Standing in the rubble of his ruined nation, the ancient scribe Ezra, read aloud the Book of God’s laws. Too late they had discovered that abandoning God’s laws doesn’t lead to the freedom we hope it will.
We would do well to remember this as we survey the chaos and confusion of our current 21stcentury culture. Like removing the fences from a zoo, the Age of Enlightenment has not led to the freedom it promised. Turning our back on God’s ways simply gives free reign to the selfishness of the human heart, the consequences of which are writ large wherever we look.
The whole point of fences in a zoo is to protect all who live within it. If by some strange means the animals could all be changed to love and protect one another then the fences could come down. In the same way God’s laws for our behaviour were put in place after we turned our back on him. They are there are to keep us safe while he gives us the opportunity to have the selfishness of our hearts transformed through his son Jesus.
The prophet Isaiah saw all this and said that one day ‘the wolf will live with the lamb’. But until that day comes we would be wise to keep the fences in place.
