How God Responds to Attempts to Cancel Culture:
The “Children of the Promise”
May 1, 2021
Larry R Evans
Reflective Quiz
1 True or False? Trying to replace one culture with another is arbitrary and wrong.
2 True or False? Cancel Culture and Cancer Culture are concerns the Bible does not address.
3. True or False? Protecting those who are guilty is a form of prejudice and should not be tolerated.
4. True or False? God’s plan for Abraham did not end at the cross.
5. True or False? The fact that God chose Abram, an obscure nomad, suggests that God’s values are often different from ours.
Introduction
What’s so wrong with “counterculture? When God spoke to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, wasn’t He promising to replace one culture with another? When the Bible tells us, that God has a “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1) ready to receive us, doesn’t this mean that He is canceling one culture and replacing it with another? How is what God is planning any different from what we see happening today?
In 1983 an album included the song “Your Love Is Canceled.” The song was in reference to a date a celebrity had with a woman who was self-centered and wanted to take advantage of his celebrity status. So disgusted was the celebrity with the woman that he referred to the woman as being “canceled.” The term was picked up by African-American slang. By 2015 the concept became widespread and referred to a personal decision to stop supporting a person or work. (See Wikipedia)
We do hear a lot about “cancel culture” today, but there is another term also used but gets little recognition, and that is, “cancer culture.” A cancer culture is much like a cancel culture. Like cancer, it happens when people spread an idea or an opinion which they back for no reason other than they heard it from someone they thought to be important or influential. (Urban Dictionary)
God’s Plan for Abram
The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.” (Gen. 12:1-3)
As we studied this passage before, so it is important to recognize again that God promised Abram a future far beyond what he would have had if he remained where he was. Even though Abram did not know his destination, nor did he have an heir, God promised him three specific blessings:
1. He would become a great nation
2. He would receive God’s blessings
3. God would make his name great
Ultimately Abram was to bless the entire earth. Through this one family, God wanted to reach and transform the entire world. This raises a question:
1. True or False? Trying to replace one culture with another is arbitrary and wrong.
Is transforming culture and canceling a culture the same thing?
God as Abram’s Future
After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.” (Gen. 15:1)
Why do you think God told Abram not to be afraid? The experience of Lot was clearly in the mind of Abram, but those enemies were defeated. Abram had left behind all symbols of security: country, family and home. His future was uncertain. The experience of Lot and his family brings us to the next question:
5 True or False? Cancel Culture and Cancer Culture are concerns the Bible does not address.
When the LORD said, “I am your shield” Abram was being reminded that God was his future and that is a lesson for all of us today! No matter how evil the world is, God is our shield—to paraphrase a “proverb” from our youth: sticks and stones may hurt my bones but your promise, God, is my eternal hope and confidence.”
Later the psalmist would pick up this shield symbolism,
But you, LORD, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high. (Ps 3:3)
5 True or False? Protecting those who are guilty is a form of prejudice and should not be tolerated.
Abram was not perfect, and he nearly lost his wife because of his lack of faith in God. But there was something special about Abram. He discovered there is also something special and about God. Abram learned that if we step out in faith and place our life in the hands of God, He accepts us and then begins to mold us more and more into His image.
One dark night, God took Abram outside and had him look into the sky. What he could not see in the daylight he could see now. The sky was filled with stars. God explained that the stars represented his “offspring.” (Gen. 15:5). And what was the response of Abram?
Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:6)
We need to pause here a moment and reflect on what we’ve just learned – something that we need to learn over and over again for the “first time.” Sometimes it takes moments of “darkness” to grasp just how much God loves us and has a future for everyone who dares place their trust in Him. In Genesis faith is defined as belief, in the sense of placing absolute trust in God’s power to fulfill His promise.
For a moment, let’s go back to our first question:
True or False? Trying to replace one culture with another is arbitrary and wrong.
With the experience of Abram we see how God seeks to change culture. He doesn’t do it by “canceling” an individual but by giving him or her an opportunity to be transformed from the inside out.
In Carrie’s devotional reading this past week, she found this statement that is so appropriate for our reflection today with this week’s Bible study:
Infinite Possibilities Seen. In every human being He discerned infinite possibilities. He saw men as they might be, transfigured by His grace—in “the beauty of the Lord our God.” Psalm 90:17. Looking upon them with hope, He inspired hope. Meeting them with confidence, He inspired trust. Revealing in Himself man's true ideal, He awakened, for its attainment, both desire and faith. In His presence souls despised and fallen realized that they still were men, and they longed to prove themselves worthy of His regard. In many a heart that seemed dead to all things holy, were awakened new impulses. To many a despairing one there opened the possibility of a new life. Ed 80
Called and Given a Purpose for Living
True or False? God’s plan for Abraham did not end at the cross.
Did the Lord just want another country of a certain ethnic origin? Was God a racist? What was purpose did He have for this nation he was building through Abram?
Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” (Ex. 19:5,6)
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
(Isa. 60:1-3)
God Redefines “Great”
5. True or False? The fact that God chose Abram, an obscure nomad, suggests that God’s values are often different from ours.
Let’s step back in time a little, back to Genesis 11:4—the building of the Tower of Babel,
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (Gen.11:4)
Human pride resulted in the rejection of the divine promise. As with Eve, the Babylonians took upon themselves the prerogatives of God by redefining God’s plan and what He said was good.
In Genesis 12:2 God said He would be the one who would make their name great. From the very beginning of sin, man has sought to establish his own identity by what he (or she) was able to do. It was proposed recently that the state of Virginia would lowering the expectations for what a student should learn in math. This would make it possible for math scores and grades to be more equitable.
Eve rejected God’s definition of both what was good for food and the source of true wisdom (Gen.3:6) which was built on the premise of what she was able to do and understand at the moment. Later as we get to the Babylonians in Genesis 11, we discover that they rejected what it took to make a person or a nation “great.” They chose to live by their own definitions. Greatness and value are determined by man himself, they said, and not by his Creator. Is it any wonder that the last message given to the world is that Babylon the “Great” is fallen? Those whom God calls “my people” are to come out and leave the false understanding of “greatness” behind them! (Rev. 14:6; 18:2,4). Like Abram, in a similar way, God’s people are called to a life of trust and obedience. Greatness is found in God. It was Abram’s identity with God and God’s transforming power in his life that made him a great leader and what made it possible for him to be the “father” of a great nation.
So our last question is relevant not only to understand Abram’s greatness but how we should interpret our own society and its values:
True or False? The fact that God chose Abram, an obscure nomad, suggests that God’s values are often different from ours.
Do you see any parallel with the description of God’s people in the last days as described in Revelation 14:12?
This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
Concluding Reflections
“Patches of Green”
“During the volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens, intense heat melted away the soil, leaving bare rock coated with a thick mantle of ash. Naturalists of the Forest Service wondered how much time must pass before any living thing could grow there. Then one day a park employee stumbled across a lush patch of wildflowers, ferns, and grasses rooted tenaciously to a strip of the desolation. It took a few seconds for him to notice an eerie fact: this patch of vegetation formed the shape of an elk. Plants had sprouted from the organic material that lay where an eld had been buried by ash. From then on, the naturalists looked for such patches of luxuriance as an aid in calculating the loss of wildlife.
Long after a society begins to decay, signs of its former life continue to assert themselves. . . . Properly seeded, like the animal shapes dotting the blank sides of Mt. St. Helens, these bring life to an otherwise barren landscape.” (Philip Yancey in What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p.253.)
The rise of a remnant whom God calls “my people” (Rev.18:4) is taking place around the world and in every denomination. God's plan is one of transformation. It has always been His plan. There is a point, however, when “cancer culture” spreads beyond redemption (Rev. 18:5). Judgment is the last resort, but it too has a place. With Abraham, we too are
. . . looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Heb. 11:10)
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