Someone said that they don’t like 2022 because it’s 2020 two times.  Get it.  Twenty-twenty two.  Twenty-twenty two-times.  They were being funny.

I remember when we got the call that said we had to cancel school and in a real hurry in March 2020.  We went to zoom classes.  Putting an entire school on zoom in a week was huge.

I know people and churches that had really bad things happen for them in 2021.  I’m not going to name them, but you know or know of people who died in 2021, maybe a loved one.  We wish they were here still.  They’re not.  I know several from just this year, two I was very close to.  I know emergency room nurses who’ve had a very difficult time.

This is the end of 2021 and men and groups rank events, books, politics, music, movies, and people.  Did last year’s predictions come true?  What will happen in 2022?  People rank the best.  They rank the worst.  Now that we have the internet, it’s a good way for someone to get traffic, especially if they post a separate page for every number in their list.

I want us to consider how we make a list of the worst things that happen in a given year.  How does a Christian determine that?  What is actually really bad?  What hurts the most?  Who or what causes the most damage?  The media evaluates events for us.   They look at an event as the end of the world, the next year it happens again, and they don’t mention it, because they don’t want to shame the one who did it.

When we read the Bible, God doesn’t mention national freedom as an important issue.  It’s important in the United States Constitution, but not scripture.  If something causes you to violate God’s Word, God addresses it.  Daniel had a mandated diet in Babylon.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had mandated worship of an idol.  Then Daniel had mandated that he could not pray.  Daniel ate.  The three Hebrews did not bow.  Daniel prayed.  The mandates were less the concern as much as what saints did with each mandate.

Jewish leaders mandated Peter and John, don’t preach.  They answered, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.  We obey God rather than men.  The worst thing to happen wasn’t mandating not preaching.  It was preachers not standing when told not to preach.  That didn’t happen in that case.

Not obeying what God said, that’s one of the worst things happening in a given year.  Is there anything worse?  I think there is.  Changing what God said and eliminating it as something He even said; that’s worse.  Perverting biblical doctrine and practice so that people are hearing sometimes the opposite of what God said, that’s worse than not doing what God said.  They are similar, but if the doctrine and practice of God’s Word is still safeguarded for future belief and practice, that’s more fundamental in importance.

Twitter feeds and social media said in 2021 the worst thing was either the vaccination or those not getting the vaccination, and then masked or unmasked.  The country was split right down the middle on this issue.  Perhaps worse than that was that the vaccination or the mask was such a big issue.  While people are mocking government policy on Covid-19, something far worse could be happening.  Or is that the worst?  Maybe you could argue for that.

When we decide the worst things happening, we could compare events.  January 6 at the U.S. capital or the murders in Chicago?  January 6 at the U.S. capital or the protests in the previous summer?  Abortions or children who live and hear a false gospel, damning their souls forever?

Here’s my attempt at a list of the worst things that happened in 2021.

5.  A significant percentage of young people left biblical churches.

Studies show a significant increase in people in their twenties leaving church.  This is close to seventy percentile.  I don’t like the fads and philosophies I see embraced by young people, but giving up is the worst.  That influences all the other decisions they make.

I watched a chapel service for Bob Jones University and the speaker said to the congregated group of young people that the crowd would split right down the middle between liberals and conservatives.

4.  Self-centered, materialistic, and superficial living increased in magnitude among all church members.

For years church leaders try to keep their people with social activities and fun.   Church growth means adding more people, not true conversion and disciples.  In the minds of the church members, this is fellowship.  More than ever, professing Christians cannot endure sound doctrine.  Lives are filled up with temporal things.  Biblical doctrines conform to a casual, comfortable lifestyle.  Normal biblical doctrine, practice, and standards are now too offensive.

The worship of churches is very often entertainment, and the people can’t tell the difference.  The people are more worldly than ever and you can’t distinguish between the church and the world.  What the world was not long ago, the churches are today.

3.  The number of churches preaching a confused, watered down, or false gospel increases.

Churches either remove repentance from their doctrinal statements and plans of salvation or they redefine it so that it isn’t repentance anymore.  This affects also what these churches teach on sanctification, because believers aren’t expected to live according to the Bible.  More than ever when you ask a professing Christian what the gospel is, he or she cannot tell you.

If someone does something akin to “pray this prayer with me” and gets a salvation statistic, that does not result in someone saved.  It results in someone more fooled than he or she even was before.

2.  The number of churches active in preaching the gospel reaches an all time low.

If a tree falls and no one hears it, did it make a noise?  If a church has the gospel, and no one preaches it, does it have the gospel?

People are so distracted with their phones, social media, politics, and what’s happening through the media, that less gospel preaching occurs.  More than ever, people are so filled with doubt and then lacking in confidence, that they don’t have the assurance to be bold.  The less gospel preaching, the less salvation and more are lost.  Increase in eternal death is worse than increase in physical death.  Average life expectancy dropped in 2020 more than any time since World War 2.  Less gospel preaching results in less eternal life expectancy.

1.  True worship of God decreased.

True worship gives God what He wants.  What people want clashes with what God wants.  God created the world for His pleasure.  True individual worship decreased.  True corporate worship decreased.  Just like the worship of God decreased in apostatizing Israel, it is across the world.  Rather than giving God what He wants to hear, God received what people wanted more than ever in 2021.

The natural consequence of not preaching the gospel or preaching a false and watered down one is that true worship also decreases.  It results in greater apostasy, turning from the true God, and God receives less worship.

Honorable Mention.  Honorable mention for 2021?  Abortions have dropped since their high in the 1980s, 2017 the lowest since Roe v. Wade was passed.  Still, however, the murder of thousands of innocent babies is the worst physical event every year.  It just can’t compete with spiritual and eternal events, as worse than them.

Also honorable mention, increased role confusion.  Role confusion increased significantly in the world, more effeminate men and more masculine women.  This affected the abortion rate.  The lack of reproduction that comes from man and woman relationships results in less abortion.  There are less babies to abort.  God designed the family to pass along the truth to the next generation.  When families break up, this results in less truth, less worship, less preservation of what God wants in the world.  Role confusion breaks up the family as much as any one cause.

Those are the worst of 2021.  Natural disasters, pandemics, and political issues can’t compare with the spiritual and eternal ones.