Function In A World Gone Mad Series

Once upon a time, there was a family of mice who lived all of their lives in a large piano. Often, the music of the instrument filled the dark spaces of their world with beautiful melodies, countermelodies and harmonies.

At first, the mice were very impressed. They drew comfort from the thought that there was Someone close, but invisible, who made the music. They referred to Him as the “Great Unseen Player.”

Then one day, a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths, which trembled and vibrated, producing the beautiful music they all heard. As he shared his discovery, the mouse family began to revise all their old beliefs. Now, only the unenlightened could believe in an “Unseen Player” anymore.

Later, another mouse ventured even further into the piano. He discovered hammers, numbers of them dancing and leaping on the wires, which caused the wires to vibrate, producing the beautiful music they all heard. It was a more complicated theory, but it confirmed their idea of a purely mechanistic universe. The “Unseen Player” was only a myth, invented by the weak among them, who needed a crutch to lean on in times of adversity (James S. Hewett, citing Leadership Journal, in Illustrations Unlimited, p.187).

Eventually, more mice scattered throughout the piano, and each returned with their own theories about how the music was made. They had seen leather and felt and wood. Others had seen rods and levers and screws. Their puny minds were too small to comprehend it all, so they concluded that no one really knows (or could know) the truth about how the music was made. They decided that the “truth” really didn’t matter, and that whatever “truth” worked for each mouse was fine. All that was necessary was to enjoy the music and get along.

All the while, they gave no thought to the “Unseen Player,” who continued to play despite their ignorance.

That is a good picture of western civilization over the last several hundred years. In the Middle Ages, people had an unquestioning belief in the God of the universe. Then modernists made some discoveries and suggested a purely mechanistic view of the universe. Now, post-modernists sincerely believe that truth doesn’t matter, and that all we have to do is get along.

Except, people are fighting more and more these days. Our society has grown more contentious as there is increasing polarization over many issues. It’s because people ignore the “Unseen Player” to their own disgrace and harm.

He is the key to it all, and without Him nothing works at all. He built the piano. He put it all together, and He is the only One who can bring melodious harmony to our world. Without Him, there is only discord and disharmony.

The people in Noah’s day discovered that. They ignored God, just like we do today, and it only brought them a violent, self-destructive society. That’s why God sent a world-wide flood. He had to clean out His creation.

So how can you function in such a world? How can you operate in a world gone mad with irrational thought and self-destructive lifestyles? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 7, Genesis 7, where we get some insight on how to live in a world gone mad.

Genesis 7:6-11 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened (ESV).

Here, we find that the water came from the earth as well as the sky. World-wide volcanic and seismic eruptions burst open the “fountains of the deep.” The water canopy (Genesis 1:6-7) above the earth cut loose…

Genesis 7:12-20 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in. The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep (ESV).