This is a rough summary that combines ad expands the exhortation I gave before worship and before the Lord’s Supper on July 28, 2024:
I did not see the Olympic opening ceremonies the other day. I was traveling, but honestly, even if I was not traveling, I probably still would not have watched. However, I certainly heard about it, as I’m sure you did too. It included a combination of mocking the Christian faith (especially Jesus’ last supper) with a mix of the kind of LGBTQ+ evils that have dominated our public square for quite some time now — sodomites, drag queen, queers, androgynous persons, pedophiles, and so on — all in what was supposed to be family entertainment. The use of biblical symbolism to celebrate demonic lifestyles was jarring to say the least.
Many Christians are acting like this is no big deal, excusing it or explaining it away. But that kind of faux humility and spinelessness on the part of the church is problematic. The imagery used was plainly anti-Christian. If a family member of yours was insulted, surely you would be offended on their behalf. If your God is insulted, you should also be provoked by it. We should have a holy jealously for God’s honor. Besides that, the open display of sexual confusion and perversion should be abhorrent to all Christians. I fear some Christians today are too desensitized to sin. We are trying to make peace with the world and downplay the antithesis rather than recognizing the world’s hostility to the church. When the world hates us, it should not surprise or even shock us, but it can still grieve us and anger us. If we understand what time it is, as the saying goes, we will recognize there is a war going on, a war that is turning increasingly hot. You cannot win a war that you will not acknowledge, and yet that seems to be the position many limp-wristed Christians are taking right now. Weary of the so-called culture wars, they decide to recast an all-out offensive attack by the enemy upon our most sacred symbols as a benign piece of art. “Oh, they’re not actually attacking us, they’re just doing a little playacting.” Get real. The bombs being dropped on us are not duds; they are powerful, and their purpose if to completely destroy the Christian faith and the civilization the gospel created. Wake up. War is upon us.
Many other Christians, of course, have been greatly bothered by what they saw. The ceremony was a display of the disgusting depths to which the depravity of the West has fallen. It was an open renunciation of the Christian heritage of France and of Western civilization. It was a celebration of the French Revolution, a period in which France rejected Christian faith and sought to replace it with secular reason. The French Revolution unleashed a spirit of egalitarianism and entitlement; however heavy-handed the French aristocrats may have been, it did not justify the wanton violence and bloodshed of the Revolution. Not surprisingly, the freedom and equality promised by the Revolution ended in tyranny and enslavement worse than the pre-Revolutionary era. Contemporary wokeness can be traced back to the French Revolution, so its demonic impulse is still very much with us today. Abraham Kuyper’s Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands was especially directed against the French Revolution and its attempt to overthrow the traditional order of the west. The church has been locked in a battle with these forces for a long time now. The Olympics ceremony shows that the spirit of this Satanic, neo-pagan revolution is not going to be easily defeated. The event revealed the trajectory much of the Western world is following in its rejection of God. The ceremony made it clear what the elites in the West think of Christ and Christians.
It’s interesting the Christian religion that was singled out for mockery, not any other religion. Oftentimes mockery of a particular group is a prelude to their persecution, so that should be noted. But there’s more going on here. Think about that old question atheists like to ask us, “Since there are 1000s of gods, how do you know you believe in the right one?” “Because it’s the one you hate,” the Christian replies. Satan does not waste time mocking Allah, or Hinduism, or Mormonism because all those false gods are actually on his side. He focuses on attacking the Christian God — the true God. Satan knows exactly what he’s doing and his minions are all too happy to execute his diabolical plans.
What should we do when the Christian faith is under attack? We want to fight back, but how? We certainly don’t fight back the way other religious groups do. Think about what Muslims would do if the ceremonies made fun of Allah. There’d be blood in the streets of Paris. There would be an eruption of violence. But Christians don’t respond like that. We are not pacifists, but we are we are restrained in our use of violent means by the righteous law of God. A godly Christian magistrate ruling in a Christianized/discipled nation could certainly suppress blasphemy and sexual perversion in a just way, but that’s not our situation. We are going to have use other means at our disposal.
I would certainly encourage you to speak the truth in your sphere of influence. Speak the truth in love and see what happens. Perhaps this will be a great opportunity to have conversations with people about what the Bible teaches about these things, including the perverse sexualities on display, which leads straight to conversation about the gospel. Explain why the church does not return the world’s hatred with more hatred. We serve a Lord who allowed himself to be crucified by the very same dark and demonic powers animating things like the Olympics ceremonies. No other religion has anything like the crucified God of the gospel — a God who wins through sacrificial love.
What else can we do to fight back against this disgusting display of depravity and the way the Christian faith is being openly mocked? The very best thing you can do is gather with God’s people for worship — exactly what we are doing here this morning. Worship is warfare. We fight back through proclamation of the gospel, prayer (including imprecatory psalms), and praise. As we gather for worship, we act as priests interceding on behalf of the world. Through our priestly service, especially the psalms we sing and the prayers we offer, God brings judgment and salvation to the nations. Our prayers lead to the renewal of the world, the judgment of the wicked, the conversion of sinners, the destruction of those who stand in the way of truth and mock it, and the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. Worship is the best way for us to fight God’s enemies. In this gathering, we take the battering ram of the gospel against the gates of hell. We assault the principalities and powers that hold people in bondage and deform human cultures. We are fighting against the kingdom of Satan so the kingdom of Christ may come more and more into the world, so that life may be reordered more and more under his reign. Just as light drives out darkness, when God’s kingdom comes, the kingdom of Satan is driven out.
It is interesting they chose to mock the Lord’s Supper as well. They recreated DaVinci’s beautiful painting, but with perverts in place of Jesus and the disciples. They turned the upper room, a heavenly environment, into a lower room, a kind of hell on earth. They turned the Lord’s feast into a demonic parody — a literal feast at the table of demons. There is no doubt that in their ancient liturgical feasts, pagan worshippers really did commune with demons (cf. 1 Cor. 10). I’m sure the demon behind the ancient Greek god Dionysius was quite pleased to get some airtime on a worldwide television program.
I’d say the planners of the Olympics ceremony knew what they were doing in a certain sense, but were completely clueless in another sense. They knew what they were doing by alluding to Jesus’ meal with his disciples on the night of his betrayal. The Lord was being betrayed on live television all over again by a nation and civilization that once knew him, and had enjoyed his blessings, but have now entered full apostasy. The Lord’s Supper is the ultimate symbol of the Christian faith (though it also more than a symbol). It is the centerpiece of our religion and the culmination of our worship services. The Lord’s Supper is the feast of love. Think about what happened in that upper room: Before he instituted the meal, Jesus washed the disciples feet, giving them a parable of what he would do when he goes to the cross, as he humbles himself and takes the form of a servant, suffering and dying for us to cleanse us from our sin. In the upper room, he takes bread and wine and transforms their meaning into a covenant renewal meal — the bread a sign of his body broken, the wine a sign of his blood shed. That’s what they are mocking — the love of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, the humility of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the feast of Jesus — and, yes, the followers of Jesus.
If they mock the table, how do we fight back? We come to the table and celebrate the very things they mock. We come to the table in faith, hope, and love, trusting the crucified Jesus to be our Savior, hoping in his final coming to vindicate his people while destroying their enemies, and communing with one another in love as he knits us together into one even as we eat and drink the same elements.
While the planners of the ceremony went for the jugular, so to speak, by mocking the Lord’s Supper, they also showed they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing or who they’re messing with. The apostle Paul tells us that God will not be mocked. People will reap what they have sown. God will avenge himself against those who mock him. He will avenge himself against those who mock his table. He will avenge himself against those who commit sacrilege and blasphemy. The Lord’s table represents the hope of the world; it is the feast of the new creation. Those who put together the Olympic ceremony are obviously familiar with at least some biblical symbolism. They clearly have at least some familiarity with the story of Scripture. I would encourage them to consider how the story ends — and to repent while there is opportunity to do so. Otherwise, they won’t get to enjoy the happy ending with us; they will spend eternity in the lake of fire.
Usually I say at this point, “Prepare your hearts for worship.” But I want to add something else to it today: “Prepare your hearts for warfare” — because we’re going to battle.
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