Chann Lork, our missionary in Cambodia, first alerted me to the tragedy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that occurred just a few days before Thanksgiving.  It was a national holiday, the three-day water festival, and Chann says it was like the day of Pentecost when the crowd came together in amazement and started spreading rumors at the commotion of the apostles speaking in tongues.  What happened at the festival has been described as “mass panic.”  Officials investigating the tragedy “found that the natural swaying of a suspension bridge ignited fears it would collapse among an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people on the structure. In frantic efforts to escape, the crowd pressed and heaved, crushing hundreds of people and leading some to dive off the span into the water” (AP, 11/29/10).  Apparently, people began voicing fears that the bridge was going to collapse under the weight of the revelers, and as word spread the rumors escalated.  In the end, 351 died and 395 more were injured (ibid.).  The bridge never collapsed.

Observers of human behavior know how all-too-common this sort of thing is.  There was an old Andy Griffith episode about rumors and gossip, where gossipers transform Barney’s cut finger into him shooting himself dead in less than three hours.  I have seen the same thing in church life, where hearsay and “talebearing” allows a sickness or situation to grow much larger than life.  While these, like old Barn’s situation, can be more humorous than dangerous, there are other times where not getting the story right can be fatal.

Many people build their entire worldview around claims, assertions, and beliefs that are entirely untrue.  Sometimes, that worldview breeds fear and trembling.  I have known people who are certain their dead ancestors were going to pay them a visit, and that prospect was terribly unnerving to them.  People who believe they have seen ghosts and apparitions get obsessed with them and can become irrational.  Others who believe that demon possession happens today, that buy into a premillennial view of the end times with the apocalypse and period of tribulation concepts, that hear doomsday predictors boldly claim the world will end on a specific, imminent date, and the like live in and sometimes spread fear. 

It is a fearful thing to consider going to the Judgment without the blood of Christ covering our sins (cf. 2 Th. 1:7-9; Mt. 25:31-34; Heb. 10:31).  Too many fail to be frightened at the consequences of their continued disobedience.  Yet, others are needlessly frightened or frightened about the wrong things.  They worry about things over which they have no control.  They fail to put their trust in God and His word, and so they are ripe for futile fears.  We rightly consider the tragedy in Cambodia to have been needless and costly, but so is holding on to any belief that is without biblical foundation.  “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn. 4:1).

Neal Pollard