Yogi Berra is noted for some pithy sayings commonly called “Yogisms.” Some of his best are:
Concerning Baseball
“Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.”
"It ain't over 'til it's over.”
Concerning Himself
“Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.”
“I never said most of the things I said.”
Concerning Life
"When you come to a fork in the road....Take it" and,
"It's deja vu all over again"
Sadly, this last “Yogism” is becoming evident all too frequently today. In particular, I am thinking of the declaration of Jesus Christ found in Matthew 24 that the days just prior to His 2nd Advent will be similar, if not identical to the days before the Noahic Flood. Concerning history, it has been said that, “If we do not learn from history, we are bound to repeat it,” and, “The one thing that we have learned from history, is that we have not learned from history.” It seems we are repeating all of the world’s past mistakes and it is déjà vu all over again.
Genesis chapter 6 does not record a lot of specifics concerning the activities of the world prior to the flood but it does mention 3 particular things. First, in verse 5 there is a statement that man’s wickedness was pervasive, encompassing the entire earth, not isolated to a particular area. Second, the same verse indicates that man’s thoughts were continually evil, having corrupted God’s way (v. 12). Verse 11 adds that the earth was filled with violence. It doesn’t take a brainiac to understand that all three of these conditions are found in the world today.
When Jesus referred to this time in Matthew 24, He indicated that Noah’s society was “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark.” In that these four activities are not sinful, it must be understood that what Jesus meant was that society was living day to day as if nothing of judgmental consequence would come from God because of the worldwide conditions of violence and evil thoughts of the heart. For them, every day was business as usual. They were dead wrong!
According to 1 Peter 3:20, God patiently waited to bring judgment upon the world while Noah was preparing an ark. That preparation took 120 years. With the preaching of a righteous man (2 Peter 2:5) the world had opportunity to respond to the gracious invitation of God and avoid condemnation. Only 7 did, and all of Noah’s family. While the Bible does not specifically say, it seems reasonable to believe that Noah was mocked for his preaching of a coming judgment. If so, that is déjà vu all over again too. While man fears that man may naturally destroy the world environmentally or through war, few believe that God would do so supernaturally. But even that fear is often tempered by the thought that the world has endured all these calamities throughout the millennia of time and has always found a way to survive. And so man will solve all of man’s problems again. And so it is business as usual and déjà vu all over again. Yogi was also right when he said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”