Trends, but JSTW

Some years back, probably in the ‘90’s, I saw a cartoon that depicted a man sitting at a bar with various names and phrases from pop culture tattooed on his arms. All of them had been tattooed over with an ‘X’ except for those reflecting the most recent events or the most currently popular topics. A couple has just entered the bar and, observing the regular customers, surmise that, “This place may be just a little too trendy for us.”

Welcome to America where nostalgia now extends to first generation iPods -- not that there’s anything wrong with that.

If current trends continue, we will be out of current trends by the end of the week, and they are thinking of recycling mullets. Our trendy little black President is already nearing the down slope. He can probably expect to stay on top of the news cycle at least as long as the average Jennifer Lopez relationship.

The problem with new and improved is that new is not necessarily improved (Vista), and improvements are rarely new.

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Yes, we can come up with new gadgets and new ways to kill one another, but the Preacher is not talking about accessorizing. The truth is that the nature of man has not changed and will not change as a whole. Only the individual can really evolve and be transformed. Civilizations, empires, and nations will rise through their cycles, reach their bright zenith, and descend into twilight and darkness. Such is the nature of what man builds and what man is apart from God …

… if current trends continue.



What does the worker gain from his struggles? I have seen the task that God has given people to keep them occupied. (Ecclesiastes 3:9-10)

What is the task God has set for me to keep me busy on this journey? It is to remember Him in and in spite of all the circumstances of life. It is to remember that there is an eternal reality to which I am certainly going, and, perhaps, from which I might have come.

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end. I know there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. (Ecclesiastes 3:11-12)

This is not the “good life” in terms of high living, wealth, fame, power and ease as man usually thinks of it. Rather this is the good life God gives us in time, life in Him in this world. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

I know that all God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of Him. Whatever is, has already has been, and whatever will be, already is. God repeats what has passed. (Ecclesiastes 3:14-15)

There is a reason why they call this wisdom literature. In his God-given wisdom, the Preacher contrasts the empty, repetitive cycles of history with the unchanging nature of eternity. God’s work cannot change for it is perfected. Nothing that is perfect can have anything added or removed, else it will cease to be eternal and become subject to time. Yet in the flow of time, a work is done as well, but the work done in time has already been done in eternity. Those things to be created in the future already exist – perfect and changeless now.

That last phrase I quoted from Ecclesiastes 3:15 is, I think, a little ambiguous. The King James reads, “and God requireth that which is past”, with the marginal reading of “that which is driven away”. My New American Standard says, “for God seeks what has passed by”. The New International Version translates it as, “God will call the past into account”.

The things that are in the past do not pass away. They stand. Once God has established truth and righteousness, His designs are always in fashion. He stands in opposition to the modernist and the progressive. The eternal truths must be accounted for. We think that we have left them behind with our gimmickry and our trendy looks, our new moralities that are older than dirt. We have not. As we speed along, not realizing we travel in a great circle, they lie in wait for us around the bend. We will account for them, or we will be destroyed by them.

There is a reason the world is round.

Oh, I almost forgot: JSTW – Jesus, Still The Way.