This blog post serves as one additional (timely) piece of application to my previous post: Fluffy Faith. If you haven’t yet read that, I’d recommend doing so before this one.

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 reminds us to not be “rash with our mouths.” Further, it warns us to not take the Lord’s name lightly by attaching God’s name onto something it has no business being attached to. Israelites in Solomon’s day were invoking the Lord in their vows without ever actually planning on fulfilling their promises. But to do so was to make a mockery of God. It was to take His name in vain; and, when an Israelite took such an action, they ran risk of bringing God’s wrath upon themselves (Ecclesiastes 5:6).

In my sermon last weekend, I gave a few examples of how such a thing might happen in modern times. Yet, here’s one more example:

This is a meme that I’ve seen floating around since former President Trump was found guilty in his hush money trial. There are various ways one might feel about the verdict that vary in appropriateness, but this meme expresses one move being made that is wholly inappropriate.

There are not many similarities between Jesus’ trial and Trump’s. Trump was convicted while Jesus wasn’t. The jury in New York unanimously voted that Trump was guilty on all 34 counts, but Jesus was declared faultless by Pilate (Luke 23:14-15). Yet that really isn’t the main issue. The main issue is that this meme, and many others like it, elevate Trump to that of a messiah-figure like Jesus. He is not. They also seem to implicitly claim that Jesus believes Trump to be innocent in the whole ordeal, too.

But, ultimately, to post and approve of something like this is to take God’s name lightly. It is to attach God to something that He hasn’t attached Himself to. Or to expand on the application I shared in my sermon, it is to use a “God told me…” to garner favor for a political position in a manipulative (blasphemous) way.  

Let us be careful that we aren’t fluffy, or flippant with our language! The Teacher of Ecclesiastes calls those who make such moves “fools.”