January oh-oh

I can't resist. The new millenium had "dawned" and everyone else is doing it. Everyone else is offereing their predictions of what will happen as the chronological odometer turns over its second set of triple-ohs since Christ -- so I will too.

I predict nothing will change.

"But what about computers, space travel, genetic engineering, and all that?" I hear you ask.

I quote to you, the Bible. "There is nothing new under sthe sun."

People have kept records and communicated (computers), gone to places unknown (space travel), and bred stock (genetic engineering) since the beginning. The only difference is the techological ability to do so. Painstaking records were kept on clay tablets by the Sumerians; Columbus' voyage was far more risky that our trip to the moon; The breeding of animals and plants for desired traits has been going on for a long time.

However, the main thing that will not change is human nature. Unguided by God, man is just plain vile. Guided by God, he is at best, well-intentioned but ham-handed. In general, man is the former. Technology just allows him to be much more efficient in his evildoing -- witness the "bureaucratic, spic-and-span hell" created by Herr Hitler and Co. or the scientific madness of the Stalin Corporation. Planned Parenthood et.al., through their Zero Population Growth friends in the United Nations, could accomplish the kind of racial cleansing only dreamt of by racial supreior-ists of yore. Imagine what Genghis Khan could have done with machine guns and artillery!

The reverse is also true. Those who seek God could never have hoped to end slavery worldwide without the power of the printed page. Compters now pinpoint the places where food and medicine are needsed during disaster or plague.

Good and evil are not inherent in technology, but in the heart of the one using it.

It was true before, and the next millenium will not change it.

For those who do not believe the Bible on this matter, they only need watch the evening news -- on TV or the Internet. (The dinosaurs among us will also read the newspaper and (*gasp*) books.

All of the hyperbole is just that -- hyperbole. In reality, each millenium change (as well as each century or year change) is nothing more than a mechanism developed for keeping time. As important as keeping time is, January 1 of anything is simply no different in the grand scope of things than November 3 or May 12. It is just another day. There is no magic that happens when a new year, new century, or new millenium turns over any more than your car suddenly improves or changes when the odometer rolls to 100,000 (unless that's when the warrantee runs out).

Even the dreaded Y2K situation was nothing like the warnings predicted. It merely was yet another demonstration of the typical short-sightedness of man when he thinks he has it all under control. At this date, January 2, 2000, it appears that most of the bugs were cleared out -- but not before many years of denial by those in power when the alarm was first sounded ("No cause for alarm. Everything is under control.") and a few, short years of mad (and expensive) rush to fix the problem. (Inevitably, the authorities later all injured themselves taking bows and patting themselves on the back while taking credit for discovering and fixing the problem.)

So, I expect the same thing from this New Millenium as I saw in the last New Millenium (and last New Year, for that matter) -- sin, evil, war, greed, and all the rest countered by commitment to God, courage, compassion, and prayer. I expect to see, as always, the people involved in the former persecute the latter, but I also expect to see that glorious minority prevail according to the Word of God.