Cancel Culture and the Fountain

Read:

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13, KJV 1900)

Introduction:

We are living in a very toxic culture today. It’s on both sides. We simply silence or “cancel” out any voice or message we don’t like or approve of.

A term that has been thrown around lately is “cancel culture” now they aren’t referring to all of those things that have been canceled lately, camps, revivals, in person church services etc.

Cancel Culture: as defined by Dictionary.com refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.

This began as primarily a social-media thing but in the last few years and increasingly so in the last few months it is becoming more and more a way of life.

According to one article there have been at least 85 statues taken down and or defaced in the recent George Floyd Protests and Riots.

One Fox News article reports:

A group of protesters in Portland, Oregon vandalized and tore down a statue of America's first president, George Washington.

The group draped an American flag, lit on fire, and then toppled the Washington statue on Thursday, June 18.

The demonstrators argue Washington owned slaves and therefore should not have statues of him.

It went on to report:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the prominent statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History, will be removed after years of objections that it symbolizes colonial expansion and racial discrimination.

“The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” de Blasio announced Sunday in a written statement about the statue erected in 1940 that depicts Roosevelt on horseback with a Native American man and an African man standing next to the horse. “It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue.”

Trump tweeted Monday: "Ridiculous, don't do it."

Now I’m not advocating for these statues, I’m saying, you can try to stamp out your history, you can try to run from your problems, but it won’t make it go away.

After all the offensive statues have been removed, then what? Is everyone going to be happy and peaceful again?

No, because it’s not about those things - its about people canceling out what is really needful and satisfying.

in fact: George Santayana, wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

People are trying to stamp out some memories, they don’t want to remember or think about the things that make them uncomfortable.

Cancel culture deletes and destroys it ties to the past that are uncomfortable or painful. It blocks out messages it refuses to hear, it chooses what it wishes to hear.

There has been a tragic political digression that has brought us to this point.

People used to cry for tolerance - that gave way to forced acceptance and affirmation

Then in the “90’s” it was a cry for political correctness

Now it is an all out anarchist’s cancel culture.

But I’m not here to plead for the American Way or even or freedoms - that will work itself out and we will all have to live with the results

The message I felt the Lord wanted me to give you today is - Cancel Culture is not new. It has been around nearly since the beginning of time.

Our text points this out clearly:

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13, KJV 1900)

It tells us two things:

They had something that was amazing and satisfying -

they gave that up for artificial and substituted it for substandard and ordinary.

They canceled out the message from God - who has the Words of life - for something that was temporary and would end in death.

Man has a long checkered and tragic history of cancel culture - when it comes to the Word of God.

A few of them are:

1. By Tampering with the Treasures

The writer in Proverbs exhorts us twice, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” (Proverbs 22:28, 23:10)

Now I am in no way equating these statues with “ancient landmarks” - these statues are representative of American history - the “Ancient Landmarks” are metaphors for God’s Word’s and mandates.

When we tamper or remove the landmarks - it causes a couple of harmful things.

A Shift in Boundaries - Boundaries are there for our good and protection. The Ten Commandments aren’t there to thwart or stifle our joy - but in reality to complete it. When we break those commandments or substitute it for something else we are throwing away the fresh “Fountain of living waters” for our own works of broken cisterns that can’t hold water - leaky broken things.

A Shift in Perspectives - Tampering with the treasures or leaving the “Fountains of living waters” will cause a shift in our perspectives. It will change or revise our memories.

C.S. Lewis in his book Abolition of Man shows logically and philosophically how changing just a few words in the history of a nation in school textbook can forever alter the next generation of students. And eventually lead in the utter demise of that nation.

History revisionists have been around for many years - but sometimes its not just revision sometimes its forgetting.

“And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10, KJV 1900)

Judges is an entire book written about a people who did whatever was right in their own eyes. That is a most dangerous and unsatisfying way to live. - Creating your own broken way - when there is already a “Fountain of living water.”

One of the saddest verses in scripture - “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord.” (1 Samuel 2:12, KJV 1900)

Now Eli was the priest - He was the spiritual leader of the people and yet there had been a shift in perspective and from Father to sons it was lost. (I’m not real sure how much Eli knew the Lord)

We can tamper with the treasures but it will cost us dearly beloved.

At the edge of Aneyoshi, a small village on Japan’s northeastern coast, a 10-foot-tall stone tablet stands, carved with a dire warning to locals.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the rock slab says. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

Stones like this dot Japan’s coastline many of them dating back to around 1896 when a two deadly tsunamis killed about 22,000 people.

One twelve year old girl said, “Everybody here knows about the markers, we studied them in school”

And yet over the decades, the stones’ warning were disregarded or forgotten - people tampered with the treasured - and then in 2011 nearly 30,000 people lost their lives due to a tsunami.

One disaster planing professor said, “It takes about three generations for people to forget.”

When we tamper with the treasured we are asking for disaster.

2. Silencing the Faithful -

One part of the current “cancel culture” is to take away a persons platform to silence them. This to isn’t new - it has been attempted for years -

In my devotions this week I read where Jezebel tried to cancel out all the prophets of Yaweigh especially Elijah

Herodias, King Herod’s wife wasn’t happy till she canceled out John the Baptist

Queen Athaliah (Ahab’s daughter) tried to cancel anyone who would dare get in her way.

Now please note, it isn’t only women who participate in the “cancel culture”

Many men have to,

Darius tried to cancel Daniel

Nebuchadnezzar tried to cancel Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

Saul tried to cancel anyone who preached or believed on Christ and Him crucified.

1 Kings 22:8 (KJV 1900): And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.

[I’m just gonna put this one out here and leave it for you to chew on....In one sense all tried to censor and cancel Jesus Himself - some still do…]

Paul told us this would happen and not to be surprised...

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;” (2 Timothy 4:3, KJV 1900)

Now I want to turn a corner and ask a few probing questions -

Are there treasures you have tampered with in your life? Do you try to move the border’s God has already established in His word?

Are there things you don’t want to hear so you silence or cancel it out?

Has the Spirit spoken to you this morning? Perhaps prodded you about a your personal “cancel culture”?

What do you do?

You COME TO THE WELL!!!

What do you mean by that Pastor?

Well in the book of John there was a woman who was trying her best to get things right and failed over and over again.

She wanted so much to be happy - but her brokenness only got in the way and all of her happiness leaked away.

But one day she came to the well - and there she didn’t just get another leaky bucketful

She got a brand new source - a satisfying source - something she was excited about and wanted to tell others.

This morning - if you are struggling with a broken cisterns, if your happiness keeps oozing away - I urge you to change sources - come to the well

Come to the “Fountain of Living Waters”

Don’t cancel that voice out any longer - don’t move that border again - just change sources - HE WILL FULLY SATISFY!!!