abel (ironically with Abel’s blood pouring out from the rock hitting his head) equates to what ‘progress’ is to many today; eliminate petroleum energy and meat consumption with ‘vegan meat’, and corn-based ethanol, wind and solar power, and all-electric vehicles.  As God told Daniel, many will go to increase knowledge, but not necessarily will this pursuit of knowledge be in the growth of knowing God.

What is good progress?  Adhering to the ‘here‘, progress should tie to the proper foundation of science; the pursuit of knowledge to discover and learn about God and His Creation.  If there are investigations into the subatomic structure of atoms in how God created the building blocks of our universe, or the sequencing of DNA and how God structured life, this shows how much in-depth God went into making all things and will point to Him, acknowledging how intricate His design in Creation is. 

Righteous progress in technology is a blessing God gives us to improve our lives, in areas of work, production, agriculture, medicine, and education.  Proper progression allows man to learn what God wants us to know to improve our lives and our knowledge of Him, and to bring the Gospel to those who have not yet heard.  Without the plane, and without the Internet, we could not readily place missionaries on the ground of unreached or underreached people groups, or make available Biblical material in their own language.   

Today through technology our Pastor’s sermons not only reach the audience within the church walls, but reach those who may not be able to come due to disability or illness, or due to distance as is the case with many of our ‘snowbirds’. 

Unfortunately, man places ulterior motives into these progressions and investigations and with sin abounding accounts for taking God out of the equation, placing the faulty thinking of man in its place.  Recently the US Government okayed chimeric research, which is the mixture of various animal’s DNA structures with other animals, and with human DNA.  One possible result from chimeric research that was once ‘debunked’ but now being investigated as ‘possible’ is the COVID virus, which is thought to be by some to be a coronavirus only found in bats that was artificially enhanced with components from the AIDS virus, making it transferable to both humans and animals outside of the bat species. 

Cross-species mixtures is not God’s design, unless He Himself dictates it, yet man dabbles in these things.  One scientist was quoted on 60 Minutes as stating, ‘God doesn’t have a monopoly on creating life, because I’ve created life’.  It is absurd and abhorrent for this scientist to think because he altered a life form illegitimately that he created life.

This foolishness and arrogance, along with intellectual ignorance (all theory/no practice) and lack of common sense, causes such things as pandemics and emotional suffering, like abortions where man plays God over decisions of who lives or dies.  Man playing God never works out for anyone and helps no one.  It is true of the phrase, ‘Just because we could doesn’t mean we should’.   In terms of ungodliness, the ‘could’ is temptation, the ‘should’ is sinful nature.

Progress within the parameters God has laid out is good progress.  Praise the Lord that sanitary engineers no longer have to pick up bags of garbage and toss them in, but stay in the truck and use hydraulic arms to pick the cans up; praise the Lord we can hop in our cars or go to church, or go online to the internet to ‘virtually’ attend a sermon when we are too ill to go in person.  For those who go beyond the boundaries God has made between us and Him, may they come to their senses and come back to the Lord before we end up with another blight that will haunt us.