Art as expression – NOT as market campaigns, will still capture our Imaginations
For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist (Colossians 1:16-17).
A bare catalogue of the facts of the gospel is overwhelming: God entered our earth-life as a man, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, fulfilling the great prophecies of the Old Testament; he wrought the greatest wonders ever seen on earth, even raising the dead again and again; he was despised and rejected; he died on the cross according to the Scriptures in order to procure eternal life for men; he rose the third day, ascended to the right hand of God, established his church, sent the Holy Spirit, is reigning until all enemies are destroyed; and finally, he will raise to life again all who ever lived on earth, preside over the final judgment and appoint all men their destiny.
The great sin of Cain was simply this – he offered to God what he supposed would be just as good as what God commanded.
He was the first innovator.
One of the most glorious passages in all the Word of God is these three verses. “The glory of this passage is enhanced, if that is possible, by its setting as an oasis between the visionary waste of Isaiah 34 and the history of war, sickness and folly in Isaiah 36-39.”
In this second instance of the Hardening of mankind, it also began with the shameful wickedness of Canaan: but the eventual exaltation of man against his God became general in the events associated with the Tower of Babel and once more became so serious that the situation demanded God’s direct interference with it.
Ecclesiastes 9:11 is another reason why the righteous sometimes suffer, whereas the wicked sometimes prosper and are honored.
Every mortal who gives his life to the amassing of treasures, the pursuit of power, or in chasing the butterflies of happiness supposed to lie at the foot of some fantasy rainbow – every such mortal should ask himself, “What are you going to do with it?”
