The Frenzy

A media frenzy about Wayne Rooney’s “metatarsal” descended upon the world recently.  First “hopes sank”, then [as if to make us all sea-sick] “hopes were given a massive boost”, then “Rooney takes part in full training”, then, “Rooney legal threat rumoured”, then, “Wayne Rooney "injury-free"” and at last as if with gasps of profundity it was declared that “a miracle of sorts” had been worked as Rooney rises to full fitness!
For a few days, this was made to be the story of all stories, the news of all news and the issue towering above every issue in the world.  Men are hungering, children are starving, and the multitudes rush in their madness into eternity without Jesus Christ as saviour, and the “news” is Rooney.  How horribly sad it all is.

The Reality Check

Time for a reality check.  It is true there are matters of which you may say, this is the story of all stories, the news of all news and the issue towering above every issue in the world, but it is not Wayne Rooney’s foot and it is not the nation’s hopes for the World Cup. 
Confronting a world of real people is the story of all stories, the news of all news and the issue of all issues but it was never the trivia of kick and play.  No, this is not vital reality, and the fact that the developed world’s eyes were transfixed upon Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal tells us its time for a reality check.
Wake up for millions are suffering; wake up for multitudes are sorrowing; wake up for there is more to this life than the things of this life and multitudes are Hell-bound.  Wake up for we shall all be weighed in the balances and woe to any one of us if we are found wanting.

The Real Issues.

Sin and its necessary shadow, misery, are the real and vitally important issues of our world, and not a game of football.  What will it profit old England if she wins the World Cup and looses her own soul?  And where is the real and vitally important profit in the superfit bodies of stars and sportsmen if they loose their own souls?  And what will it profit any one of us if we give so much attention to football and loose our own soul?  Rooney, beware lest there be in you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God [Heb 3.12], and Mr Journalist, what think you of Jesus whose son is he [Mat 22.42]?  on your answer to that question hangs your real issue – your eternity.  The real and vital issues, those truly life threatening issues are not ultimately the issues of the body but those of the soul.  Unbelief like ungodliness is deadly.  “Smoking kills”, says the cigarette pack, well, smoking kills the bodies of many, but unbelief and ungodliness kills the whole man - always.   We have news for those who bring us the news – men, all men, are in misery and die as a consequence of sin.  Man’s great issue is with his God whom he has enraged and whose wrath he justly deserves and until and unless he has the Saviour, Jesus Christ, the wrath of that angered God comes upon him .

Need for a miracle.

The press reported that a “miracle or sorts” had been worked in the healing of Rooney’s injury – well, we abstain from commenting on that particular, but we will say that a genuine miracle is the only cure for the real and vital issues of sin and misery in your heart and life. The media together with the sporting fraternity would be a different media and sporting fraternity if the Lord’s cure for sin and misery were their portion.  What a BBC and what a CBS the BBC and CBS would be were they transformed by that total, radical, irreversible, and spiritual transformation that only the power of the risen Christ by the Holy Spirit can bring.
Its not religion and its not ritual that men need, its relationship, relationship with the true and living God, a relationship that gifts regeneration, renewal, and resurrection.
The multitudes in our world do not need a “miracle of sorts” they need the real miracle, the miracle of Jesus Christ their own personal saviour.  Now that’s news.