upside down people

You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"? 

Isaiah 29:16

Sin turns a society upside down and backwards. It leads people to be far from God. It leads to ridiculous conclusions about the way that things are. It blinds eyes from seeing and stops ears from hearing. People will be dark to the truth because sinful selfism creates a topsy turvy world where what was right looks very weird to those who have been deceived by the "new normal".

In the case of rebellious Israel, they went from being the chosen people of God commissioned to draw the world to God to being a people who denied God altogether. In the most outlandish extremes they denied God as the Creator or believed Him to be outdated and stupid. They were denying God altogether in their new commitment to living in Bizarro World. Their thinking was that they made God and no longer needed what they had made.

These words are eerily practical to my own culture. Academia teaches a secularism in which God is nothing more than an ancient societal construct. It was a way for "primitive" peoples to keep their mortal fears at bay as they evolved to become masters of the planet. It really does regard the potter as the clay, just as God saw His people doing in Jerusalem so long ago. It is an upside down conclusion, sure to lead to the same chaos God warned Israel to watch out for as it was soon to overtake their society with complete breakdown.

Upside down people need an encounter with the justice, mercy, and grace of God in order to have their world restored to its proper position. The church exists with the message of the gospel to do just that. We are the sane people locked in the asylum hoping a few of the upside down people captivated in the current madness will be set clearheaded and back on their feet by the gospel.