There’s an old song by the Temptations called
“Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)”. The song is about
fifty years old, but the title is just as accurate today as it was then, if not
more accurate.
It also was pretty accurate about two thousand seven
hundred years ago, when the book of Isaiah was written. Maybe not the
whole world, but at least the part that the people of Israel lived in back in
Isaiah’s time, was a ball of confusion. Israel had enemies on all
sides. The very existence of the nation was threatened.
The people of Israel did not understand what was going
on. After all, they were supposed to be God’s chosen people. God
was supposed to protect them. God was supposed to take care of
them. God was supposed to make them prosper. How could these
terrible things be happening to them?
Isaiah explains it. He mentions all the good things
God had done for Israel, things done not because Israel deserved them, but
because of God’s great compassion and kindness. He tells how God said,
“Surely they are my people, children who will be true to me.” And because
they were God’s people, God’s children, God showed them love and mercy and
carried them to success and prosperity, for many years and many generations.
But then, as Isaiah says, “they
rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.” And they continued to do so.
And continued to do so. And finally, God had enough. And so, as
Isaiah says, God “turned and became their enemy and He Himself fought against
them.”
The people of Israel had
brought this on themselves. And yet, they still could not understand it. They were
saying, in effect, “God, where did you go? Why are you not helping
us? You always helped us before. Why are you not there for us now?
What had happened is that the
people of Israel had taken God for granted. God had always taken care of
them. Therefore, God always would take care of them, no matter what they did.
After all, they were God’s chosen people, right? God owed it to them to
take care of them.
And they found out
different. It was not that God did not love them. It was not that
God did not care about them. But as the Apostle Paul says in Galatians,
Chapter Six, God is not to be mocked. God is not to be taken for
granted. When they did not pay attention to God, when they did not honor
God and worship God, God took away His support from them. Not because God
did not love them, but because God loved them enough to discipline them.
God loved them enough to remind them of who He is. God loved them enough
to remind them that He is the almighty, all-powerful God. God loved them
enough to remind them to worship Him and honor Him. Not because God is
vain and needs to hear our praise, but because God deserves that because of who
God is.
As I said, our current
situation is not all that different. The world feels like a ball of
confusion today, too. It seems like the news is uniformly bad.
Terrorists have taken over Afghanistan. COVID cases are back on the
rise. Prices are going up. We’re once again starting to have
shortages of certain things. There are wildfires and hurricanes and
earthquakes. There are incidents of rioting and lawlessness. And
that’s just a sampling--there are many other things we could mention.
In going through this, I want
to make clear that my point is not to point a finger of blame at anyone for
it. My point is, simply, that there’s a lot of bad news right now.
And a lot of the time, we feel like we don’t understand what’s going on.
Now, I want to point out one
distinct difference between us and the nation of Israel. The Bible says
that the people of Israel were, in fact, God’s chosen people. Nowhere
does the Bible say the people of the United States of America are God’s chosen
people. The Bible was written long before any human being had any idea
that there would even be a United States of America.
But at the same time, I think
it’s undeniable that God has blessed the United States of America in many
ways. We live in a big and beautiful and bountiful land. We have
enjoyed prosperity to a degree that probably no other country ever has.
And there are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is certainly the
blessings of almighty God.
And it’s also undeniable that
people are turning away from God. Thirty years ago, eighty-five percent
of Americans claimed to be Christians. Now, it’s sixty-five
percent. Only twenty-four percent attend church on a weekly basis.
Of born-again Christians--note, this is not all Christians, this is people who
specifically say they have been born again--of born-again Christians less than forty
percent say that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.
None of this is probably big
news to you. Most of us have probably noticed the decline of Christianity
in the United States. All this really does is quantify it, put numbers to
what you already knew was happening. We, as a society, have taken God for
granted. We’ve assumed that, because God had blessed us in the past, God
would continue to bless us, no matter what we did. We’ve acted as if God
owed it to us to bless us. And you see the results of our turning away
from God in the society that’s all around us. Our society is, again, a
ball of confusion.
But the question is, what do we
do about it? Because we can sit here all day long and talk about how society
has turned away from God. And that might make us feel better. It
might make us feel superior, to criticize society in that way. But if
we’re not going to do anything about it, nothing’s going to change.
Things will just continue to decline.
And we say, well, but what can
we do? We’re just a handful of people. We’re sitting here in this
little church in this little town in this little state. Nobody’s going to
care what we think or what we do. There’s nothing we can do about any of
this.
Well, that is one
response. And if that’s the response we go with, then we’ll be
right. There will be nothing we can do, because we’ve decided not to try.
But what if, instead, we went
to God? What if we went to God and asked God, what can we do about
this? What if we each went to God, and specifically said, God, what can I
do about this? What do you think God’s response would be?
Well, I don’t know. But
I’m pretty sure God’s response will not be “Nothing”. I’m pretty sure
that, if we go to God in this way, God will give us something to do in response
to all this.
Now, I’m not saying that God is
going to tell you to go out and lead a nationwide revival movement.
However, I’m not saying that God is not going to tell you that, either.
After all, every great movement had to start somewhere, with someone. The
Bible has all kinds of examples of God calling unlikely people to do great
things. There is no reason God could not choose you. Or me.
But if God does not tell you
that, that’s not an excuse for doing nothing. Again, if we each go to
God, and ask, “God, what can I do about this?”, God will give us something to
do. It might be doing something to turn our community toward God. It
might be doing something to turn your family or your friends toward God.
It might be doing something that will turn just one person toward God. I
don’t know what it will be. But I know that if we truly ask God what we
can do, God will not tell us to do nothing. God will give us something to
do.
So think about it. Pray
about it. Ask God, “What can I do?” Because here’s what I
know. If the Christians, the people who have not turned away from God, do
nothing to change this, then nothing is going to change. Our country will
continue to turn farther and farther away from God. And things will
continue to get worse and worse.
It’s up to us as
Christians. No one else is going to turn this country back to God.
No one else is going to resolve this ball of confusion. If it’s going to
happen, if the country is going to turn back to God, it will be the Christians
who do it. Led, of course, by the all-powerful, awesome God that we
worship.
Let’s not surrender to the ball
of confusion. Let’s ask God what we should do. Then, let’s do
it. Let’s help bring this country back to God. If it’s going to
happen, it’s up to the Christians. In other words, it’s up to us.
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