"UNPRECEDENTED"

If you could invest in a ‘word’ that would increase in value and demand the way you buy ‘commodities,’ I would have become wealthy had I bought a copyright on the word “unprecedented.” In the last three years, the word has rapidly increased in frequency. From extreme weather to global financial disasters to geopolitical crises, the escalation of “unprecedented” events is almost exponential.

The 2008 financial meltdown was a global catastrophe of unprecedented proportion. The radical Islamic movement terrorizing the world’s nations has no precedent in history. The citizen protest movement in the Arab world has resulted in unprecedented ousting of wealthy monarchs and corrupt dictators—all fueled by unprecedented world-wide wireless access to new ideas. Even as I write this, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is creating an unprecedented nuclear disaster which has North Americans stock-piling iodine pills.

Unprecedented happenings make predicting the future on past experience untenable. The world is frightened by the unprecedented. But we are not. Because we know that our God precedes everything. The Alpha and Omega, He knows the end of a matter before its beginning. God has a cosmic plan to redeem the world—and it is both timeless and timely. “The LORD Almighty says: I am the First and the Last; there is no other God. Who else can tell you what is going to happen in the days ahead? ... Do not tremble; do not be afraid. Have I not proclaimed from ages past what my purposes are for you? … is there any other God? No! There is no other Rock—not one!” (Is. 44:7)… “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.” (Is. 41:10).