CHAPTER 17: THE SAFETY NET OF REDUNDANCY AGAINST COMPLACENCY, A SILENT DEADLY DESTROYER 2025

Any good machine needs a redundant back-up system that kicks in when necessary. If your truck runs out of gas, hopefully you have an auxiliary fuel tank. If the GPS auto-pilot fails on an airplane a compass is just as accurate. If the electricity in the city fails, and a house is equipped with a generator, the lights still work. These are called redundant systems, or just simply redundancy. Without them it is easy to become complacent and then in an emergency, it is truly an emergency.

Fellowship is a redundant system for Believers. God’s Word is a back-up system. However, I have to use them both to truly be safe from complacency, if it is truly operational. What if the redundant system has not been serviced properly and simply doesn’t work? Then there’s a problem. Truly. Here at the beginning of 17, I ask the question, who is my back-up system, do they believe in the cross and the one true God and how often do tend to the relationship?

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

The bible is a difficult book because it came from the infinite to the finite, from the unlimited all powerful God, to the limited man. Study without a teacher, commentary, notes, prayer or home group is without redundancy and complacency creeps in. Why? Because it’s just me without a qualified technician. Ever tried to fix your own air conditioner, or the electric, perhaps tune up the lawn mower? Maybe now and then you get it right, but who wants to bet your life on “now and then.”

Let me explain the difference between the Bible and Man’s teaching. All of us can understand the writings of Plato, Socrates, John Locke, Friedrich Nietzsche, Aristotle, possibly in one reading we would understand the main thoughts of these philosophers. We may even feel enlightened by the writings. Study the great philosophers with the natural mind, and by diligent application, one will grasp their profound meanings. God laughs at man’s profound thoughts and the natural mind, the worldly mind that cannot grasp spiritual truths.

1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

If the Bible could be understood by natural man, it would be a natural book, and could not be the Word of God. Since the Bible is from God, and therefore spiritual, before you can receive its teachings, you must be born of the Spirit, John 3:6 and filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5:18.

John 16:12-15 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

Complacent, on the other hand, is “the not caring of things to be tended to.” Drive a car without looking in the mirrors, not good, without changing the oil, not good. These days cars have been given redundant back-up systems to stop before collision, alert lane changes, actually drive the car, and tell you it’s time for service because all of us have become complacent drivers. Look both ways before crossing the street or not, complacency is dangerous.

Scripture interrupts spiritual complacency, the Holy Spirit is a super back-up system against complacency in daily life. It just doesn’t happen by accident.

Prayer, the Word and correct choices is a requirement to keep a redundant system working and complacency at a minimum or not at all.

Who cares and is qualified to look out for me? To be sure that what needs to be done in the day at work, church or family, is in fact being done by me, not a slip of the mind. What happens if I decide not to do something important, who am I accountable to?

I need back-up individuals that are duly anointed to the position of God’s watchman in my life, powered by God, to warn of approaching danger, whether physical enemies or spiritual threats, sin, and there are few to none. Dangerous environment and without this world is filled with aggressive complacency, a silent deadly destroyer.

Complacency fumbles the ball, the mouth will say something it shouldn’t, the feet will walk somewhere not good, and the heart will fool the mind. How can one possess such a system that would offer avoidance options? Know the truth, stand with the truth.

Romans 15:4 For whatever things were written before, ..were written for our learning, ..that we through the [a]patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

 

1 Corinthians 2:6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

 

Job 27:11-12 “I will teach you [a]about the hand of God;
What is with the Almighty I will not conceal. Surely all of you have seen it; Why then do you behave with complete nonsense?

In the old testament there is many stories of God as your back-up system. The super redundancy machine of the Divine.

This is what happened on a day in the year 811 BCE. King Asa under siege at the hands of an Ethiopian army and hand no hope. Great example of God as a back-up system and a people that believed. A great story of a redundant system that was in place before complacency would find its mark. Here we begin, an army has come to lay siege to Judah.

2 Chronicles 14:11-13 And Asa cried out to the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!” 12 So the Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians fled. 13 And Asa and the people who were with him pursued them to Gerar. So the Ethiopians were overthrown, and they could not recover, for they were broken before the Lord and His army. And they (the Israelites) carried away very much [a]spoil.

Good story. Are you current with God? Are you current with people who know God?

Deuteronomy 11:18-2 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,

Redundancy is a powerful advantage. What is the primary system in my life? Freewill. Freewill without competent back-up redundancy is, at some point, going to fail. How do I secure myself? Short answer: fellowship and Scripture.

Matthew 18:20 where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.

 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action),

Let’s remember the good ole days, some failed redundant systems that everybody initially thinks is a very good idea and they are failed back-up redundant systems that are in fact complacency:

Charge cards for payroll, Credit to customers without a payment schedule, taxes that I’ll catch up later, false corporations as tax deductions, alcohol as a comfort, spending company money on fixing the house and writing it off as a company expense, lying, period. Do I need to keep naming off other failed back-up systems? Hard money lenders, family loans, do I need to continue? Chapter 17 is about the need for redundancy that works and in this world that is hard to find.

Matthew 13:14-16b For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I [a]should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;

I hope your eyes see and your ears hear, I hope for myself as well, because complacency is a hunter for sure.

C.S. Lewis, in “The Screwtape Letters”, writes “a moderated religion is as good as no religion at all…” and it seems to coincide with Revelation 3:16 when it talks about being lukewarm in our faith. We have become complacent. Furthermore, sometimes we have even become complacent in the fact that we are complacent! We have lost motivation, as well as our sight of what should be the driving force of our lives.

Do you hear me, do you hear how dangerous things can be?

Decision making is in jeopardy if the mind is compromised. C.S. Lewis brings up a good point. Redundant back-up systems for “complacency!” Meaning we become complacent about being complacent. INSANE!! Lord save me from such danger!!

Job 29:3 When His lamp shone upon my head,
And when by His light I walked through darkness;

Men will fail you, the church will fail you, your loved ones will fail you, without God, everybody fails and without true fellowship, I will simply forget and what is so important will fade.

1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

At the end of the day who are you accountable to? Is it qualified individuals who actually are there keeping you in line? Are they believers? Are they trained competently in the fields you travel. Do you discuss daily matters with these people and when doing so is scripture in the conversation? You will find there are very few people who have the necessary ability to care about you, people who you learn the very important skill of such great responsibility.

Matthew 22:35-42 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

This chapter brought to my attention the following question. Am I qualified to be a redundant system, a back-up to anyone? How could that be if I am not accountable to God in the knowledge and skill provided for in the scripture. How can I possibly be a redundant system without God’s word as the very fabric of my protocols. And whosoever I choose as my safety net against complacency, whosoever I choose as my back-up redundancy, do they in fact subscribe to the truth of the scriptures and adhere to those GodlyTruths?

“Chapter 17 Redundancy, the Safety Net Against Complacency, A Silent Deadly Destroyer 2025,” be sure back-up systems are in place and operational. Amen.