A Political Prophecy: Cancel Culture (Pt. 2)

Disagreement was once accepted as part of political discourse. Now it can get you removed from public life. How can Christians live in this “cancel culture’? Dr. David Jeremiah shares insights from God’s Word to help believers stay strong.

God’s Messages

Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..

Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

You know, I remember a time when, um, even in Congress in, in, in Washington DC, when people would be, uh, violently committed to opposite opinions.
Yet, at the same time have respect for each other.
You know, I totally disagree with you but I would fight to the death for you to have the right to say what you’re saying too.
That is gone today. If you don’t agree with the, the people who are pushing the agenda, they will take you out and, and they have done it to many people.
Uh, and of course, the whole purpose of that is to shut everybody up to make sure nobody speaks their, their mind then uh error can take control and truth gets pushed into the corner.
Well, we’re talking about it today on turning point.
I hope that some of the things we say will strengthen you and give you a stronger backbone to be the person.
God wants you to be in a light in the darkness. We’ll get to our study in just a moment.
I do want to keep telling you about this book because everything we’re talking about every day is in this book.
You know, the more we look around today, the more it seems our modern world and our way of life are hanging by a thread.
We’re emerging from the pangs of the pandemic and society remains haunted by the specters of socialism and globalism and especially cancel culture.
The economy is in freefall, the church is in decline and Jerusalem once again sits atop the potter keg of global politics as rockets fly over the nation.
So what do we do? And how can we move forward as citizens of God’s Kingdom?
Even as the world seems to be falling apart all around us? Well, we talk about that in this book.
Where do we go from here?
And this book is yours for the asking when you send a gift of any amount to turning point during this month, please ask for your copy of this book when you send your gift and thank you so much for your generosity and these days uh when things are a bit tighter, we need everyone to do their very best.
And I know so many of you are doing that and we’re so grateful tomorrow, we’re going to talk about spiritual famine.
The Bible says there’s gonna be a time in the future when there will be a hunger, not for food but a hunger for the word of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re there, we’re there and the Bible tells us what’s to happen.
Part one tomorrow from Amos, the Old Testament prophet. I hope you’ll join us. Let’s open our hearts.
Now, to this final lesson on canceled culture, could I just say to you that if you are being pursued and bullied and canceled?
Please know that God loves you and that He’s with you and He will help you stay strong be God’s person.
Let’s begin. You see today, cancel culture is defined by disdain, a culture of disdain in his great sermon.
On the end times, Jesus warned of the rise of many false prophets who would deceive multitudes.
That’s never been easier than today.
Today, we are living in a culture not only of disdain but of deception.
And most of the people who are at risk in this day of deception are senior citizens, senior people.
I was shocked to find out that in 2020 senior citizens lost over $1 billion in cyber scams.
A total of 105,301 people over the age of 65 were taken to the cleaners.
The average person lost more than $9000.
Almost 2000 senior citizens lost more than $100,000 fake news, fake people, fake products, fake friends.
All of this has come to us via the world of big tech and all of this is contributing to a growing culture of deception.
And then finally, it’s a culture of disconnection.
The next logical step in cancel culture is disconnection in a culture marked by disdain and deception.
People want to withdraw from society. They don’t always get pushed out of society.
But when you find out people are after you and they’re trying to hurt you, what do you do?
You go into the castle and you shut it down and don’t let anybody near you.
You don’t talk to anybody. You don’t send any messages to anybody.
Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24 12.
He says, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
In other words, relationships will go South.
Apologist Abdul Murray had this to say about the relation, frightening nature of today’s society in canceled culture.
A single mistake is perpetually unforgivable because it’s not simply a guilty act, whether the mistake is led to define the individual’s identity, turning them into a shameful person, someone who can be canceled the culture that leads up to the tribulation.
And the end of history will be characterized by coldness in our feelings for one another and in our dealings with one another.
Shockingly, a recent study revealed that nearly half of Americans have not made a new friend in the last five years.
As hatred and deception have increased love in our world has decreased and our relationships have grown cold once again, a little parentheses during this day and this time when I have been studying all these issues, one of the things I have been overwhelmingly impressed with is the absolute necessity of small groups and almost all the literature that I have read, people are saying even non religious people that small groups are going to be the way in which cultures like ours survive the onslaught of all of the socialism and stuff that’s coming at us.
Small groups are not just for you to have affinity with others, to be friendly with others, to have fellowship with us, even to study the Bible.
But small groups will be the whole defense against what is happening.
I mean, there could be a time when they say we can’t meet in our church anymore, but they can’t keep us from meeting in our homes.
There’s too many of us and there’s too many homes and there’s a way in which what is happening now with this friendless society is Christians need to run right into the face of that and say not us.
We’re in a small group with eight other couples and we know a bunch of people and we pray for one another and we serve one another and we rejoice with one another and we born with Northern, we have friends.
We’re a part of the body of Christ. We come to church, but we have small groups.
And if you’re not in a small group, I guess you probably get the idea. I think you should be.
What we need is to be in a really strong small group.
Well, coming to the end of this talk. Let me ask this important question.
Where do we go from here?
Now that we understand more about cancel culture and the dangers that it poses.
Where do we go from here?
What does it take to live in a world like the world we live in?
Well, I’ll tell you it takes a lot.
What does it take to create a different kind of culture in your home? At work at church?
The short answer is it’s not easy to live as members of God’s kingdom in a world that is increasingly hostile to the values of that kingdom.
This is the shared experience of every generation of Christians since the very first one.
So we’ve had 2000 years to prepare for these days.
One thing we know for sure following Jesus is worth it.
So let’s explore four unc cancelable concepts as we close.
Number one to live in a world like we live in today. It takes wisdom.
Jesus told us, behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.
Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Wisdom is a word that confuses people today.
Many think wisdom is the cute things that you say in a retort to someone or maybe it’s kind of the stuff you see in a fortune cookie.
Others believe wisdom means speaking and acting in accordance with larger groups like the wisdom of the crowd.
On a practical and biblical level, wisdom looks much different than either one of these things.
True wisdom is the ability to discern what is right, what is good, what is just and what is proper.
And I’ve written down in my notebook a little definition of wisdom. That’s the best one I’ve ever seen.
It’s not mine. I found it somewhere, here’s what it is. Wisdom is doing the right thing without a precedent.
In other words, doing the right thing when you can’t look back over your shoulder and see, oh, this happened to so and so and it’s written about in this book and they did this and this.
So I will do that. No wisdom today is so imperative because we live in an unprecedented time.
Most of the stuff that’s happening to us now, men and women have never happened to us before.
So what do we do? We ask God for wisdom and he’s promised to give it to us and He will give us wisdom to do the right thing, even though there are no precedents for that in anything that we know about or have experienced, we need to ask God for wisdom because in this day and age, we need wisdom.
The Bible says we’re to have a certain combination of characteristics in this day.
I don’t know about you when I see all the stuff that’s happening and things like happen to my fellow pastor Chris Hodges.
It makes me angry. I want to respond.
I play games in my mind about how I would get, even with somebody who would do something like that.
Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about?
And I think to myself, boy, if that ever came to me, I, I, no, wait a minute, listen to what the Bible says.
Colossians 46 says, let your speech always be with grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
That’s a really important verse. Some Christians have reversed it.
Their speech is always with salt seasoned with a little grace.
No, no, no, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
The Bible says we’re to be gracious people, but we’re to have a little saltiness to us.
What does that mean? Don’t let people run over.
You don’t give up your convictions, but whatever you do be gracious.
You know, one of my bucket list things is I want to be a gracious old man.
I don’t want to be a grouchy old man. I know some grouchy old men. Do you?
I don’t want to be there. I’m going to be a gracious old man.
I don’t really want to be an old man, but whenever I get there, I want to be gracious.
Uh So the Bible says, when we’re in the midst of this culture, when people are just killing each other with their words, there should be something different about us we stand aside from that, we’re gracious people.
We don’t respond with tit for tat, they don’t say something mean to us and we come up with something meaner to say to them.
We don’t pick fights with those who disagree with us.
On the other hand, we don’t need to stay silent when our faith is being challenged, there are moments when wisdom would suggest we listen and learn rather than speak and stumble.
Somebody once said, it’s better off to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re stupid than open it and remove all doubt.
Proverbs 17 28 says it this way.
Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace, when he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive.
There are also moments when followers of Jesus need to stand firmly for the truth.
This includes you and me. And when those moments come, I hope we will speak and write and teach and create with the same boldness that Stephen demonstrated before his accusers in the san May it be said of us as it was of him that those who hear our words will be cut to the heart when we’re gracious and we speak the right words.
That’s a combination. People don’t know what to do with.
So knowing what to say, when to say it, how to say it. That’s wisdom.
Then it takes courage to live in this day and age in the cancel culture, the Bible says, be strong and of good courage.
Do not fear nor be afraid of them.
For the Lord your God, he is the one who goes with you and he will not leave you nor forsake you, you.
And I need to heed those commands as we live meaningfully as followers of Jesus in a world influenced by cancel culture.
In the book of Acts, there’s a word that occurs often.
It’s the word bold Acts 4 31 is a great verse.
Here’s what it says when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Oh How I pray that I will always be able to speak the word of God with boldness.
Never to be ashamed of my Lord or what he has done for me or for you or for this church.
Courage is a God given personality trait that is crucial in critical times.
This quality is seen in the life of an Old Testament man who had the wonderful name of Jeremiah.
He remained committed to God and to his prophetic work, even when he was under extreme criticism, you know that the book of Jeremiah is followed with a book called Lamentations.
Those are laments of Jeremiah, his crying out his tears, his sadness, he’s called the weeping prophet.
And he had a lot to weep about because he lived a terrible existence for much of his life.
He was faithful to his ministry, even when those attacks came at him from his own people.
He declared the words of the Lord during a particularly difficult period in Israel’s history and he didn’t falter as new things came at him and as things grew worse around him, his hearers tried to cancel him, believe it or not.
In the Old Testament, there was this bit of cancel culture. Jeremiah 18 18, these are supposedly Jeremiah’s friends.
Here’s what they said, come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah for the law shall not perish from the priest nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet come and let us attack him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words.
But Jeremiah persisted in his ministry. He continued to speak the truth as a representative of Almighty God.
You and I need a streak of Jeremiah’s sanctified stubbornness in troubled times, the mob will mock and malign us society will shame and slander us.
And there are all kinds of associations out there that want to assault and attack us.
The crowds may even want to kill us. I can’t imagine it but it could happen through it all.
We must have courage, we must choose to be courageous.
Thankfully, that is a choice we do not have to make alone.
Psalm 27 14 says, wait on the Lord be of good courage. And He will strengthen your heart. Hallelujah.
It takes wisdom and courage.
It takes forgiveness in a world where the mistakes of the past are fair game for the present.
There’s no room for forgiveness on the part of the cancer culturists.
But the Bible offers us a different way. Listen to the Bible.
The Bible says be kind to one another, tender hearted forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
And therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.
If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you.
So you also must do when we forgive someone who has wronged us, we set them free.
But that isn’t even the best news.
We set ourselves free because if you walk around with bitterness towards someone, you’re not hurting them, they probably don’t even know you’re doing it, but you’re doing it to yourself.
So you forgive somebody. Two great things happen, they get forgiven and you get released from your bitterness.
Paul Meyer was a millionaire in his 20 s because he was a great entrepreneur.
Most business people have read some of Paul Meyer’s works, even had an industry named after him.
But Paul Meyer grew up in an interesting home.
You see his father never forgave anybody, not a single soul.
If he was ever crossed or offended, he carried the offense all of his life all the way to the grave.
He simply didn’t forgive anyone, not even family members. His life was full of broken relationships.
But Paul said his mother on the other hand forgave everybody. Absolutely everybody.
Paul said she based her forgiving spirit on God’s word for.
She preferred to live with forgiveness than to live with unforgiveness as a result.
She had peace and joy and it bubbled out of her life.
He said there, I was a young man stuck between two polar opposites.
I love both of my parents and I’m still indebted to them for what they taught me.
But in this area, I knew I had to choose forgiveness or reject it, which was the better offer.
So when I was 16 years old, I made a conscious decision to start forgiving people and to live a life of forgiveness.
I had watched my parents and I knew which of the two had more peace and joy.
The difference was not hard to see. It takes wisdom and courage and forgiveness and finding it takes love.
Do you remember the passage in the gospel where Jesus canceled a young woman.
He had been teaching in the temple courts when a group of Pharisees forcibly dragged a girl in front of him, they had caught her in the act of adultery stone.
Her Jesus said that is the punishment prescribed by law. She’s guilty of saying that she must be permanently removed.
She has canceled. Wait a minute, you say faster. That’s not in the Bible and it isn’t.
Jesus never said any such thing and neither do I.
Instead of canceling that young woman, Jesus told his accusers.
He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. You’re gonna stone this woman.
Let the person in this group who doesn’t have any sin be the first person to throw a stone at her.
And the scripture says that when that happened, they walked away one by one and left Jesus alone with a woman.
Wouldn’t you love to have been there during that experience one by one, they walk away and Jesus spoke to that young girl when they had all left and said to her, neither do I condemn you go and sin no more.
As we’ve seen cancel culture is laser focused on judgment and accusation and punishment.
The goal of those who cancel others is to broadcast their sins from pillar to post and never allow them to be removed or forgotten.
But Christ’s goal on the other hand is love and mercy and grace.
In the words of scripture above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.
I used to think that verse meant that if you love somebody, it would cover your sins, but that’s not what it means.
It means when you love somebody, you cover their sins, you don’t expose their sins, you try to cover them.
Now, you don’t deceitfully do it. But you don’t get on a campaign to reveal their sins.
If you love somebody, you don’t want other people saying bad things about them. Isn’t that true?
But in our culture today, that’s not the way it works.
If a person is in a relationship and they find out something evil, it will be on the internet and it will be all over the world within just a matter of minutes.
The Bible says as Christians, when we love someone, someone makes a mistake, you go and you pray with them, you put your armor on them, you forgive them, you help them get on but you don’t broadcast their sin.
That’s the world’s way, that’s the devil’s way. That’s not God’s way.
The Bible says that when we love someone, we cover their sins. I don’t know about you.
Sometimes I’d just like to cancel culture itself. Cancel the whole thing. Let’s just cancel culture.
I mean, I’d like to cancel all the hatred and division, all the crimes and the lawlessness, the smugness and the snobbery of the pundits and the pencil pushers, the so called journalists who aren’t really journalists.
I like to cancel the violence and the vitriol and I can’t do that.
But you know that one day Jesus is going to do that for now.
There’s one cancel culture I want to recommend and it’s the only one I’m going to recommend today.
Here’s a cancel culture. You need to take seriously.
The Bible says in Galatians 2 13 and 14, when you were dead in your sins, God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave us our sins. Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us and has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Jesus has canceled our sin. He canceled it. Now, that’s a cancel culture.
I can get into one day, I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sin.
And I found out that when he had gone to the cross, he had paid the penalty for my sin and he canceled it all.
He forgave it all my past sin, my present sin, my future sin, all forgiven by God.
No, no, no, Pastor Jeremiah. He forgives your past sin and you got a deal. Wait a minute.
When Jesus died on the cross, all my sin was in the future. He canceled it all.
He answered all my sin. He canceled it. You forgave it.
And what he did for me, he’ll do for you.
If you’ll ask him when we come to Jesus Christ, he cancels our sins and he welcomes us into his family and instead of disdain and deception and connection, he gives us love and truth and a place by his side.
He fills us with wisdom and courage and compassion.
And he commissions us to counter the cancel culture with the power of the cross which can never be canceled, revoked or annulled either in time or all of eternity.
We can go to bed tonight knowing with all of our hearts that nothing or no one can ever cancel.
The one who has canceled our sins. He will always be there for us.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the midst of all that’s going on around us, we must never forget the triumph of the gospel.
The gospel is what changes everything you want to get involved in the cancel culture, get involved in the Christian cancel culture where Jesus Christ cancels our sin and then go out and live like a Christian in this crazy mixed up world.
And you will discover that people will be drawn to you because of your graciousness, because of your forgiveness, because of your willingness to put your arm around those who have made a mistake and help them get better.
Let’s don’t let what is happening in the world make us bitter and cynical easy for that to happen.
Let’s become even more men and women of love and grace.
And when we do that, I’m telling you what we will be like.
Honey, people will be drawn to us and they will want to know what it is that makes us uniquely different in this dark world.
Let your light so shine said the Lord that men may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.
We today, we are the light of the world.
Jesus said that he said you are the light of the world when he was in the world.
He was the light of the world, but he’s in heaven now and we are reflecting His light to the darkness around us.
Keep your reflectors clean, be sure that you get up every day and ask God to help you bring the influence of Jesus to some place where He might not be.
If you weren’t there, that’s your goal and we can all fulfill that.
Well, have a great day and we’ll see you right here on this good station tomorrow for the next edition of Turning Point.