I was sitting at a deli close to my office for lunch yesterday, and I overheard part of a conversation at a table near me. There were two business men eating lunch, and I didn’t hear what the person closest to me said, because his back was toward me. However, I heard the guy sitting opposite him raise his voice a little and say, “Come on now, everyone else is doing it! It’s really no big deal!” I have no clue what they were talking about, but as soon as I heard that, I thought, That seems to be the common reply to many things people have any questions about. If everyone else is doing something, what does it matter if it’s not right to do it?
In Ezekiel chapter 22, God is speaking about the sins of the city of Jerusalem, and how far they had fallen away from Him, and He says, “And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have returned their way upon their heads, declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 22:30-31)
God could not find a single person in that city to make Him not want to destroy it for how wicked it had become and how far away from Him it had wandered. I wonder how many of those people in the nation of Israel had simply stated, “Well, everyone else is doing it…” when they began to turn from following God to following idols and the wicked ways of their neighbors around them.
Just because “everyone else” is doing something does not justify our actions for following the crowd – especially when we know something is wrong and not pleasing to God. When we stand before God one day, we will have to give an account of OUR OWN actions, not the actions of everyone else. There is NO EXCUSE for doing wickedness, even if everyone else in the ENTIRE world is.
Romans 2:6-11 reminds us, “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.”
Make certain YOUR OWN actions are right, and don’t simply make choices or let people persuade you to do what you know is wrong just because “everyone else” is doing it. Dr. Charles Stanley often says, “Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him!” And that is what our choice should be – even if NO ONE else is doing it!