The Deification of Man
Sermon Notes of Pastor Mark Downey
Scripture Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
'The deification of man' is not about one man any more than “the man of lawlessness” is about one man. Anyone who plays God is a “son of destruction” and history is replete with examples. I’m not sure where to start this message, so let’s go to the beginning of Genesis where the thought is whispered to Eve, “Thou shalt be as gods” (Gen. 3:5). Such a deal! Regardless of what you think the tree of knowledge of good and evil was literally, don’t you think Adam and Eve (even if it was for a fleeting moment) thought of themselves as gods? Until, that is, they heard the voice of God say, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). God, likewise, might be asking us the same thing, like “where are your thoughts; where's your head at?” And if we are honest, most of us would say, “O Lord, my mind is not where it should be.” God must have anticipated this problem from the very beginning (being that He knows the beginning from the end) that man would try to deify himself. So much so, that the priority of His Law has always been first and foremost, “Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3) and “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Mt. 22:37). That is virtually impossible to do if you have the mindset to presume that you deserve some kind of deification for yourself, to be worshiped. You may not call it that, but should any one of us take it upon ourselves to judge what is right or wrong, that does not correspond to the Word of God, then that is the embryo of becoming a god.
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Et tu, Brute?” from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. Just seconds before the assassination of the Roman emperor and being stabbed to death, Caesar sees one of the young Senators with knife in hand and exclaims “you also?” Imagine the last words out of your mouth is the surprising question to someone you thought was a loyal friend, but instead your executioner. To live by the sword is to die by the sword has become a common refrain for pacifism, but Jesus' admonition to Peter lobbing off the ear of the high priest's SWAT team member was not anti-sword; it was protecting Peter from being arrested himself, even though Peter was just trying to protect his Master. After Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the cops moved in to make the arrest. In hindsight, Peter should have aimed his sword at Judas, but this was a perfect moment of predestination as Jesus told him, “Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?" John 18:11. The metaphor of a cup often signifies a measure of divine affliction, possibly derived from the custom of some nations putting someone to death with a cup of poison. Jesus had come to die as a sacrifice for sin and betrayal was a necessary ingredient to teach us many lessons which we'll explore today.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I'm going to talk about this unknown cowboy, who, judging by his saddle, side arm and rifle was riding the trails circa 1870 or 1880. On the back of this early photograph is simply inscribed “Indian fighter.” The more I look at this young man, the more I can see the disappearing manhood from our heritage of the Aryan warrior, the rugged individual or even the Phinehas priest. His boyish look of a young King David should not be confused with youthful indiscretions. To the contrary, I see a determined lad living a fearless life of Joshua, with faith in his bloodline, boldly running through his veins. He was fighting the Canaanites of his day, in a wilderness-turning Promised Land. We don't know if he was a Christian, but there's no denying that the New Covenant/Law was written in his heart and mind as it is with every White person. You can tell by looking at him that he feared no evil, even though he may have walked through the valley of Comanches. My grandpa was a cowboy in Montana and my uncles looked up to him and always admired his true grit, living in a sod house and punching cattle in the waning years of open range in a wild west America. My grandpa's father was a captain in the Confederacy and after the war became a Texas Ranger, whose motto was 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Orwellian historians now deny this expression, being entirely politically incorrect, flushed down the memory hole. In fact, the rewriting of history by Chicano lawyers and academics describe the Rangers in the 1979 book 'Gunpowder Justice' with the utmost calumny and contempt, stating their purpose: “to expose the popular image... to scholarly scrutiny and to analyse the reasons why the Texas Rangers have secured a tenaciously favorable reputation in the minds of the American public.” Let me tell you, the American cowboy is admired throughout the world and made its mark in history and we are exposing the modern Canaanite that would take away our heritage.