Obsession With the World

Articles

Lance Byers
03/15/25 - Christian Living

Anything down there about your souls? ~Herman Melville’s character Elijah

In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick the Pequad was a miserable place to be. It was unlike any other whaling ship. The crew knew of the miserable journey they were on increasingly as they continued. One character even starts making his own coffin. Captain Ahab’s obsession with hunting the whale for revenge on the whale which robbed him of his leg is legendary. Even when his first mate, Starbuck confronts him, “Vengeance on a dumb brute! … that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.”

Jesus’ message is similar in that He is calling upon us, the captain of our own ship, and our own destiny, to stop chasing the destruction of our souls. The thing is that the world keeps calling out to us. The text of I Peter 5:8 which reads, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. You adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” gives us a clear picture of how the devil is an element of pure destruction, a lion looking to kill and eat you and I both for his own satisfaction.

Most people think of villains as the “Dick Dastardly” type with sharp features and a moustache being fingered as they try to concoct and enact their evil schemes. If every time we were met with evil, it appeared as devilish as we often portray evil, it would not be tempting. The truth of the matter is that evil is fun, entertaining, and desirable. II Corinthians 11:14-15a elaborates, “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” Ahab sees his search for Moby Dick as righteous. His own leg, not the only victim, as evidenced by the plethora of harpoon marks on the whale’s flesh. He sees Moby Dick as evil and worthy of destruction. His focus is only upon the whale and not his senses.

Starbuck calls upon Ahab to be sober minded in the same way Peter does to us. Jeremiah 10:23 tells us that, “it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.” The thing is that the human heart is fickle, and not open to bending to the way of God. It is the volition of man, the mind, which must tame the heart. Proverbs 16:1 reads, “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” The heart of man has many thoughts and plans it throws out, and for man to follow those is folly. Jesus said that, “For from within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23) Jesus also said that, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” This speaks back to Proverbs 16 is that the heart must be tamed by the mind, the intellect, the knowledge, and conscious persistence of following God’s will, and not the wellspring of temptation which bubbles up from our heart.

Ahab left his wife, left his directive to captain a profitable ship, and eventually lead most of the crew of the Pequad to their death after the ship is smashed apart. As Melville describes moments before the death of Ahab, “He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a cannon, he burst is hot heart’s shell upon it.” Ahab dies moments after, pulled down into the inky depths of the briny ocean. He had warnings, and he chose not to heed it. He was obsessed with keeping on going deeper, and deeper into the maw of evil, and paid for it with his life. The world will destroy any whom it may tempt if we so choose to follow ourselves rather than the pathway that leads to the Light of God’s way. The only way we may know that is to use our intellect and volition to study and understand.

Lance Byers

March 15, 2025