Repeating history

George Santayana once wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

At the last youth session we had at our churches, I read the closing chapter of a novel I wrote a few years back. The novel was in the vein of Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. The characters include two cousins, one a Christian who has lost his parents and who has moved in with his aunt and uncle, the other a kid who has all but swept under the run, who doesn't care of school or fitting in.

The villain, as it were, is a demon named Nimrod who takes over the body of a very large high school dropout named Rod.

Everything that happens in the book, I took from scripture or the headlines. I looked at the use of prayer in school, what can be done and what can't, and I even used the prayer from 1962 that began the slide into refusal to have prayer at any student event.

The final chapter poses the question, what if Paul wasn't writing metaphorically or symbolically in Ephesians 6? What if the armor of God was real, or could be? What if the fiery arrows of the devil were bullets? What if the mighty powers in this dark world, and the evil spirits in heavenly places were real?

The book ends in a Columbine-like shooting in which the Bible is the only but ultimately the best defense for Jack and his friends.

After I finished reading, the youth director of Eunice UMC spoke about some of the serious issues raised.

Then came the kicker: He asked our 32 youth if they had heard of Columbine. And they hadn't. I guess he could have asked about Newtown, Conn., and perhaps they would have known more about it. But I couldn't believe they had no knowledge of Columbine.

So, the question we must ponder is does the Bible speak about repeating of human nature?

We should take careful note of how the nations are behaving on the world scene. The Bible itself sets great store in understanding the repetitive character of human behavior. Jesus Christ understood it very well. He soberly reflected on trends and conditions before the time of Noah’s Flood and plainly stated: “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be when the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 24:37, Revised English Bible).

As New Testament scholar William Barclay expresses it in his translation, “What happened at the time of Noah will happen all over again when the Son of Man comes.” But exactly how will history repeat itself before Jesus Christ returns to earth? Are we to experience another disastrous flood that will wipe out humanity? No, we have a solemn promise from God that no flood will ever again occur on such a gigantic scale (Genesis 9:8-17).

So what then did Jesus Christ mean? Let’s continue reading what He had to say: “In the days before the flood they ate and drank and married, until the day that Noah went into the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 24:38-39).

Christ was talking about an all-too-common pattern in human nature often evident just before disaster strikes: It tries to shut out the possibility that things could go wrong. It sticks its head into the sand like an ostrich. It blinds itself to telltale trends and events. It says, “This is not happening.”

And the way it is in this country is disaster happens, we get all in an uproar, and the next thing you know time as past and we forget all about it. Whatever happened to gun control discussions after Newtown -- as an example.

But this I believe to be true. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote, "History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new."

So, teach your children well, keep them as safe as you can, and even talk to them about the deeper issues. And send them into a frightening world armed with the armor of God.