Who you Root For

Ezekiel 25:6-7

(6) For thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within your soul against the land of Israel,

(7) therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand against you, and will hand you over as plunder to the nations. And I will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries; I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

It's football season in case you haven't noticed. My alma mater has a huge game tonight. The honor of the school and the conference is on the line as both have been much maligned over the past few years. Normally I would do homework on a Saturday night, but this is a special enough game that I will take time to watch it with my brother-in-law. He and I go all the way back to our freshman year at OSU in 1991, so this is something we do together.

Millions of people around the country will be doing something similar this weekend. Many will even do it twice -- once on Saturday for their college and then on Sunday for their pro team. People rearrange their lives for these games. I think that, in the main, it is idolatrous and foolish. It can certainly be good fun, but more and more serious Christians are realizing how easily it turns to idolatry.

In the end, it really doesn't matter if you root for OSU or USC tonight. It doesn't matter if you root for the Browns or the Vikings. When Jesus comes back in judgment I don't think anyone will be concerned about who won the Super Bowl this year. The games serve little ultimate purpose by themselves.

However, this passage makes it clear that there is a kind of rooting that can be disastrous. You want to be rooting for God's team. Now I don't think it's as easy to determine God's team as many out there would have you believe. I'm not sure that His team is necessarily the Republican party or the Southern Baptist Convention, though I think that they contain some of His players. His team is composed of those who love Him and want to glorify Him with their lives. It is those who have repented from their old way of life and have turned to worship Him.

This passage shows us what happens to those who root against God. It won't be pretty in the end. I submit that it is a good idea to get on His side earlier rather than later.