This Weeks X-Trials Bible Study - History: Whose Story?

The word “remember” is central to the message of lesson 6. On this tour we take a close look History and the importance of maintaining a firm grip on the past. In the process, we will see that a proper appreciation of historical context – in other words, our place in God’s “larger story” – is fundamental to an accurate understanding of almost every aspect of our lives. History provides us with indispensable insights into the meaning of existence, God’s plan and purpose for the ages, man’s responsibility toward the Creator, and his duty toward his fellow creatures.

Dr. Tackett’s key scripture passage for this discussion is Isaiah 46:9-11: “Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done … Indeed, I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass … ” Two major thoughts arise from these verses. First, God is sovereign, or absolutely in control. History is in the most literal sense His story. Nothing happens at random or by chance. The hairs of our heads are numbered, and the details of our lives are threads in the great tapestry of His overarching providential plan. Second, we as human beings cannot understand our place in the world without cultivating a vision of ourselves as part of this larger story. This is why the Bible contains so many exhortations to “remember” what God has done in the past, whether through the device of “memorial stones,” annual festivals, tassels, phylacteries, or the discipline of hiding His Word in our hearts. If we do not remember, we run the risk of becoming myopic, proud, self-sufficient, and eventually incurring our own destruction (see Deuteronomy 8) – not necessarily physical destruction, but rather a complete loss of identity, purpose, and meaning, or what Amos refers to as a “famine of hearing the Word of the Lord” (Amos 8:11).

Here too we come face to face with the implications of man’s fallen nature and encounter yet another manifestation of the Cosmic Battle. Man resists the idea of a sovereign God. He wants to control his own destiny, live inside his own “little story,” and free himself from all connections with or references to an all-inclusive divine plan. Thus he devises ways to propagate the “pernicious lie” of self-determination (“I am my own god,” or “I believe in myself”) by taking the larger story of history into his own hands and turning it into a powerful tool for the manipulation of other people and the accomplishment of his own selfish purposes. Historical revisionism, or the agenda-driven re-writing of history, operates on the basis of the premise, “If I can change your historical context, I can determine the way you view the present.”

This strategy is consistent with George Orwell’s observation that “He who controls the past controls the future” and Karl Marx’s dictum, “A people without a heritage are easily persuaded.”
Postmodernism – the contemporary philosophical perspective that rejects both revelation and reason – takes this process to an extreme conclusion by denying the validity of all comprehensive truth systems, or what it calls metanarratives (including Christianity). Stated simply, the postmodern perspective maintains that there is no “larger story.” Instead, everyone must tell his or her own story and invent (if possible) his or her own concept of meaning and significance. In other words, history does not exist at all except as it exists in our own minds, where it can be edited and tailored to further our own goals in the present.

As we have seen so often during the course of our first five tours, the essence of the Cosmic Battle or the conflict between Truth and Lies can be boiled down to a confrontation between the claims of the sovereign God and the claims of the sovereign self. It’s the old story of the Garden of Eden, where the serpent re-wrote the past by asking, “Has God really said …?” and where man became completely caught up in his own “little story.” From beginning to end, Dr. Tackett’s message in lesson 6 is that “It’s not all about you.” As Jesus put it, “He who seeks to save his life will lose it.” Given our current “self-actualizing” cultural climate, it is likely that some group participants will take exception to this idea. Others may have theological objections to Dr. Tackett’s statements about the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human free will; for he states very plainly that if we are only free agents, then we are completely without hope


Here is a preview of this weeks lesson:


You can watch the complete lesson here. Contact me (X-trials@BrianBorden.com) if you still need a Username and Password.



See you Thursday!