Opening Ceremonies

On Friday, July 26, the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympics featured a perverted restaging of the “Last Supper” painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The famous painting is a respectful display of how da Vinci envisioned, or at least thought best to portray, the Passover meal which Jesus had with His disciples during which He indicated that Judas would betray Him and instituted what is now known as “the Lord’s Supper.”

In opposition to da Vinci’s work, the Olympic ceremony offered not a modicum of respect. It was rather a purposefully insulting and mockingly disdainful event featuring drag queens, transvestites, and homosexuals, with the image of Jesus replaced by an overweight woman showing cleavage with a “crown” on her head and with a mostly unclothed man with blue skin portraying Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, drunkenness, and revelry out in front of all as the center of attention. Here is a challenge: type “Greek god of debauchery” into your browser and discover the result.

Obviously, such a display has absolutely nothing to do with an event honoring athletic prowess. Indeed, the large majority of serious athletes shun debauchery in order to properly train for the difficult endeavors on which their life is focused. Additionally, most of the people of the world with any connection to Christianity, including atheists whose connection is disbelieving Christianity, found the Olympic display from the very least to be out of place and uncalled for to repulsive and blasphemous.

Meanwhile, those responsible for this travesty feign shock at “discovering” that people were offended by it because, according to them, there was no attempt to be offensive but rather to be inclusive and cheerful, and if some were offended, “we’re so, so sorry,” they said.

Even Some ask, “Why did this happen,” and “Why do things like this continue to happen?” Another question is, “Why do they only mock Christianity and never Islam?” Some think the answer to the last question is that Islamists will react with violence, a rampage of murder and death while Christians will do nothing. Time has proven that to be true, but it’s not the answer to the question.

2 Peter 2:4 tells us that, “ . . . God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness . . .” In Luke 10, when Jesus’ disciples expressed amazement that even the demons were subject to them. Jesus responded in verse 18, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven.” It seems almost like a “you haven’t seen anything” type of statement. It is obvious from the statements of Peter and Jesus that Satan, the devil himself, was at some point an angel in Heaven.

Some point to Isaiah 14:12-15 as a passage that discusses Satan being cast down from Heaven. “How you are fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . . For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into Heaven, I’ll exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.” However, verse four shows that this is about the king of Babylon.

Similarly, Ezekiel 28:12-17 is suggested as a description of the downfall of Satan, but it claims in verse 12 to be about the king of Tyre. Revelation 12, esp 7-9, describes a war between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his angels resulting in Satan being cast out of Heaven but is it allegorical and figurative, or is it real? If it is real, at what point in time did it occur?

For whatever reason, God does not make everything about Satan’s downfall clear to mortal man through the Bible. What we can determine is that Satan was at one time an angel of high station in Heaven. Rather than be submissive to God, Satan strove to rise to the level of God and found himself beaten and cast down from Heaven. In that situation he is still trying to overthrow God by overthrowing God’s creation and thwarting God’s desires. We see evidence of this behavior in Genesis 3 when the first action of created man is to give in to Satan’s temptation to defy God’s command. We see it again in Job 1-2, when God allows Satan to try everything but Job’s own death in his temptation of steadfast Job.

Once more in Matthew 4, we encounter Satan trying unsuccessfully to destroy the very Son of God with his evil temptations, of course, without success. It was the machinations of Satan working on Judas, the Pharisees, the priests, and the crowd that brought about the crucifixion of Christ. It is most interesting that Satan had no idea that he was bringing to fruition the very plan of God for the salvation of man from the sins into which the devil had led him.

The devil is still active in the world today. He doesn’t give up easily. We are warned to be on our guard in 1 Peter 5:8. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.” From where did Satan tell God he had come and what he was doing in the first chapter of Job? “. . . From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” He is still doing the same today.

Sadly he is having great success at subverting the hearts of men from the purity God would have us seek. As discussed in Trying to Walk’s July 10 article, “A Choice You Don’t Have to Make,” Satan has every tool imaginable at his disposal because he is evil. He can lie, cheat, subvert, undercut, bully, frighten and on it goes. Intimidated by such an array some people will easily give in to Satan. Others may hold out longer only to give in later. Some may willingly jump at the chance to follow in his footsteps because they are as vain and as lacking in foundational principles as Satan, himself.

Displays such as were seen at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics are not just things that happened for no reason. This was not an expression of joy and festivities by some “gay” people having a good time. What we witnessed in Paris was people who have allowed themselves to become prey of the roaring lion known as Satan as he walks to and fro on the earth seeking some to become his followers. He has devoured them and they have become so evil that they find joy and purpose in overthrowing God’s creation (aka, “mankind”), thwarting God’s desires, and “thumbing their noses” at God, himself. It is a sad, sad spectacle to behold, like watching Thelma and Louise exuberantly send their car flying off a cliff, pedal to the metal, to their own destruction.

And why is Islam spared the mockery of such people who do the bidding of Satan (and that bidding is to destroy the work of God?) The work of God is manifest on earth through His church, Acts 2:41-47. That church is the Christian church, Acts 11:26, instituted by the beloved son of God, Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, Eph 2:13-16, and promised by Him in Matthew 16:18. All spiritual blessings are in Christ’s church, Eph 1:3-7. Those who are outside of that institution are without Christ and the blessings that He offers, Eph 2:12-13.

There are many people who are Christians or who are leaning in that direction that Satan, compelled by his nature, must either extract from the faithful number or “head off at the pass.” He already owns the Muslim population. He won’t be wasting his time seeking to “devour” them.