Why Such a World as This?

What kind of world, what kind of nation did you wake up to today?  For me it seemed all too much like the nation I woke up to in my youth, back in the late 60’s and early 70’s; a nation deeply divided along racial, religious and political lines; with demonstrations in the street fueled by anger, frustration, anxiety, despondency and despair, but seemingly even more so. The big difference is that this is occurring in the midst of a global pandemic.

As I observed the recent marches and rioting on the streets, a song from the late 1960’s immediately came to mind, For What It’s Worth, by Buffalo Springfield. It was written and became popular during a time when baby boomers (my generation) were fighting for expanded cultural freedoms, African Americans were fighting for basic civil liberties, police were vilified as “pigs” or the Heat; and U.S. soldiers were fighting for their lives in Vietnam as well as for honor and respect within their own nation.  (Today the enemy is CVID-19, which has also had its divisive elements to it.)

The song was embraced essentially as an anthem for the social and political protests of the day, and in many ways has an eerie relevance to what’s happening here today. There is one particularly haunting line in the song where it says “There’s battle lines being drawn, Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”  Fifty years later, it appears that everybody continues to be wrong as we live in a society described in the Old Testament book of Judges (Judges 21:25), where everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes; where evil, justice, and equity are subjective, and were we are depending on all of the wrong people for the right answers to our historically intractable social, political, psychological and economic problems.

Thus the world remains a hostile, obscene and dangerous place to live for all mankind; a world filled with toil and trouble – frustration and futility – fear and anxiety – misery and death; what the Apostle Paul referred to in Galatians 1:3-4 as this present evil world.  And what is it that makes this world (a world that when first created, God called it good) now deemed by God to be evil?

It is because it has become a world where the infinitely glorious God who created all things, including man, for His glory (Isaiah 43:7), has been declared in our hearts and in our society to be irrelevant, inconsequential and unnecessary to human flourishing and our individual happiness. It is a world/nation wherein the glory of God is not proclaimed, where the greatness of God is not praised and admired, where the beauty of God is not savored and enjoyed, nor the goodness of God acknowledged with gratitude and thanksgiving.  It is a world in which the love of God is not treasured, where the word and wisdom of God is not esteemed, where the commandments of God are not obeyed, and where the promises of God are not believed.  It is a world where the grace and mercy of God are not cherished, because the justice of God is not respected; and the justice of God is not respected because the wrath and judgment of God are not feared.  It is a world where the presence of God is not prized, and where love for and adoration of God are absent from our hearts.  Instead, the most glorious, most desirable, most excellent of all Beings, the Creator and Sovereign ruler of the universe, is despised and disdained, dishonored and disrespected, disobeyed and disbelieved by everyone in the world to varying degrees.

 We become emotionally and morally indignant over racism, police brutality and the manifold injustices and inequities in our world, and rightfully so, but feel little if any outrage, indignation or remorse over our infinitely glorious Creator being belittled, blasphemed and denigrated by the very people He created to find our greatest joy, our ultimate pleasure and satisfaction, our eternal significance and security in knowing and loving and being loved by Him.

I have recently heard and read statements by politicians and protesters that “enough is enough,” referring to the history of racial injustice and related violence in this nation.  The Bible tells us that there is coming a day, and it could be any day, when God will say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” and the Apostle Paul tells us of that day in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, where he is encouraging those being persecuted for the faith in Jesus.  He writes,  since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.

In my previous post I focused on what it means to believe in Jesus, which is what Paul is referring to in this passage.  Galatians 1:4 tells us that Jesus came into this present evil world to deliver us from it and from God’s judgement on it.  God has promised to those who believe, a future world where perfect peace and justice will prevail (2 Peter 3:13). Meanwhile, I pray that all of us who have believed, will pray that God in His mercy and grace would come to multitudes caught up in this world and its injustice toward God, and open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus. (Acts 26:18)

Grace and Peace ×

(I am indebted to the writings of John Piper for helping me articulate much of this post)