Vol. 9, No. 4, July - Aug. 1980
WORLD CHAOS AND GOD
Colin Blair
Readings: Genesis 1:2; 6:13; Exodus 12:22
ALL three of the above Scriptures refer to conditions of chaos. Having spent the last two years in the troubled land of Iran, I feel entitled to say something about the subject of chaos. I am often questioned about conditions there, and most of the questions have to do with physical dangers. To me, however, these are not the important questions; far greater are the spiritual problems of how to relate what is happening to the purposes of God.[66/67]
When I arrived in Teheran two years ago it was on a Friday. This corresponds to Sunday in a Muslim land, so I found myself in a church service, as a member of a congregation of about a thousand Westerners. Many of these were in the country by reason of a genuine sense of call from Christ. They had left all to serve God in Iran. Some had left good jobs and opportunities in secular callings at home to pursue those same callings for Christ's sake in that land. For us all it constituted a great problem to see all our expectations collapsing in the chaotic conditions which were overtaking the country. The shootings and mob violence, the burning down of buildings, constituted problems for the moment, but the far greater questions concerned the meaning of it all. When it became increasingly clear that the Shah's regime was about to fall and Khomeini's rule to take over, those of us who had prayed for years about the spread of the gospel in Iran were bewildered. Where was God? Was the Devil wresting power from the hands of the Almighty? These were the kind of questions which had to be faced by so many Christian workers, questions which posed a bigger danger than all the bullets and bombs.
We sat through last Winter in shivering cold because of the fuel shortage, and were almost numbed with the question: Where is God in all this? When things became impossible in Teheran we moved on into Pakistan, only to find there believers who have to live constantly under the acute tension of Islam. They could not leave the country, as we could. They have no alternative than to live on in that atmosphere of extreme pressure. What could we say to them? No escapist theories could be of any help. They needed encouragement; they needed positive reassurance concerning the purposes of God. This is the context of my message now. It relates to the faithfulness of God amid the chaos of our world.
The Challenge of Chaos
The three Old Testament passages cited above introduce to us this theme of chaos. It is the common feature of all three. First there is natural chaos -- "The earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:2). Secondly there is man-made chaos -- "The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth" (Genesis 6:13). In those days it was fallen men who caused the chaos -- a condition which is all too familiar to us today. Thirdly, there was divinely-created chaos, the kind of thing which rocked Egypt to its foundations when God acted in judgement, saying: "I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt ... and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgement" (Exodus 12:12).
The question which we must all face concerns our own attitude at such times. Many Christians opt out of such situations; they abdicate to the Devil. We in Teheran had to meet this challenge when chaos came into our situation. To many it was difficult to see anything but the power of evil. It seemed that there were no restraints upon anarchy and no possibility of the chaos giving place to order. The only remedy for despair was to go back to the Bible, and there find that in all the three varieties of chaos, God was present, and God was at work.
