Only Fools and Horses

Derision and Fury

The ancient Greeks, via Homer, believed that one ought not to excel too much in anything, lest one attract the jealous, vindictive attention of the gods.  Accordingly, heroes such as Odysseus lived a perilous existence.  The Living God is not thus.  He created man to be great, and good.  Psalm 8 declares:

O Lord, our Lord
How majestic is your name in all the earth! . . .
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
What is man that you are mindful of him
And the son of man that you care for him.
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
And crowned him with glory and honour.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
You have put all things under his feet.

The truly great man, who is also good as the Bible defines it, and who does great deeds attracts the love, commendation, approval, and approbation of the Lord.  But the man who sets himself up as if he were God, or as if he were God's Messiah, risks attracting His despite and vengeance in this world, and eternal damnation in the world to come.  And a people complicit in such brazen rebellion and idolatry risk sharing in his fate.  King Herod provides an apt example:

On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to the them.  And the people were shouting, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!"  Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by works and breathed his last.  But the world of God increased and multiplied.  (Acts 12: 21-24)

Fast forward to 2008 in the United States.  Obama stands to accept his party's nomination as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and says.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Maybe these words reflected rhetorical exaggeration; they were not meant to be taken literally.  But Obama's record in office and the reactions of his devotees suggest otherwise.  We see here shades of Herod, and the adulation of an idolatrous people.  They are thus a portent of great hardships ahead, even disaster.

One of the queens of the Chattering Classes has recently reflected upon Obama's stellar orbit and the black hole that tracks him. 

“I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime,” Barbara Walters told Piers Morgan on his show Tuesday night. But despite her best judgment, she went on to say it – and it was quite a controversial statement.   What exactly was it?

“We thought that [Obama] was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next messiah,” she told Morgan.  The response came after Morgan asked why Obama has faced so much opposition, and “Why is he struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?”

“He made so many promises,” she began. “We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next messiah. And the whole Obamacare, or whatever you want to call it, that Affordable Health Act, it just hasn’t worked for him, and he’s stumbled around on it, and people feel very disappointed because they expected more.”   She added: “It’s very difficult when the expectations for you are very high. You’re almost better off when they are low and then they rise and rise.”

Yes, Barbara--but a craven idolatrous people don't elect Presidents because they have low expectations of the candidate, do they?  To win the support of an idolatrous people, who worship Man in general and the United States in particular, you have to promise to fulfil their idolatrous dreams.  Only then will they vote for you, and cheer you, and adulate you.  And the craven candidate, for his part, will doubtless come to believe his own press, put out by his own PR spinmeisters.  

The Scriptures provide the divine commentary upon such idolatry and folly.

Why do the nations rage
And the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and his Messiah, saying
"Let us burst their bonds apart
And cast away their cords from us."

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
The Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
And terrify them in his fury, saying,
"As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."  

It is a sobering thing to contemplate the perilous consequences of God holding a president and an entire nation in derision.