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Accuser

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. (Revelation 12:10)

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:26)

“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:6)

I’ve been seeing posts on Social Media once again, that talk about posts about God being ignored, and calling on everyone to share the post or say “Amen” or otherwise respond. One of them even has Satan claiming that “his followers” will scroll by or otherwise not respond, while Jesus says that His followers will respond. Some will refer to passages like Luke 9:26 to justify their challenge and demand that others prove they aren’t ashamed.

Those who issue these challenges don’t even bother to change the wording of their challenge very much. “If you are…” a child of God, you must do X to prove it.

The word exploit means: make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource). Facebook gives power to people whose posts get lots of reactions. The memes in question, then, are a means by which someone can exploit the fear felt by some – if they don’t respond, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them. Claims that someone isn’t a Christian or a follower of God if they don’t share this, say that, or do the other is an accusation. It places the one issuing the challenge side by side with the Accuser of Revelation. It puts the one issuing the challenge beside the Tempter. Is that where you want to be?

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