God Never Gives Up

I read something interesting about Charles Dickens. It seems that Dickens wrote all his great stories in installments. Week after week, Dickens would spin out his tales and the English public would breathlessly wait to see what was going to happen next to such characters as Oliver Twist, Pip, Miss Havisham, and all the other great characters Dickens created.

Dickens used to say that when he began a novel, he really had no idea how the story would end. He said that his characters, which began as figments in his own brain, quickly assumed a life of their own. Sometimes they made decisions that surprised him as the author. While Dickens thought that he was the sole author constructing the narrative, his characters were busy taking the story in a direction that he, the author, had not originally intended.

When I read that, I couldn’t help but think of the creation of human beings. When God created us, He did the most shocking thing. He gave us the freedom to decide our own destiny. Think about the implications of that truth for a moment. God created us to be free moral agents.

Many theologians believe that this is what the writer of Genesis meant when he wrote that God created man and woman in His own image. It didn’t mean that we look like God. The scriptures are quite clear. God is Spirit. We are flesh. We have no idea what God looks like, but chances are it’s nothing like us.

No, the way we are like God is that we can think and dream and most importantly of all, we can decide which of the things we think about and dream about are worth our time. We are free to be all we can be or we are free to destroy ourselves and everything good in our lives.

Can you imagine God taking such a risk? Surely He realized that we might give in to our dark sides. But He did it anyway. Obviously God didn’t want to share the world with a bunch of puppets where He would always be pulling the strings. He wanted creatures He could love and who would love Him in return. But what a risk! What if these beings that God created and whom He loved decided they didn’t want to have anything to do with Him?

One of the great fears that bright people have about the future is the rapid development of so-called artificial intelligence, or AI. It refers to the development of computers that are able to do things normally done by people – in particular, things associated with people acting intelligently. Some of you have Siri on your iPhone or Google Now or Microsoft’s Cortana on your computer. That’s a form of artificial intelligence. Self-driving cars – which are already on the road in some places – are another form of AI.

Anytime a piece of equipment is programmed to perform like a human – as if that equipment had a brain like ours – that is artificial intelligence.

To put AI into perspective, you have to understand what’s happening in the world of computers. Computers are getting faster and more powerful at an astounding pace. In fact, according to Moore’s Law, they are doubling in speed and power every couple of years.

To put it plainly, this means that, in the very near future we will have computers that are smarter than we are. The fear is that these super-smart computers may one day decide that they don’t need humans anymore.

Normally when we think of intelligent machines, we think of robots. Elon Musk, the creator of the Tesla automobile and founder of SpaceX suggested recently that once the intelligence of robots exceeds ours these robots might treat us like “pet Labradors.”

Musk also said humanity needs to be careful about what it programs super-intelligent robots to do. He uses the example of asking these robots to find out what makes people happy. “Robots may conclude that all unhappy humans should be terminated,” Musk said. “Or that we should all be captured and have dopamine and serotonin directly injected into our brains to maximize happiness because these robots might conclude that dopamine and serotonin are what cause happiness, therefore they ought to maximize it.”

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made similar comments this past year. He says artificial intelligence predictions are rapidly coming true and it is a dangerous reality. Along with famed scientist Stephen Hawking, Wozniak and Musk are seeking to warn people about the possible risks of the rapid advances that are taking place right now in science and technology before it is too late.

It’s always risky to give any new creation free will – the ability to decide what is right or wrong – what is appropriate or inappropriate. Those creatures may turn against you. Yet God took that risk. He created humanity in His own image, giving us the freedom to pursue our own destiny.

That brings us to today’s lesson from the Book of Genesis. It is the story of Noah – one of the best known and best loved stories in the Bible.

You know the story. God created humankind in His image, giving us the freedom to decide our destiny, and what did we do? Certainly not what was pleasing to God. So God regretted making us and decided to wipe out humanity with a flood.

Some might say that God would still say the same thing today.

As humorist Will Rogers once said, “God made man a little lower than the angels. Man has been getting lower ever since.”

Mark Twain once said, “Man is the creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.” This, said Twain, explains everything.

We as a species – even the best of us – are certainly a disappointment to our Creator. The story of Noah and the flood is the culmination of that disappointment.

Saul Lieberman, a professor of the Talmud, the commentary on Jewish scriptures, once asked another professor to choose the most tragic character in the Bible.

The professor named prophets like Jeremiah or Ezekiel. Professor Lieberman disagreed. He declared that God is the most tragic character in the Bible. As proof, he pointed to the fact that in the beginning, God had declared His Creation to be very good. But only a few generations later, by the time of Noah, God was so dismayed over humanity’s corruption that God regretted creating humans in the first place.

God was so disappointed in humanity that he decided to wipe the slate clean and start all over. He sent the great flood to destroy all life on the earth. Except he decided to save a remnant: Noah and his family as well as two of every kind of animal on the earth.

This is important. God allowed a remnant to remain. God never gives up hope on His beloved people. You and I would give up. We would decide to cut our losses, walk away, conclude that humanity is hopeless. But no matter how far we run away from Him and His love, God remains in pursuit.

Max Lucado, in his book, A Gentle Thunder, talks about the natural love of a mom for a newborn baby: “Your baby didn’t even tell you she was coming. She just came. And what a coming. She rendered you a barbarian. You screamed. You swore. You bit bullets and tore the sheets. And now, look at you. Your back aches. Your head pounds. Your body is drenched in sweat. Every muscle is strained and stretched.

“You should be angry, but are you? Far from it. On your face is a for-longer-than-ever love. She has done nothing for you, yet you love her. She’s brought pain to your body and nausea to your morning, yet you treasure her. Her face is wrinkled and her eyes dim, yet all you can talk about are her good looks and bright future. She’s going to wake you up every night for the next six weeks, but that doesn’t matter. I can see it on your face. You’re crazy about her. That’s the way God felt about Israel, and us.”

Why did he choose to save Noah? According to Genesis, he was the only righteous man left in the world. That’s kind of depressing – the only righteous man. But notice. The story of Noah has an ironic twist. After the waters subsided, and he leaves the ark, what does Noah do? He falls into a tawdry sin that would have brought God’s wrath under other circumstances. Noah got drunk and lay naked in his tent. This was a no-no in Jewish culture. But do you see the irony in this quaint story? God chooses the only righteous man on earth and he turns out to be not so completely righteous at all.

So this is where the story begins. God is disappointed with humanity. But fortunately, that is not how the story ends. The waters recede and God puts a rainbow in the heavens as a sign of His eternal grace. God makes a covenant with humanity. Never again will God send great floods to envelope the earth. Of course, on the cross of Calvary He makes a new covenant, a covenant that says that those who seek to have Christ’s heart in their life will never die. We’re not robots. We have free will. And sometimes we stumble and fall. But God never gives up on us. Remember that the next time you see a rainbow. For God’s love will never fail you.