CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – We should be thankful that God is an expert about human nature. The things that God doesn’t let us know are actually blessings.
There’s a movie from 1998 called Last Night, and while it is not a religious film, it tells us a lot about human nature. The premise of the movie is this: tonight, this night, is the last night. The world will come to an end this evening. No one will survive. And the movie looks at how different people are spending the last hours of their lives. Of course, many people are going crazy. Normal behavior is out the window.
One family wants to have a final meal together. Some don’t make it; they’re attacked by roving gangs who have taken over the streets. Another person wants to have as much physical pleasure in his final hours. He spends his last day pursuing meaningless sex. There’s another person who is so attached to their job that they spend their last day making phone calls thanking their customers over the year.
The most heartbreaking people in the movie are the man and woman who meet accidentally apartment building. They barely know each other. They agree that killing themselves before the world ends is one of the last acts that they can control. They make a suicide pact that they will shoot each other simultaneously in the moment before the world is destroyed. The movie ends with both of them, pointing guns at one another, crying. Neither has the will to pull the trigger.
One of the shortcomings over the movie is that it’s a secular, although thought provoking story. None of the characters turn to faith. But the movie does tell us something about human nature. Scripture says no one knows the day or the hour. If we did, we’d probably make ourselves crazy. Not knowing is actually a blessing from God. Be skeptical of people who tell you that they know when they, or you are going to die, on when Christ will return to establish his kingdom on earth. If they’re acting normally, they probably don’t know.
Chris Conley
Comments