There’s been a lot of uncovering going on. No, not that kind.
Many things that were once hidden in darkness are being brought to the light. It could just be me, but it seems like it’s happening in much more rapid succession than I normally see. I don’t usually call anything “prophetic” that’s going on in the news, but can you not see a strong pattern as of late?
I also don’t normally write about the failings of others. I certainly don’t believe in “heresy hunting” or finger pointing whenever prominent men or women of God fall into sin or get disgraced or discredited ((Unless it’s to seriously process a major prophetic Word someone has given and I feel needs to be talked about)), but if I speak in vague terms you’ll just know who I’m talking about anyway if you’ve been following the news or paying attention in certain Christian circles.
In no particular order here’s a quick overview and a few reflective thoughts. These are certainly not in any chronological order, either:
Planned Parenthood – with a number of stealthily-filmed videos depicting the selling and purchasing of body parts from aborted babies being published on the internet, the national spotlight has come over the organization we all already knew aborted babies. But now, the game has changed. It’s unclear whether this will cause them to get completely defunded, or whether we are merely going to see fewer and fewer abortion mills remain open now that people know just what kind of despicable things besides murdering unborn babies that these people have been doing.
These videos have been and are continuing to do such incredible damage to this company that they even tried to block the release of at least one of the videos.
Jared Fogle – not a professing Christian that I know of, but everybody has been encouraged by Jared Fogle’s incredible weight loss story. Fogle was one of Subway’s most lucrative spokesmen, reportedly contributing to nearly half of Subway’s growth over the last 15 years since he became famous for losing more than 200 pounds while eating the restaurant’s sandwiches.
Recently it came to light that Fogle had been paying to have sex with minors for a number of years. As part of his plea deal, he will spend at least the next five years in prison, pay $100,000 in restitution to each of the victims, and will have to register as a sex offender.
Josh Duggar – perhaps other than links to videos or articles about planned parenthood, few other news items have been hitting my social media news feeds as much as reactions about Josh Duggar this past week. To be honest, my stomach is sincerely in knots, not just with Josh’s story, but all of the ones I’m mentioning in this post.
I had never heard of the Duggars until a number of months ago when the scandal broke that he had molested a few of his sisters when he was a teenager. There’s much that can be said, and already has been said by the blogosphere, but as if that wasn’t bad, while Duggar was heading up some kind of family values organization, he apparently had an account with Ashley Maddison.
Which leads to something like 30 million users of the “service’ of the website Ashley Maddison whose motto is “Life is Short Have an Affair”. Their site was recently hacked and their records posted publicly online, outing who knows how many people whose affair was believed to be secret and discreet.
Since Dr Michael Brown said it better than I could in a recent post on Charisma titled 5 Lessons From the Hacking of Ashley Madison, I’ll let him say it:
Sooner or later, your sin will find you out (Num. 32:23). Whether in this world or the world to come, if we don’t turn from our sins and renounce them, they will catch up with us and find us out. Count on it.
As Paul wrote to Timothy, “The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later” (1 Tim. 5:24).
One way or another, sooner or later, we reap what we sow, and if you want to avoid an embarrassing harvest, don’t sow embarrassing seeds.
If you knew that tomorrow, the whole world would know about something ugly you did in private today, would you do it?
One day, the whole universe will know. The Ashley Madison hacking is like child’s play compared to what’s coming.
This whole adultery site hacking thing is like Donald Trump’s hair: you know it’s rude to stare, but you just can’t look away. You keep turning your head to see if there are any latest developments.
And finally in recent weeks on an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, he raked some prominent prosperity Gospel teachers over the coals. Perhaps not really bringing anything to light that most of us didn’t already know, but, well at least it was funny.
In the midst of constantly negative news, I appreciate the hilarious exposé.
Watch the video below.
In closing I want to leave you with a thought from Carlos Rodriguez. He recently wrote in a blog post about Josh Duggar’s admission of guilt, Josh Duggar Apologizes Publicly on his site, HappySonship.com.
The word Repentance (both in the Hebrew and the Greek) literally means to turn, to change direction, to redirect.
Crying and kneeling and saying sorry, can be signs of repentance, but they are not repentance itself. Repentance is a 180 towards honesty and transparency and truth. And it’s not until we eliminate all traces of blame shifting that we’ll encounter freedom from the guilt and the shame of our transgressions.
Repentance is intentionally bringing to the light the things that were done in secret.
When I was young my parents taught me that if I owned up to a bad action or behaviour instead of being found out, my punishment would be more lenient. I can’t remember how old I was when I realized it’s much better to own up to something voluntarily rather than get caught and have no choice but to own up to it, but it worked.
I’d rather not have skeletons in my closet dragged out and bring shame and embarrassment not only to my family and friends, but my Lord Himself. If you think you can continue leading a double life, in whatever area it may be, trust me, it will be made known one day, whether in this life or the one to come.
