In the 1990s, Michael W Smith released a compact disc that not only helped us find our place in this world, our place in the world…but he also told us to “Go west young man”. Even though his music makes every modern Christian blush with embarrassment now, Smitty may have stumbled onto an interesting trend found not only in the Bible, but in Christian history.
For some reason, the Bible always tends to associate going west as going towards God’s will, and of course that generally leaves going east as the opposite. For example, after Cain killed Abel he fled to the east. And when the men decided to get to heaven via the Tower of Babel, they built it in the east. When Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans for Canaan per God’s request, he was heading west. Years later he and Lot went their separate ways and Lot chose to go east towards Sodom and Gomorrah (a bad choice), while the ever faithful Abraham went west. Isaiah 24:14-15 says those in the west are singing the joy of the Lord and they should be in the east too. Israel rebelled against God so he sent them into exile in Babylon, which is to the east.
Now this is not a completely airtight model, since the Exodus to the promised land was towards the east, but there is a huge number of “Go West” examples that seem to be too coincidental. What really makes this interesting is when you look at the spread of the Church from Acts to today.
The Church (i.e. followers of Christ post-death/resurrection) starts out in Acts in Jerusalem and eventually spread. Now there were many of the apostles and faithful who ventured in other cardinal directions, yet the majority of the church revival and growth occurred in the direction of Rome which is to the west. This revival and stronghold of Christianity continued spreading west to all of Europe and eventually skipped across to a little place called America in the west. America became the new area of revival and the defender of orthodoxy with a pair of Great Awakenings. Today the large church spread and revivals are transpiring in places west of California, like South Korea. Even China is slowly becoming infected.
I am not saying that the Lord has chosen to ignore the rest of the world in these times, but it does seem that the largest movements have moved from east to west throughout history. I don’t want to seem like a crazy Nostradamus, but it could be very interesting when these revivals come full circle back to Jerusalem…
References:
- Genesis 4:16, Genesis 11:2, Genesis 11:31, Genesis 13:10-11
- Isaiah 24:14-15
- 2 Kings 25:10-11
- Go West Young Man, Compact Disc [CD]