Confusion in Babylon—and in America

The confusion in our culture today is akin to a similar time, thousands of years ago, when the people of God had abandoned Him. Out of their arrogance and defiance of God, Nimrod led them to build a tower to the worship of the Zodiac, another form of self-gratification. God on His part sent them a spirit of confusion. Their speech became unintelligible.

Today, I am compelled to write this post out of sheer frustration at the “babbling” of our own culture. Nothing highlights this spirit of confusion and brings it to the surface more than what we are seeing now at this latest chapter in Islamic terrorism, the Orlando tragedy.

All of the fingers of blame are now pointing everywhere except where they should be pointing.

In response to the Orlando tragedy, we see fingers pointed at God, pointed at Islam as a whole, or in the one of the more bizarre accusations from a Planned Parenthood offshoot, pointed at a “toxic masculinity & a global culture of imperialist homophobia.”

And to top it all, an ACLU staff attorney blamed conservative Christians. Directing his comments to Christians on Sunday, Chase Strangio tweeted: “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.”

However, it is the Christian Bible that can actually tell us what is going on. Throughout Scripture, we clearly see that whenever God is out, confusion is in. When God is abandoned, bloodshed reigns.

That is as simple as when you flip the light switch to the off position and the light goes out. Pointing fingers, or trying to analyze how the light went out and who caused it, is no different than mass hysteria.

Our courts, our government and our society have long since convinced themselves that biblical morality, or biblical absolutes, have no place in modern “civilized” society. The “absolutes are obsolete.”

But whether they know it or not, by rejecting God’s moral absolutes, they also reject the very God who authored those absolutes. And when God is rejected, His Spirit departs our shore. It’s like flipping that switch to the off position. Only in this case, the Light of the World goes out.

God does not sit in heaven, thinking, How can I hurt these people? Instead, we are only experiencing the natural result of our rejecting Him.

I know that doesn’t make sense to the spiritually blind. For them, unfortunately, it makes no difference whether the light is on or off. But the children of the light need to understand that our actions have consequences.

Long ago, Israel had likewise persisted in compromising their faith in Yah-weh. They worshipped self-serving gods and left God no choice but to depart. And when God’s Spirit departed, the Babylonian terrorists showed up.

Then, as now, confusion ensued. Even prophets pointed fingers and blamed each other for the disaster. All the false prophets who opposed the prophet of God, Jeremiah, wanted to kill him because his prophecy had come to pass.

Now during this tragic time when so many of our fellow citizens are bereaved, we must earnestly pray for them and offer our deepest condolences. In the midst of their loss, we should pray that they will know God as their comforter.

And above all, we must rend our hearts in repentance on behalf of our nation. We need to cry out to God, in that well-known song, “Come back to our land … come back to our land!”

I have no assurance if God will answer our prayers and bless us with His presence once again. But we must keep asking. As Scripture says, “A contrite and broken heart, God will not despise.” {eoa}

Michael Youssef, Ph.D., is the founder and president of Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, a worldwide ministry that leads the way for people living in spiritual darkness to discover the light of Christ through the creative use of media and on-the-ground ministry teams. Youssef was born in Egypt.