Isaiah 9:1-7
Isaiah 8:19-22
Deuteronomy 18:9-15
Acts 3:17-22
John 1:1-9
Isaiah 9:6-7
Isaiah 9:1
Matthew 4:12-17
Matthew 1:17
Romans 8:19-24
Luke 2:8-14
Timothy Keller “Hidden Christmas”
“What is going on (in Isaiah 8:22)? They are ‘looking toward the earth’ and to human resources to fix the world. They are looking to their experts, to the mystics, to the scholars, for solutions. Yes, they say, we are in darkness, but we can overcome it ourselves. People make the same claim today. Some look more to the state, some more to the market, and everyone looks to technology. Yet they share the identical assumption. Things are dark but we believe we can end that darkness with intellect and innovation.
Can we?
One of the most thoughtful world leaders of the late twentieth century was Vaclav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic. He had a unique vantage point from which to peer deeply into both socialism and capitalism, and he was not optimistic that either would, by itself, solve the greatest human problems. He knew that science unguided by moral principles had given us the Holocaust. He concluded that neither technology nor the state nor the market alone could save us from nuclear conflict, ethnic violence, or environmental degradation. ‘Pursuit of the good life will not help humanity save itself, nor is democracy alone enough,’ Havel said. ‘A turning to and seeking of God, is needed.’
The human race constantly forgets, he added, that ‘he is not God.’”
