“For there was a deadly confusion throughout the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.”  1 Samuel 5:11

Deadly Confusion – If God abhors sin; do you think He sits idly by and watches evil have its way?  If God hates evil, do you think He takes no part in controlling its effects?  If God is holy, do you think He doesn’t interfere with the plan of the wicked?  Our contemporary culture would have us believe that God is the absentee landlord of the world.  He might own it, but He doesn’t seem to be around to manage it.  The current global view is that Man is in charge and can pretty much run things as he sees fit. 

But that’s not the view of the Bible.  In the Bible, God is very much an active agent in all the affairs of men, from the individual decisions you and I make right up to the choices of governments and countries.  God is shaping the history of men to His own purposes.  And that means that God decides when enough is enough, what He will allow and what He won’t and when men who stand in His way are swept aside and when they are not.  When it comes to the politics of creation, God is the only government in town.

This story found in Samuel reminds us that those who oppose God’s rule are not beyond God’s control.  When the Philistines violated God’s intentions, they paid a heavy price.  The words here are mehumah mawet – descriptively “a confusion and panic of violent death and disease”.  The Philistines weren’t perplexed.  They didn’t suffer from ambiguity or misunderstanding.  Oh, no!  They were in one terrible mess.  They were panicked, terrified, and disordered.  They were diseased and dying.  They were under God’s judgment.  Bad things were happening all around and they knew that they had only one option.  Straighten out the problem with God.  They didn’t run to their political advisors, their public health officials, their sanitation experts, their military generals.  They saw that their problems were a direct result of God’s personal involvement.  God was behind their calamity and only God could lift the plague.

Today we face deadly confusion on a global scale.  The world’s value system is an ethical travesty.  We slaughter the innocent and protect the guilty.  We honor the destroyers and punish the protectors.  We decry the righteous and uphold the wicked.  Deadly confusion will surely come upon us and no human effort will lift its oppression.  God is on the move.  Just watch.