“Everything that can be invented, has been invented”

“X-rays will prove to be a hoax,” predicted Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, in 1883. “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction,” stated Pierre Pachet, professor of physiology at Toulouse, in 1872. “Everything that can be invented, has been invented,” proclaimed Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the US Office of Patents, in 1899.

Even Albert Einstein got the future wrong. In 1932 he stated, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”

Now we’re on the brink of a new year and a new spate of predictions. Forbes thinks that Democrats will fail to win the House or the Senate this year, but the Republican Party will continue to splinter. The markets will continue to do well, but a 10 percent correction will come at some point during the year. Clemson will defeat Oklahoma for the NCAA football title, the Patriots will defeat the Vikings in the Super Bowl, and the Yankees will win the World Series.

I have no idea if anything I just typed will come to pass. But I do know this about the future: it comes one day at a time. And the safest way to prepare for tomorrow is to be right with God today.

A surprising way to win a war

In 1 Chronicles 14 we find the newly crowned King David facing his nation’s arch-enemies, the Philistines. Their troops staged a raid on Israel in the “Valley of Rephaim,” just west of Jerusalem (v. 9). In a day when kings were supported so long as they could protect their people, a loss to the Philistines could turn David’s people against their new monarch.

So the king “inquired of God, ‘Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?’” (v. 10a). And God responded, “Go up, and I will give them into your hand” (v. 10b). With the result that “David struck them down there” (v. 11).

However, the Philistines made another raid in the same valley (v….