Just whose world is it anyway...?

Altruism purports to be the best solution to mankind’s problems through the selfless giving of oneself and one’s resources to others with no thought of anything in return. You know, the whole: “If we could only be nice to each other...” What could possibly be wrong with that? Anyone who has seen the film, “Pay it forward”, can easily see that it appears to be the most ideal solution to cure malice, jealousy and greed in this world.
There is one problem that it does not solve, however. Pride.

Of course, on the surface of it, it seems like altrusim is actually a kind of selfless rejection of pride through the putting of others before ourselves. However, we only need to look at two of the institutions that put themselves forward as the flagships of altruism -- the U.N. and the E.U. -- in order to spot that something is terribly wrong with this system. The E.U. is willing to help anyone, as long as it supports everything that the E.U. stands for, while the U.N. picks and chooses what it helps and what it speaks out against based largely on politics and public opinion.

In principle, both bodies are fantastic ideas and should be leading the way in uniting humanity for the purpose of securing a peaceful and more agreeable future. Any sensible and logical person would put their trust in these institutions and bodies as holding future of the planet in their hand. There is one big problem, however. They are doing all this without reference to the owner of this planet, without reference to him, who created it and everything on it (including us). God made this planet and created us, humans, to be rulers of this planet under his authority. It was pride that led us to reject this authority and attempt to rule the planet on our own. The wholesale rejection of God continues today unrelentingly, despite his revelation of himself through the Bible and, ultimately, through his Son, Jesus Christ, who provided a way of redemption to restore the original relationship that existed.

By uniting together in continued defiance of God, whether under the flag of Naziism or under the altruistic flag of the United Nations or the European Union, mankind is sending a clear message to God. It is a message that hasn’t changed in 5000 years and it says: WE CAN DO IT WITHOUT YOU! THIS IS OUR PLANET! Sound controversial? There is actually little to separate the basic purpose behind Naziism and today’s altrusim - they both desire to achieve a better and greater humanity, they simply have a very different way of going about this. The whole German nation was convinced by the deception of the Nazis so what makes us think we would be any better? Having rejected the idea that humankind can be perfected through eugenics, we’ve now bought into the idea that it can be improved through politics and great ‘tolerance’, when the atrocities abound and increase every day. Ultimately, all we are trying to do is rule the world without God.

Underlying all this is pride, the original sin - it is recognised and described in Greek tragedy as ‘hubris’ (loosely defined as arrogance against the Gods) and it is the unpleasant (I would say, horrific) reality of the world today. Like it or not, we are building another Tower of Babel through such institutions as the E.U. and the U.N., which are both gaining increasing power today, as mankind seeks a solution to all the bloodshed and wars of the past century. The Tower of Babel had the same idea behind it - to unite all the peoples of the world together so that everyone could live in peace. They did this in defiance of God, however, aiming to reach heaven itself (“the sky’s the limit”!). If anyone remembers what happened with the tower of Babel, however, God came and personally put a stop to it. We should be scared, especially when the parliament building of the European Union is purposefully based on Bruegel’s painting of (yes, you guessed it) the Tower of Babel. When questioned about this, an E.U. official very simply and honestly explained why - “What they started, we will finish...”

God will not allow our rebellion to continue. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. What I do believe in is the sinfulness of man and the sovereignty of a Holy God. This is not our world, it is God’s. He will come and put a stop to our feeble attempts to ignore him and the punishment is far worse than we could possibly imagine, so I’m not even going to try and describe it.

The reason why Christians speak to other people about Jesus is because they have been shown love by God, who does not desire that anyone should be punished, and they are compelled by that love to tell this Good News to others, that anyone can receive the love of God through Jesus Christ and enter his kingdom as his child. The call of the gospel is very simple: repent (turn from self/sin) and believe (put Jesus Christ in charge). This is open to all, an invitation to join God’s Kingdom.
You ask, why on earth should he accept us back? But he has and he has made it possible through Jesus’ death on the cross, which has covered our sin, if we would put our trust in him.

The riches of God’s grace in giving us everything when we deserve nothing cannot be fathomed. To ignore this call would certainly be unforgiveable, irrational and fatal.

I close with the words of John Lennon. What a great artist... but what a foolish man (if he believed the words he sang). This summarises both altrusim... and man’s rebellion against God.


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there's no country
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

It is only a dream and, left up to man, will never come true. God has given us (the) Truth, Life and Grace (the means to live now) through his Son, Jesus Christ.


“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”