Spiritual Lemmings

“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” The Lord of Hosts has revealed this in my hearing: “This sin of yours will never be wiped out.” The Lord God of Hosts has spoken. - Isaiah 22:13b-14 (NASB)

I once read a book that described the insane partying that went on at the end of World War II in Berlin while the Allies carpet-bombed the city and the dreaded Russian army advanced into its suburbs. They literally put on burlesque shows while people were being shot outside on the streets!

In my discussion with some Korean War veterans, I learned that the number one industry that sprouted up in the Korean population when the armies came through was not laundry or cooking, but prostitution. The same thing happened in the Philippines while I was in the Marines.

Did you ever watch a Vietnam War movie like “Apocalypse Now” or “Platoon”? If you did, you probably saw soldiers returning from the killing fields only to party like crazy. Faced with mind-numbing death every day, they chose to numb their minds even more with alcohol, drugs and sex.

While living in Central African Empire, I watched the African truck drivers as they traveled up and down the Trans-African highway, having sex with prostitutes at every truck stop – right under signs that warned about the inherent dangers. AIDS had not yet been heard of, but there were plenty of rumors about a strange disease that afflicted those who had sex with prostitutes. AIDS has since devastated sub-Saharan Africa. Some 24.5 million people presently have the killer disease and approximately 2.7 million more are infected every year. In 2006 alone, two million sub-Saharan Africans died of AIDS leaving behind more than twelve million orphans. Yet the sexual activity has not even slowed down.

What is it about us that when faced with death, we try to deny its existence through substance abuse, or drown ourselves in illicit pleasures? You’d think that as Death made its rounds, those left unscathed would live lives marked either by gratitude for their deliverance or by preparation for the Reaper’s soon return.

But because we will not confess our sins, repent of them and seek God’s favor, we render our sins unforgivable. They are not unforgivable because of some lack in God’s mercy or grace. They are unforgivable because instead of admitting that we NEED forgiveness, we rise up in righteous indignation against God’s judgment and think to ourselves “How dare He? How dare He call my lifestyle a sin?”

And so, like the Babylonians in 538 BC, who partied while the Medes and Persians diverted their waterway and marched right under the walls, we too party and celebrate while our enemy mows us down by the millions. In this steadfast march into oblivion, we are not much better than spiritual lemmings, all following the crowd all the way to the very gates of hell.