I’ve said it before; I am often criticized for the prevalence of sarcasm in this blog. It goes something like this. “Suppose a non-believer or a new believer finds his way onto this site. Will your words be edifying or harmful? Or will your sarcasm cause a brother to stumble?
Well I don’t think the answer is a simple one but I do think the question is too overly simplistic. Frankly, I think sarcasm, satire and any other literary tricks that can make a cutting point to get someone’s attention can be edifying. Rush Limbaugh often says he illustr
ates absurdity by being absurd.
Now I know that an argument cannot be proved with anecdotes but I think it might be appropriate here to illustrate something that has happened on my blog site more than once.
I have posted an item on this site titled The Magic Prayer That Will Change Your Eternity. It is very sarcastic in style and extremely critical of Rick Warren’s overly simple, “repeat after me this touchy feely, anemic, God love’s you and has a wonderful plan for your best life now and Presto, you’re part of the happy family,” prayer that can lead people to hell with a false hope.
So what? you ask. I have installed this little Live Traffic Feed tracking gadget on the right column that shows where visitors are coming from. Although I cannot tell who they are, I can sometimes see how they happened to arrive on my site. For example, often, people find my blog while searching for key words or phrases on Google. Today (as on several other occasions in the past) someone found this blog post by searching the phrase, “magic prayers to god.” When he arrived here, he immediately encounterd my “WARNING WARNING WARNING” to NOT trust anyone’s magic prayer.
The traffic feed also shows me where he went when he left. In this case he left via an item titled, “How Can I Be Free From The Wrath Of God?” In my sarcastic post, I urged readers to click on that link at the top of that column if they have any serious questions or doubts about their eternal standing with God. This visitor did just that and found himself at a very clear, doctrinally sound explanation of the Good News of salvation by John MacArthur at Grace To You.
So, I don’t know who this visitor is or what his condition is before God. What I do know is that he did not search Google looking for “how to repent from my sin and beg the Righteous and Holy God for mercy and grace.” He was looking for some sort of a magic prayer.
I also know that God is sovereign in salvation and He uses His Word (as is evident in John MacArthur’s Gospel presentation) as the living and powerful vehicle to accomplish that work.
I pray for this person's salvation.
Well I don’t think the answer is a simple one but I do think the question is too overly simplistic. Frankly, I think sarcasm, satire and any other literary tricks that can make a cutting point to get someone’s attention can be edifying. Rush Limbaugh often says he illustr
ates absurdity by being absurd.Now I know that an argument cannot be proved with anecdotes but I think it might be appropriate here to illustrate something that has happened on my blog site more than once.
I have posted an item on this site titled The Magic Prayer That Will Change Your Eternity. It is very sarcastic in style and extremely critical of Rick Warren’s overly simple, “repeat after me this touchy feely, anemic, God love’s you and has a wonderful plan for your best life now and Presto, you’re part of the happy family,” prayer that can lead people to hell with a false hope.
So what? you ask. I have installed this little Live Traffic Feed tracking gadget on the right column that shows where visitors are coming from. Although I cannot tell who they are, I can sometimes see how they happened to arrive on my site. For example, often, people find my blog while searching for key words or phrases on Google. Today (as on several other occasions in the past) someone found this blog post by searching the phrase, “magic prayers to god.” When he arrived here, he immediately encounterd my “WARNING WARNING WARNING” to NOT trust anyone’s magic prayer.
The traffic feed also shows me where he went when he left. In this case he left via an item titled, “How Can I Be Free From The Wrath Of God?” In my sarcastic post, I urged readers to click on that link at the top of that column if they have any serious questions or doubts about their eternal standing with God. This visitor did just that and found himself at a very clear, doctrinally sound explanation of the Good News of salvation by John MacArthur at Grace To You.
So, I don’t know who this visitor is or what his condition is before God. What I do know is that he did not search Google looking for “how to repent from my sin and beg the Righteous and Holy God for mercy and grace.” He was looking for some sort of a magic prayer.
I also know that God is sovereign in salvation and He uses His Word (as is evident in John MacArthur’s Gospel presentation) as the living and powerful vehicle to accomplish that work.
I pray for this person's salvation.
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