Louis Armstrong is long gone, but his music still impacts us. His most popular song, “What A Wonderful World,” has been played over 315 MILLION times on Spotify. Here’s a YouTube video of this song. One viewer commented, “Every time I lose faith in humanity I listen to this and a lil of it comes back.” Seventeen thousand people liked his comment. As heart-warming the song is, it really shows us that this world is sick.

Please don’t get me wrong. God’s creation was good. He said so himself. And that goodness indeed is evident. However, this goodness has been so marred by evil that it’s hard to see. As popular as Armstrong’s song is, it still misses the point. The only thing wonderful, truly, is God. It’s not us. This world is sick.

It’s A Heart Thing.

There is something fundamentally wrong with us. Deep down.

The heart is deceitful above all things,
    and desperately sick;
    who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:9

That’s God’s assessment, not mine, although I have come to see that he is right. Certainly, he made us good to start, but we’ve ruined that. How? With sin. Our own, willful sin. Through it, we harm ourselves and others, far more that we care to even begin to imagine. Add it all up, and you have chaos. God has made a wonderful world, but we have ruined that. This world is sick.

There Is Only One Hope.

I hate to tell you this, but Louis Armstrong’s song won’t make this world a better place to live. We have a man in which to place our hope, but it’s not Armstrong. It’s Jesus.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:30-31

Jesus isn’t happy about what’s going on. Don’t kid yourself for a minute. You will have nowhere to hide come that day. “I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath.” (Jeremiah 21:5)

Repent. Today. While you still can. For you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Choose wisely.