There is a reset button only God can use. When He does, the affairs of this world change dramatically.
The Lord reset the world with the flood. God saw that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Noah preached to these sinners but no one outside of his family listened. God shut down everything with the flood. Governments lost control. Economies collapsed. Civilizations disappeared. Even natural cycles of planting and harvesting and seasons of the year came to a standstill. Everyone except the eight obedient souls in the ark died. When Noah and his family emerged from the ark, they entered a different world. God had wiped the slate clean. He had given mankind a fresh new start.
Later in the Bible God reset the Jewish nation. His people were extremely wicked. He tried to restart the morals of Israel by pulling the plug on their economy through periods of drought, but they refused to change (Amos 4:6-12). He sent the Assyrians to invade Judah (Isa. 10:5-7; II Kings 18). Business, travel, and leisure came to a halt in many places. Still, the Jews eventually went back to their sinful ways within a generation after this national crisis. King Manasseh plunged the country into deep depravity and God, as if to say, “Enough is enough,” vowed to bring Judah to her knees by sending the Chaldeans to destroy Jerusalem and take thousands of Jews back to Babylon where they would remain for seventy years. When they finally returned to Jerusalem, they were a different people with a better attitude. The long pause worked. They were not perfect as the books of Nehemiah and Ezra show. But idolatry was never the problem in Jerusalem like it was before. The Lord had purged his people of this evil. A prolonged loss of freedom and prosperity was necessary to restore spiritual order.
God shuts down and restores governments and their economies whenever He decides and however He wishes. He “removes kings and sets up kings” (Dan. 2:21). He “rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will” and even “sets over it the lowest of men” (Dan. 4:17). Politicians, newscasters, and commentators do not believe or understand this hidden yet real dimension of world affairs. Christians do.
A lot has been said about the idea of “The Great Reset,” especially as it is advocated in a book that bears that title. Socialists hope that the recent pandemic is the perfect opportunity to shut down and erase capitalism and restart the world economy. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. But we who believe the Bible understand that there is a far bigger and more important aspect of world affairs—the hand of God. If He so chooses, God can easily prevent the plans of tyrants or even use them to reset the course of this life, to chasten His children, and to separate the wheat from the chaff. In either case, we trust that the Judge of all the earth will do right.
Kerry
West End church of Christ bulletin article for March 20, 2022
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