‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.’
The under 40 crowd may recognize a few of these words but it’s doubtful they know the context….or author, place or time it was written. In America today, Shakespeare would be mocked for writing such hateful non-inclusive speech. If Marc Antony spoke the same words today, he would be immediately cancelled. He didn’t address women, minority groups, illegal aliens and limited his audience to those who were his countrymen. Obviously, he was the most dangerous extremist…a white male. Probably voted for the orange man as well.
When I lend my ear to the topics discussed in 2022, all I hear is ridicule and derision. The Constitution and Founding Fathers are mocked. Historical figures like Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington are derided. Martin Luther King is mocked when his accomplishments are ignored and America is called more racist than it ever has been. Men are mocked for having toxic masculinity. Women are mocked when a Supreme Court nominee plays politics and won’t say what a woman is.
At the core of everything happening in the world in 2022 is…GOD is being mocked.
The writer of Psalms is pretty succinct identifying the low hanging fruit in mocking God.
‘It was you who opened up springs and streams: you dried up the ever flowing rivers.’ Ps. 74:15. God is in control of the earth and it’s climate. Men mock Him by pointing to themselves and others as being responsible for drought.
‘The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and the moon.’ Ps.74:16. We mock God by ignoring what we see in the heavens.
‘It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter.’ Ps. 74:17. We mock God by ignoring the weather.
‘Remember how the enemy has mocked you, Lord, how foolish people have reviled your name.’ Ps. 74:18. We mock God when we act against people and places of worship that bear His name.
Pastors mock God when they preach against racism but call themselves pro-choice. Churches mock God when they let priests and pastors abuse their congregants and try to protect the denomination (Southern Baptist are the latest to be accused) instead of HIS creation. EVERY time a Christian, you and I, choose to support/give money to a company that spends our money to promote gender bending drug treatments to 6 year old children, give bonus dollars for an employee to get an abortion and flagrantly groom children to change how God made them, we mock the entire KINGDOM of God.
What else do our ears here today? We DON’T hear enough outrage and action from our leaders. Silence is not golden, it can be sin. ‘If ANYONE, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.’ James 4:17. ‘The one who does what is sinful is of the devil…The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work’ 1 John 3:8. Not speaking up while the work of the devil is encouraged and accepted, mocks the life and death of Jesus.
‘Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but expose them.’ Ephesians 5:11. Is that too direct for you? I’ll keep it short and close with this reminder. ‘Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.’ Galatians 6:7. What you and I sow today, WE will reap, not just future generations.
If you checked out on Marc Antony’s speech after the first line, listen for the hook that comes next. “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones.”
Our words and actions mock the Bible when our choices override His explicit Word. The extent we mock the Creator is epidemic. The evil we tolerate each day builds into acceptance tomorrow. God help our kids and grandchildren.