The Crazy Factory

Turn on the TV or the radio or pick up a newspaper and start looking at what's going on in the world. It doesn't take long to wonder about the sanity of the world. The craziness is graduated, of course. There are levels of crazy. A woman went shopping twice in one week and left her Lexus with her baby inside to the parking attendant while she took her dog in to shop at Macy's. Insane. But, of course, it gets worse. On the day after Christmas in Scottsdale, a step-father walked into his home and shot his wife and children. The oldest son survived and managed to stab his step-father to death. He was unable to save his 17-year-old sister or his mother. Crazy. And, of course, it gets worse. Iraqis are killing Iraqis. Day after day they blow each other up in market places or walk into cafes with bombs strapped to themselves or just start shooting at people in the street. Crazy. In Sudan, groups are trying to eradicate groups. Genocide. Their differences are minimal. "It's a Sudan thing; you wouldn't understand." Absolutely insane. One has to wonder when a trial lawyer tries to get his client off by reason of insanity. What was originally sane about anyone who ruthlessly takes the life of another? What is potentially sane about a person who rapes someone?

I know, I know, this "sanity" of which they speak is a particular type. We'll let it go. But you get the idea. People are crazy. And we don't need the extremes of the news to see it. Each of us suffers from insanity to some degree. He knows that driving while drunk is a bad idea, but he does it and gets arrested for it. She knows that the soap operas she is watching are fiction, but she's still all caught up in them and wants to know why she can't find a guy like that. Everyone has heard "Honesty is the best policy", but all of us lie. Each of us, at some time or another, consciously does something that they know is wrong and stupid. It's crazy.

Where does this rampant, universal insanity come from? I'm not talking about those more specific types of insanity from which a few individuals suffer. I'm talking about this universal insanity that everyone seems to indulge. All of us do what we know to be wrong. All of us suffer to some degree or another from being crazy. Why?

I believe there is an answer. In Paul's letter to the Romans, he lays out the need for the Gospel pretty clearly by pounding them with nearly three complete chapters of bad news. The bad news is that humans are sinners, and that all have sinned and deserve damnation. He says that the basic problem is the suppression of truth (Rom. 1:18). He tells us that there is a core problem of ingratitude (Rom. 1:21). And the real problem: We do not acknowledge God (Rom. 1:21-25). In answer to my quandry, Paul makes this statement: "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done" (Rom. 1:28).

It is my belief that sin rots the brain. When humans indulge in sin, their reasoning capacities, at least in the area of morality, are diminshed. And the longer one indulges in sin, the more incapacitated one becomes. That which is morally questionable becomes "good". That which is clearly immoral becomes acceptable. People suffer from what Paul terms a "seared conscience" (1 Tim. 4:1-2). And insanity sets in. And since we are all sinners, we all suffer, to varying degrees, from this insanity.

What's my point? If we who know that the God of the universe hates sin (Psa. 5:5) can begin to see this insanity in ourselves, we can begin to face it. We can begin to hate it in ourselves. We can get "therapy", that "renewing of the mind" that Paul writes about (Rom. 12:2). And we can begin to see the urgency of it. We need to seek treatment right away. Don't delay!