|
NOWHERE MAN #10
THE LAST JOURNEY INTO THE WILD
If you want to read a wonderfully told but haunting
and wretched true story, I can’t think of a more tragic tale than the
book, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. Many of you have read his other
very sad-and-true story, Into Thin Air, where he describes the disastrous
1996 Everest adventure that left a number of climbers dead on the roof
of the world.
But Into the Wild, also published in 1996, tells the story of a young
man named Christopher Johnson McCandless who, in the words of our radio
series title, WANTED to be a “Nowhere Man.” He absolutely did. He did
not want people to know his name; he didn’t want his parents to know where
he was; he didn’t want police or park service authorities to try to keep
track of him. Christopher McCandless, or “Alex,” wanted to simply drop
out. He prided himself on living off the land. Berries and roots and a
bit of game, preferably shot with an ecologically pure bow and arrow.
And this story by a Seattle journalist, who knows a bit himself about
going out to the edges of the world seeking solitary adventure, describes
a vast subculture of people like this “Alex,” who want to survive OFF
the radar screen of society. If they work a few days, it’s for cash. If
they stay in a national park, they usually climb over the fence at 2:00
a.m. so they don’t have to log in. These people will just disappear for
a month, three months, even for years at a time. No taxes, no food stamps,
no mail, no nothing. They barter and beg, but they rarely buy. They don’t
make a blip on anybody’s radar screen, and that’s exactly how they like
it.
As this story builds up, young Mr. McCandless, driving an old Datsun,
has it break down on him somewhere around Lake Mead. He strips it of all
ID, and kind of half-buries it. Then, in a last act of saying to the world,
“Leave me alone,” he makes a little pile of all his money, $123, and puts
a match to it. And he heads up to Alaska for what he thinks will be his
biggest, bravest, go-away-world adventure yet. He sends a last postcard
to a casual acquaintance named Wayne: “I now walk into the wild,” the
last line says.
And for four months he succeeded in being the ultimate “Nowhere Man.”
No one knew where he was. His parents, comfortably wealthy people living
in Annandale, Virginia, had no clue. But on September 6, 1992, a man named
Gordon Samuel happened across an old, abandoned bus out in the wilderness
. . . and found a dead body inside the blue sleeping bag in the back.
Chris McCandless, the man who wanted to be left alone, who wanted to be
forgotten, was dead.
All through this radio project we’ve entitled NOWHERE MAN, we’ve taken
the biblical position that it’s just plain impossible for a person to
be UNknown by God. He knows us! We can walk “into the wild,” and hide
from the world and from the rules and from our parents. But not from God!
I like the tag line of that great Christian song, I Sing the Mighty Power,
where the last line says:
“There’s not a place where we can flee; But God is present there.”
That’s taken, of course, from Psalm 139, where David
observes:
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee
from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make
my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide
me, Your right hand will hold me fast.”
So for the person who wants to go briefly “into the
wild,” but NOT get away from the loving eyes and heart of God, these words
are a precious promise. I don’t know the spiritual convictions of Mr.
Jon Krakauer, but when he and others were struggling at the top of Everest
during that desperate May 11 storm, it would have been a comfort to know
that God was present even at 29,028 feet.
But now this brings us to the final question in our Bible study. What
if someone WANTS to get away from God, to be apart from Him? What if a
man or woman truly wants to burn their ID, so to speak, and NOT be a part
of heaven’s kingdom? God says to us, “I have My book, with names written
there.” And someone says, “Well, erase mine! I don’t want to be part of
Your eternal kingdom, of the civilization bounded by your Sermon on the
Mount and Your Ten Commandments. I reject it!” Are those rebels doomed
to an eternal existence in some kind of parallel universe — the Christian
community refers to this as hell, of course — sentenced to still be remembered
and rejected for the endless ages?
We’ve mentioned the verse in Revelation 3, where God talks about the Book
of Life up in heaven. And He says to His faithful saints: “I will never
blot out your name.” Does this imply, though, that an unrepentant sinner’s
name MIGHT be taken out? Could there be, in the end, for those who choose
it, the fate of being a “Nowhere Man”?
This is the very sobering side of the gospel invitation, friend, but honesty
requires that we examine all aspects of truth. And the biblical record
is clear that it IS possible to be lost. God doesn’t wish to reject us,
but it IS possible to reject Him. And what does the Word of God say is
the result of that choice?
Interestingly, the same Psalmist, David, who wrote about how God was with
him no matter where he might try to flee, also addresses this exact question.
Notice this from Psalm 37:
“But the wicked will perish as a field of dry grass
set on fire. They will VANISH and turn into smoke.”
That’s the very loosely paraphrased book, Clear Word.
The King James says it this way:
“But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as
the fat of lambs; they shall CONSUME; into smoke shall they consume away.”
Sad words, but powerfully true. In the same chapter,
verse 10, and let’s try the Clear Word again with its clarity of statement:
“It won’t be long before the wicked will DISAPPEAR;
even if you go out of your way to look for them, YOU WILL NOT FIND THEM.”
“The wicked SHALL NOT BE,” says the King James. Talk
about “Nowhere Man,” and friend, God help us to escape that terrible fate.
Verse 38 puts yet another nail into the coffin of those who want to take
a final journey away from the Cross of Calvary:
“Wicked men are soon forgotten, and those who follow
them will one day BE NO MORE.”
One of the other statements about the fate of the lost
is over in the small, prophetic book of Obadiah, which only has one chapter.
Here is God’s blunt warning to those who have persecuted others, who have
thumbed their noses at God’s eternal blueprint for happiness and salvation.
“The day of the Lord is near for you. As you have done,
so will it be done to you. Your cruelty and mercilessness will return
on your own head. You will get back what you have given. The way you have
treated My people on My holy mountain, that’s the way you will be treated.
At the end of time, all nations who turned against My people will drink
the same bitter cup. All men and women whose sense of right is gone WILL
BE AS IF THEY HAD NEVER EXISTED.”
The NIV says the very same thing:
“They will drink and drink and be as if they had never been.”
You know, we borrowed this radio series title from
a rather unlikely source, and you music buffs will recall that shaggy-haired
line from a Beatles tune back in the 60s: “Nowhere Man.” And one line
from the song really does NOT work here:
“He’s a real Nowhere Man, LIVING in his Nowhere Land;
Making all his Nowhere plans for nobody.”
And sometimes we find it portrayed, in New Age literature
and elsewhere, a kind of eternal destiny where those who reject God can
keep living on, but just in a kind of twilight world outside of God’s
kingdom. “This is all hell is,” they say comfortingly. “But you’re still
alive, immortal, rewarded with eternity with or without Calvary.” Living
in a nowhere land, continuing to make nowhere plans.
Friend, I must say this: my Bible doesn’t paint such a picture. These
verses tell us instead that the wages of sin are DEATH. An END to living
and thinking and planning and drinking. There won’t be a place where you
can go and find these people still talking and living and making their
nowhere plans. They’ll be GONE, the Bible says. They’ll be as though they
had never been.
I’m sure that even in God’s glorious kingdom, His eternal Paradise He’s
planning for us right now, He will continue to remember with sadness those
who chose to go instead “into the wild.” The memory of a father is always
long, and how especially true for a HEAVENLY Father! But these will truly
be the “Nowhere Men” and the “Nowhere Women” whose own choices in THIS
life lead to the reality that there will be no OTHER life, no ETERNAL
life, for them.
I’m so thankful that God, right now, does know our names. To be a Nowhere
Man absolutely DOES NOT NEED to be our fate. Our names can be written,
right now, in that Book of Life. And the eraser . . . well, He’d just
as soon not have to use it.
|
