Sometimes, when someone has been wronged by another, the one doing the wrong eventually suffers a devastating wrong himself or herself. It is often said in these twists of reversed circumstances, “What goes around comes around.” I.e., an intentionally bad thing induced by the wrongdoer circles around throughout the ether of human interaction and finally comes back to inflict like tribulation on the one who initiated the trouble.
Rightfully or wrongfully, we more often than not experience Schadenfreude moments upon observing the turn of such events. I must confess that, for example, a broad smile of pleasure is one of my failings when it comes to observing the turning of the political tables on those who strive to fundamentally change America and have their efforts fail and even redound dramatically to their detriment.
Demonically inspired Eastern religionists and occultists call this situational turn of events “karma.” God’s Word Truthfully frames this turn of events in terms of results of wrong-doing “…Be sure, your sins will find you out.” (Numbers 32: 23). In this sense, we might say the Bible is forewarning, “What goes around comes around.”
God’s book on wisdom encompasses, that is, addresses, in part, the following in this matter of all things, including trouble, repeating, and causing undesired repercussions on wrong-doing humanity.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11).
The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana is given credit for phrasing the warning wrapped up in both the Scriptural and the philosophical alerts —“What goes around comes around.”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
This is an explanation I found in researching Santayana.
Santayana is said to have first used the phrase in his book The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense, Volume 1 as a warning against repeating past mistakes. The quote is one of academia’s most cited and paraphrased lines and explains why it’s important to study history. The quote means that if you don’t learn from other people’s mistakes, you are likely to make those same mistakes yourself. For example, in politics, lawmakers’ mistakes can result in detrimental effects on tens of thousands of lives, or more.
During this time that is observably the wrap-up of the Age of Grace (Church Age,) we are witness to the coming to fruition of George Santayana’s more eloquently phrased alert about what goes around comes around. We are on the cusp of the entire world of God-deniers and anti-God forces coming to suffer the consequences of sin encapsulated within God’s assured results of man doing evil. “…Be sure, your sin will find you out.”
The world of people who reject Jesus Christ for Salvation is about to, as the title of this commentary has it, experience Earth’s fatal Santayana moment. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The first earth-dwellers to experience cataclysm because of rejection of God’s Salvation Message were, of course, the antediluvians. These felt God’s Holy, Righteous Judgment and Wrath begin with the first drops of rain that became a deluge from above and from the water erupting from the earth below.
The next such catastrophism fell upon the people of the time of the Tower of Babel when God destroyed their attempted effort to establish a world totally apart from Heaven’s Governance.
The next and final such worldwide calamity because of the rejection of God and His Son, Jesus Christ, will begin its final phase with the event that will be for believers in Christ the most Glorious Adventure imaginable.
The Rapture will at the same time snatch millions of Christians into the clouds of Glory while leaving billions of unbelievers behind on a planet about to suffer the worst time of human history. The Rapture will for these left behind be Earth’s fatal Santayana moment.
You don’t have to be one of the billions who will endure this most catastrophic period of all human history. Here is how to instead go to be with Christ and the Safety of Heaven with God the Father for all eternity.
“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).