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Doomed to Repeat


Joel 2: 30-31

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

There was a blood-red sky in China yesterday that has been in the news today. There is a blood-red lunar eclipse coming to the Americas this weekend. These red phenomenons are provoking chatter about the “Last Days”. These are not the first events to cause talk of the End Times. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have and are still doing the same. These historical events are nothing new. History shows that. But what good do they do?

From the American Journal of Medicine: “Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.” This sentence, often attributed to the philosopher George Santayana, is actually a misquotation of his comment, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Churchill paraphrased Santayana when he said 'Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. '

That is most certainly the truth. It is painfully obvious that if we have learned anything from history is that we don’t learn anything from history. We, humans, keep making the same mistakes over and over. Look at the story of Isreal in the old testament and at our own lives. We repeat the same sins over and over again. God takes care of us, but we don’t trust Him. God keeps warning us, but we don’t listen to Him. God forgives us over and over again, but we keep rebelling against HIm, over and over again. Even though Isreal rebelled against God, he provided them with a godly King, David, who was the ancestor of the King of KIngs, the one who sacrificed himself for us all. We should be mighty grateful that God and His son Jesus don’t hold human history against us. They forgive us, and if we allow them to, will also provide us with a good future, just remember that is if we let them. God will forget our personal sinful history, he throws that history into the sea of forgetfulness, as deep and far as the East is from the West. If you have not already done so, then quit testing God, and turn your life over to Him. Let God write a new history for you.

Psalm 78: 56-72

But they put God to the test
    and rebelled against the Most High;
    they did not keep his statutes.
57 Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless,
    as unreliable as a faulty bow.
58 They angered him with their high places;
    they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
59 When God heard them, he was furious;
    he rejected Israel completely.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
    the tent he had set up among humans.
61 He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
    his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
62 He gave his people over to the sword;
    he was furious with his inheritance.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
    and their young women had no wedding songs;
64 their priests were put to the sword,
    and their widows could not weep.

65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
    as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.
66 He beat back his enemies;
    he put them to everlasting shame.
67 Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,
    he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
68 but he chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion, which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights,
    like the earth that he established forever.
70 He chose David his servant
    and took him from the sheep pens;
71 from tending the sheep he brought him
    to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
    of Israel his inheritance.
72 And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
    with skillful hands he led them.