The god o art way through the City of God conference in August, we hit the Seattle waterfront. And there, amid the tourists, piers and jellyfish, we came face-to-face with a sermon from today’s favorite deity. High up on a wall, someone had chalked in big letters,“you are god.” It may sound like the midnight mission of a nut-job, but I snapped a picture. It’s truly the religion of the 21st century.
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Not that it’s anything new: Satan tempted Eve, “You will be like God” (Gen. 3:5); and from there to Babel (Gen. 11:4) to now, man has wanted to take the Lord’s place. It’s the god of the city—no, not specifically Seattle. It’s the god of Babylon—the city used in Revelation to symbolize unfaithfulness against the one true God. It’s the site of idol worship, immorality, excess and more; and it all comes crashing down in judgment (Rev. 14:8; 18:21). Consider that statement,“you are god.” It sounds like a good deal. If you’re god, then you establish what’s true.You determine your code of behavior; and if you sin against your own law, so what? Write in an exception.You can take the Bible and decide what’s good. And frankly,“you are god” is the belief behind the notion that all gods lead to heaven, because you can only teach that madness if you think like this:“All gods lead to heaven because we say so, even if the gods say different. And if we decide what gods say, we’re bigger than they are.”That means that God is nothing more than a mental puppet, and you’re the one pulling His strings. In the short-term,“you are god”looks sweet to sinners. Sinners are very good at looking at immediate gratification, but not at looking ahead, say, until Judgment Day. Because if “you are god” is your creed, then you must put yourself to the test. Have you created all things? Are you faithful to
your word, eternally unchanging? Can you heal diseases? Can you defeat death? Can you raise yourself from the dead? If you can’t, then you’re a pretty lousy god. Do you really want a god only as big as you? Shoot, if I were good enough to be my own god, then I wouldn’t need one. But I can’t raise myself from the dead, so I certainly don’t want to settle for myself.
