Well, this was a bad week of bad news. There was that horrible abuse of those two young boys by their adoptive “parents.” I didn’t make it through even one story about them without having my stomach turn over in distress. And then also this one about a teenage girl. Both stories are especially awful when you consider that greater and greater numbers of children are being destroyed by a “culture” so deeply corrupted by the lie of sexual self-expression. What can one say? Except that Lot being rescued out of Sodom came up in the Daily Office this week, which certainly gives a person pause. I mean, it should give everyone a sort of check in the spirit, as it were, for two reasons.
The first is that Lot, who the Bible calls “righteous” didn’t want to leave. The second is that the angels, who had come to rescue Lot and destroy Sodom, after pulling Lot inside of his own house, struck the mob with blindness so that they “wore themselves out groping for the door.”
That line has been jangling around in my mind, as it often does, as I have glanced at Twitter periodically all week. Especially in considering the clips about the hockey player who said he would not wear a jersey with a “pride” flag on it. This was the very first thing I saw:
Here is the original offense that I only saw on Twitter later–the thing that drew the above response:
I watched it several times to see if I could understand if the player, Provorov, was claiming to be especially good or anything. I think probably the line many people would grope for would be “holier than thou.” That’s not what he did, though, as you can see. On the contrary, he appealed to the stated doctrine of the day–“my choice is to stay true to myself.” So we can see that the idea of personal choice, which most of us knew all along, is not the bedrock virtue that can hold a community together. I love that Provorov used the line. Whether intentionally or not, in one quiet comment, he shows the Pride Agenda for what it is–a religious belief.
But one that still has not completely converted the nations:
Some of America hates wokeness. The bit of America that understands that there isn’t a lot of time because this is a religion to which every knee will bow and, as Provorov is finding out, every tongue must confess. The other part of America still doesn’t know what time it is:
So Lot was spared out of Sodom. The angels forced him to flee, though he did not want to. He, like so many, did not know what time it was. He thought the Sodomites might still “respect his choice.” He thought if he pleaded with them, and then offered them his daughters, they would leave him alone. In human terms, he was one of the least righteous among a human family in which not a single person is counted as good. “No one” says someone somewhere in the Bible, “is good except God alone.” With respect, we can also say that no one is “perfect.” Though the call, as that first journalist seems intuitively to understand in all his wroth, is that perfection is the requirement. Only those who are truly righteous may come into the presence of a holy God.
Unless–unless one is willing to admit that one is not good and then turn to that very same God and beg for help. You can find yourself in such a wretched muddle, unable to do what you know you should do, to think what you should think, to say what you should say, that there is no health in you. Then you cry out to God and he himself snatches you out of the fire of his just wrath and applies his own blood to you to make you whole. Provorov refusing to wear a pride flag is not claiming to be good, he is claiming to worship a God who rescues his sinful and wretched creatures. They are not saved because they are good, but because they are bad.
It isn’t enough to just hate wokeness–though that is a good idea. Each individual must go further and hate his own sin. He must say, “I am wrong and bad. Jesus, please help me.” The Lord always says yes to those prayers. And then he gives you the strength to withstand the angry mob of the rainbow-clad. For indeed, you must be clothed in something. The righteousness and the perfection of the Lord himself, who gave his life for yours, is a lot safer for everyone.
Photo by YIFEI CHEN on Unsplash
