Cancel Culture
Pt. 2 - Only You Can Prevent It!
I. Introduction
Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". In an attempt to use popular communication platforms to call out very real, dangerous, destructive and evil behavior like racism and sexual abuse at times this movement has gone off the rails and become, as one man said, like the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. This movement has targeted the likes of Presidents Washington/Lincoln/Jefferson who recently removed from some school buildings in California. Gone with the Wind, Pepe Le Pew, and Disney's Dumbo. In doing so, the cancel culture has in many cases lost credibility with the average American. However, I want to encourage you today to embrace Cancel Culture. Before you dismiss me, I want you to listen carefully.
Text:1 Samuel 15:1-3, 7-9; 31:2-4; 2 Samuel 1:2-10 (TLB)
One day Samuel said to Saul, “It was the Lord who told me to anoint you as king of his people, Israel. Now listen to this message from the Lord! 2 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has declared: I have decided to settle accounts with the nation of Amalek for opposing Israel when they came from Egypt. 3 Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalekite nation—men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys.”
Then Saul slaughtered the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, east of Egypt. He captured Agag, the Amalekite king, but completely destroyed everyone else. Saul and his men spared Agag’s life and kept the best of the sheep and goats, the cattle, the fat calves, and the lambs—everything, in fact, that appealed to them. They destroyed only what was worthless or of poor quality.
31:2-4
The Philistines closed in on Saul and his sons, and they killed three of his sons—Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua. The fighting grew very fierce around Saul, and the Philistine archers caught up with him (it always catches up to you) and wounded him severely. Saul groaned to his armor bearer, “Take your sword and kill me before these pagan Philistines come to run me through and taunt and torture me.”
But his armor bearer was afraid and would not do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
2 Samuel 1:2-10
On the third day a man arrived from Saul’s army camp. He had torn his clothes and put dirt on his head to show that he was in mourning. He fell to the ground before David in deep respect. “Where have you come from?” David asked. “I escaped from the Israelite camp,” the man replied. “What happened?” David demanded. “Tell me how the battle went.” The man replied, “Our entire army fled from the battle. Many of the men are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.” “How do you know Saul and Jonathan are dead?” David demanded of the young man. The man answered, “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear with the enemy chariots and charioteers closing in on him. When he turned and saw me, he cried out for me to come to him. ‘How can I help?’ I asked him. “He responded, ‘Who are you?’ “‘I am an Amalekite,’ I told him. “Then he begged me, ‘Come over here and put me out of my misery, for I am in terrible pain and want to die.’
“So I killed him,” the Amalekite told David, “for I knew he couldn’t live. Then I took his crown and his armband, and I have brought them here to you, my lord.”
The account is self-explanatory. Saul is commanded by God to destroy the Amalekites. He was to spare nothing and no one. He was supposed to wipe them off of the face of the earth. After that day of battle there should have never been another mention of this evil, pagan enemy to God group of people. Instead, Saul spares the best of the best as well as the king. This act of disobedience ultimately cost Saul his place on the throne. However, the implications were even more severe than that. This refusal to wipe out the Amalekites cost Him his life. Defeated by the Philistines in battle, his sons dead around him, Saul is wounded and instead of enduring the torture of the Philistines if captured, Saul asks his armor bearer to kill him. The armor bearer refused. Saul falls on his own sword but is still alive when a young man happens by and at Saul's request finishes him. When confronted by David this young man admits that he is an Amalekite. A descendant of the very people Saul was instructed to and refused to obliterate is the one who ends Saul's life and grip on the throne. Saul should have practiced cancel culture. It is essential to learn the lesson that Saul failed to learn. Knowing that cancel culture can easily go off the rails and cause us to cut things off that were really for our good we must learn to practice cancel culture correctly.
Anyone here remember this animated character that was utilized as spokesman to help curtail and control the damage, devastation, and destruction caused by carelessness in the woods? A thoughtless flick of a burning cigarette or a campfire left unintended would ravage wilderness and sometimes populated areas. So, this spokesman was enlisted to warn us and burned his message of prevention into our brains with a memorable saying. Good ole Smokey the Bear would say, "Only you can prevent forest fires." He put the pressure on us to take individual responsibility to be careful and diligent.
His message regarding fire is applicable in the account I read to you and more importantly in our every day experience when it comes to relationships, social media, food, our health, our finances and our spiritual lives. His message is simply . . . Manage what you can manage or it will become unmanageable. We have individual responsibility to manage our lives, or we will end up with an unmanageable mess. Another way of saying this is manage what only you can manage before it becomes unmanageable for those around you. I need to ask you this morning . . . have you allowed things to become unmanageable that if you would have dealt with/cancelled them in its infancy, then it would not have grown into this unmanageable, overwhelming, engulfing situation? What is about to cancel you could have been cancelled while it was little and weak. In other words . . .
Cancel quickly!
The truth is we only have to battle stuff that we let live long enough to give it time to grow strength and roots. You don’t have to uproot things that have not been allowed to grow roots. The longer you date wrong person harder it is to break up. The longer you work that job that is killing you the harder it is to quit since you became comfortable at level of living that job affords. The perfect example of this is the 7-day trial of the music service/health club/time share. If you had canceled quickly everything would have been ok, but you didn’t, and it turns into a year of anguish. Here is the lesson we must learn to cancel correctly . . . cancel quickly. If they steal your peace. If they abuse your heart. If they mismanage your information. If they step on your dream. If they make you weaker rather than stronger. If that activity causes you to lose a night's sleep. If it causes you to lose money. Then don't wait another year, another month, another week, another day, minute or second . . . cancel now. Only you can prevent the greater level of damage they/it will inflict if you wait. The longer you wait the harder it is to uproot that thing out of your life! Time creates tentacles!
Cancel correctly!
You want to know what keeps me up at night? It is that we haven't learned to cancel correctly. We cancel the wrong people. We cancel the wrong practices. We cancel the phases.
We cancel the wrong people.
If someone is brave enough to see something and say something they are attacked, abandoned and cancelled rather than being appreciated. When I, or someone else on the outside, can identify that you are headed for crash, pain, destruction but you can’t identify it for yourselves. This lack of real self-assessment and lack of honesty leads to being unwilling or unable to admit to ourselves that we are vulnerable. I watch people warn people and they are ignored and even pushed away. They sound the alarm to cancel the habit, cancel the excursion, cancel the temptation but the person warned cancels the person who warned them rather than cancelling the very thing that will destroy them in the end. It reveals how little real access we have granted others. We cannot cancel correctly if we are unwilling to be corrected! We all need to practice cancel culture, but we must all cancel correctly!
You don’t know how many people we have watched walk away from this body thinking that breaking fellowship here would fix their issue only to discover their fellowship here wasn’t what was causing their problems. They cancelled incorrectly and end up worse off. If they had been willing to deal with real issues, then fellowship here would have assisted them in the hard and painful process of finding real freedom.
We cancel the wrong practices.
Saul cancelled the practice of obeying God's word and it kills him. We watch weekly as people cancel practices that would have resulted in freedom but because there was no immediate result or because of momentary discomfort they jettison what would have got them to the next level and then they never get there. They would have grown if they kept serving. Would have been blessed if they had kept giving. Would have not only survived but thrived if they had kept attending. Would have overcome if they had kept digging into the Word. But because the process was painful or too slow, they cancel the wrong practice and in the same moment they cancel any chance at freedom.
We cancel the wrong phases.
Phase of discomfort - Some of us are more concerned about comfort than solution. We want Jesus to give us relief, but we won’t let Him fix us. And the truth is He often lets us feel so that we will let Him fix. Jesus wouldn’t drink the gall on the cross to be numb. However, we want numbness and so we cancel discomfort, confrontation, counsel, correction, discipline so that we don’t have to feel! However, because we cancel the wrong thing, we never get fixed. We say, "this is killing me!" But God says, "This is molding you!" We say this is "Slaying me!" But God knows this is shaping you.
Phase of offense - We want to cancel what offends us when what offends us could teach us. What offends us could be landmarks or indication of our growth. The Children of Israel were offended by the wilderness so as they leave, they build a memorial of stacked stones. Why? So, generations to come won’t go back. Rather than cancelling what offends us . . . remember what offends us so that we don’t go so same way again. We want to cancel what reveals where we were instead let it push us forward, so we refuse to go back. In other words, I am offended by that person's treatment don't cancel that remember it, so you won't go back. I am offended by the pain that habit caused me. Don't forget the offense of that pain learn from it!
Phase of trouble - We want to cancel what creates a storm. But what if the storm is a result of obedience? Peter says don’t think it strange when a fiery trial comes your way. Sometimes you obey, get in boat and you run into a storm. Adversity shouldn’t cause a question! The devil wants to use the storm to make you turn back from obedience! Adversity is indication you are where you need to be and that you are headed in the right direction. If you cancel to get to comfort you cancel what was intended to get you to the place where you could walk on water. The disciples were guilty of this when they request that Jesus cancel the storm. What Jesus did was allow a storm so that He could cancel their doubt.
Cancel ruthlessly!
What we don't remove now it will cancel your joy, testimony, peace later. Quit playing around with what will kill you later. Some of you are dancing on the edges of what will destroy you in don't manage it now. Only you can prevent the divorce. Only you can prevent the addiction. Only you can prevent the bankruptcy. Only you can prevent the operation. Only you can prevent these things by cancelling them in their infancy before they grow up to produce destructive implications! What you ruthlessly cancel now can't cancel you later. Notice that Saul and his men only disposed of what they deemed worthless. They kept what appealed to them. They kept what they liked. We do the same. We like the relationship. We like the habit. We like the distraction. But we must learn that what appeals to us can upend us. What appeals to us can annihilate us. So, we must hunt it now or it will haunt you later.
