Blasphemous Lies Racists Tell

Sometimes the Devil's most heinous lies are so heinous because they have just enough truth in them to be believable. 

For example, 

All Lives Matter

Of course they do! Nobody is denying that! All lives have infinite worth. But that is far too often used to deflect from the issue at hand, that black lives are still undervalued and shot down (literally and figuratively) at a much higher rate than other lives. We are commanded to speak up for the people in need (for example, Proverbs 31:8-9, Proverbs 12:21, Psalm 82:2-4 and Psalm 12:5, among others) and to deflect from that is to a abdicate our sacred duty and blaspheme the name of God. Yes, I said BLASPHEME. Jesus told a parable (Luke 15:4-7 and Matthew 18:10-14) about a shepherd with a flock of 100 losing one sheep, and temporarily leaving the flock to find the one lost sheep. Not because the other sheep didn't matter, but because the life of that lost sheep did. To abandon that one sheep because "all sheep matter" would have been a death sentence for the lost sheep. Jesus reached out to Samaritans. He reached out to beggars. He reached out to tax collectors. He reached out to the downtrodden. Their lives mattered to Him. Now far too many of His professed "followers" are acting like Pharisees and saying that it is wrong to reach out to a specific group that He died for because "all lives matter."

Or how about this? 

Blue Lives Matter

Once again, nobody is denying that the lives of police are valuable. But once again, this is used to deflect. I believe most police are good at their job, but we have seen so many examples of bad cops causing major harm, and a disproportionate number of arrests, attacks, beatings, tear gas, rubber bullets, shootings, etc. have been done by the police against blacks, who have often turned out to be innocent. In some ways, "Blue Lives Matter" as a response to "Black Lives Matter" is worse than the other example because so much of the violence against blacks is perpetrated by the police. It is implying that the lives of the attackers are more valuable than those of the victims. 

Yes, all lives matter. Yes, blue lives matter. But don't you dare commit BLASPHEMY against the God you claim to serve because you are too racist to realize the harmful implication you are communicating to our fellow valued and needed humans that black lives don't matter. 

Nobody is saying that only black lives matter, or that they matter more than the lives of cops. That seems to be what so many hear, but that is another lie from the pit. Black Lives Matter is about speaking up for those who have been hurt, killed, put down, and so much more, because of the color of their skin. It has nothing to do with favoring anybody. Blacks deserve equality. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER!

The Judge, the Widow and Justice

Jesus was a master storyteller. He often had just the story to make His lessons more real for the people He was teaching. One time He needed to teach His disciples about how important it is to keep praying and not give up.

He explained, “Once, there was a judge who lived in a town and ruled his courtroom with an iron gavel. He didn’t care about God, and he definitely didn’t care about what anyone in the town thought. He mainly just cared about himself.

“In the same town lived a widow. She had lost her husband some time earlier, and now she didn’t have anyone to protect her. She and her husband had loved each other, and he had always looked out for her. But now that he was gone, what could she do? She had an enemy who was bullying her, and she was having a terrible time. Her husband would have known what to do with the bully, but she couldn’t make the bullying stop on her own.

“So she went to the judge and pleaded, ‘Please bring this bully to justice! He’s being terribly cruel!’ But the judge refused to help. So she tried again. And again. And again. The judge kept refusing her pleas, but she was starting to get on his nerves. She asked for justice again. ‘Why won’t this woman leave me alone?!’ he wondered. She pleaded for justice another time. And another.

“Finally, the judge said, ‘All right, fine! I really don’t care about this woman or anyone else, but if she doesn’t get justice, she’ll never stop pestering me! I’ll do it to get her off my back!’ So the bully got what he deserved because the woman wouldn’t stop asking for justice.”

Then Jesus said, “Listen to what this judge who didn’t care about justice said. Now just think what God will do when people keep praying day and night, all the time. God does care about justice. If an unjust judge can be convinced to be just with enough persistence, surely a just God can answer prayers when people are persistent! He can give justice quickly. But do we have enough faith?”

Seeds and Soil

People all over the place had heard about the great teacher in town, and they wanted to hear Him teach! Jesus was out by the lake, and the crowd on the shore got so big that Jesus had to get in a boat and row out a bit so everyone could hear Him! He taught a lot of things using stories called parables. At one point, He said, “OK, listen up! There was a farmer who went out to plant some seeds, scattering them throughout his fields. He covered a lot of ground, and parts of his farm were better for growing seeds than other parts. Some of the seeds fell on the pathway. All that happened was that the birds thought the really nice farmer was giving them some food! They swooped down and ate the seeds and they didn’t get the chance to grow. Other seeds fell on dirt with rocks underneath. The crops grew quickly, but the soil wasn’t very deep, so as soon as the roots hit rock, the plants burned and withered in the heat of the sun because they didn’t have space for the roots to grow. Other seeds landed in a part of the field that had a lot of weeds and thorns. The weeds grew with the crops and smothered the good plants because both the weeds and the plants wanted their roots to get deeper. The weeds kept the good plants from making a crop. The rest of the seeds landed on good soil. The farmer had plowed the ground and worked hard to get it ready for his seed, and the seeds in the good soil grew. They produced a bumper crop! Pretty soon, some of those seeds grew 30 times more, some 60 times more, some even to 100 times more than they had been at first!”

Then Jesus said, “If you can hear me, hear what I’m saying!”

Later, Jesus was alone with His disciples, and He explained a bit more. He told them that He used parables sort of like a code. If you really think about what is happening in the stories, it’ll make sense. But so many people see but don’t really get what they’re seeing. They hear, but don’t understand the words. If they did, they might realize they need to be forgiven for their sins!

But the disciples still didn’t quite get all this about a farmer and seeds and a path and birds and rocks and weeds and dirt. It’s a nice story, but what was He talking about? There had to be a point to the story! So Jesus said, “Don’t you get it? No? Then how will you understand any of the parables I tell you? The farmer plants the Word of God. Some people hear it, but like the seed on the path, the devil takes the Word away from them and they don’t give it a second thought. Some people hear the good news that they can be saved from their sins, and they are excited and accept the gift! But then they have hard times and want more, and pretty soon they decide maybe this faith thing wasn’t such a good idea after all. Their faith doesn’t last long because they don’t have the roots to make it grow. Other people hear the good news, but they also hear other messages from other places that disagree. Lies from the world start coming in. Pretty soon they don’t know what to believe and their faith gets smothered in lies. Then there are the people who hear the Word of God and accept it. They let it take root in their lives, and they spread it around so it grows 30 times, 60 times, sometimes even 100 times what was planted!"