Fear God or He Will Totally Kill You and Your Country

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome back to the house of the Lord! People, I'm going to cut to the chase; I just read 1 Samuel and shit my pants.

I mean, I knew God was all-powerful and what-not; and I know that back in the day He made damn sure Israel was kicking ass and raping foreheads, but I had no idea how far He'd gone!

This one is a pretty quick, it starts in chapter 15, when Samuel, working as God's middle-man, is telling Saul, the king of Israel, what to do. And if I may digress just a tad, why does God have a middle-man to his king? Why not just talk directly to him or have Samuel be the king? It seems really inefficient. I suppose it could have been better for the economy to keep more people employed.

Regardless, Saul is told that he has to attack the Amalekites because Amelek hindered the Jews during the Exodus. And his dicking with the Jews pissed God off to the point where He sounded the commanded, "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

No bones about it, that is totally hardcore.

But Saul is a big puss. Sure he kills all the men, women, children, babies and the vast majority of the animals; but, he left the king, Agag, alive and took him prisoner. He also kept the best of the cattle to use for dinner and sacrifices, which sounds utterly sensible and delicious to me.

So, anyway, the Lord gets monstrously irate and, while chatting up Samuel, totally tears into Saul. He emo-bitches about how He totally regrets making Saul the king and that it was a huge mistake. But then he retracts that a bit later by saying he makes no mistakes. Obviously he was guilt-tripping and when God Himself guilt-trips your pathetic soul you're gonna need buckets of Prozac and a lake of Everclear to drown that mess.

So he sends Samuel over to humiliate Saul by telling him--and this is great--"The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou."

Ouch, that's the kind of burn that lasts an eternity! I'm surprised he didn't add, "And he has a bigger dick than you, too, jerk! Just ask your wife when she waddles home tomorrow morning."

And on top of that, Samuel calls Agag and, Agag pleads for his life saying, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." Samuel, responds with, and I quote, "Aww, fuck no!" and chops Agag up into pieces right in front of Saul!

Now this, my friends, is one bad-ass God. Sure when Jesus came around He seemed to turn a new leaf and became merciful and peace-loving, but I think it's best we don't forget what this God is capable of doing. I mean, yeah, maybe today you can go do a minor sin and think, "It's all good, He'll forgive me," but next thing you know, your eyes bleed, your tongue explodes, and your wang shrivels into a pathetic husk.

With that, I have a few announcements for this week: The youth group is having their first retreat and it is to Tijuana, Mexico to bear witness to all the sexy shenanigans going on there and preach against them. Also, Mrs. Cowlinsky will be heading the first annual bake sale and has requested that you refrain from donating any more erotic cakes and claiming it's Adam and Eve. Apparently this has been a common problem for her.

A Whole Lot of Love

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this refreshing, new Sunday brought to you by God. I have no announcements this week as I spent the week reflecting on how much sex I wasn't having. And let me tell you folks, that was quite a lot. I can honestly say I had a shit-ton of no-sex. And as I was boning all that nothing, I ran across a tale that spoke to me. It said, "Pastor Farm, it could be worse. You could be banging your daughters."

Yes, today we're going to discuss a rather confusing story. It's about protecting angels and the importance of having God as an alibi.

In 2 Peter Chapter 2 Verse 7, we are told that Lot was a righteous man. Bear in mind this is in the New Testament which was written well after the tale of Lot had hundreds of years to sink in. As you know, Lot is from the Old Testament. He's the man who's wife turned into a pillar of salt and was subsequently used to melt ice on his driveway.

Well, there's a bit more about Lot you may not know about. Dark disturbing things. You may know about God nuking Sodom and Gomorrah; but, at the time, Lot had no clue it was going to happen. So God sent down a couple angels to inform him. And--it's important to keep this in mind--angels back then were men with names like Michael, Azrael, and Gargamel.

Anyway, these two angel-dudes go to Lot and warn him of the up and coming Michael Bay movie that will ultimately devastate his home. He invites them over to spend the night, but they insist on sleeping in the street. No one, for whatever reason, suggests they go back to Heaven and chill for the night, but, whatever.

So, Lot finally gets his way and the angels stay over. Suddenly, several guys from town are banging on Lots door demanding to pump the angels full of man sauce. It had been a while since anyone ever enjoyed the carnal pleasures of angels (that was back a few chapters before the flood--which is also how giants came to be) and no man had ever had angelic ass, so I guess they were going for a world first or something.

Lot, being a mannered host, said, "No," and graciously offered his virgin daughters. Considering virgin daughters back in the day were about 12 or 13, that's pretty creepy. Strangely, unlike Jerry Seinfeld, these men had no interest in these girls and only wanted the angels. Lot eventually booted them out sending them on their way.

Now, I would say this was fortunate for his daughters' reputations, but then they go and fuck that all up in just a bit.

After the attempted rape, the angels force Lot's family to escape because they don't believe God when he says he's going to blow some shit up. Which is really weird because in those days all he did was blow shit up.

They end up hiding out in a cave and the daughters somehow get it in their heads that there are no more men left on earth and that it's their responsibility for getting pregnant and kick-starting the population by themselves. Consequently, they get Lot drunk and seduce him. According to the Bible, they really do that.

Now I know most of you are thinking, "Yeah, right. His daughters got him drunk and seduced him." Think what you will about Lot, but his PR man was freakin' ridiculous good. You think any man would get away with that defense these days? This is why it's important to have God on your side of the story.

This brings me back to what was said in 2 Peter about Lot being a righteous man and blaming everyone else around him for being wicked. Seriously, is that an excuse or permission? Would that work on you? "I'm sorry you got raped, but I'm not really a bad guy. It's just that everyone around me is."

Regardless, it's in the Bible so we gotta try to figure this out. Were people just that awful back then that God took what he could get? That's about the best I could figure out. Sure Lot was a douche who offered up his daughters for a mass gang bang, but he was tons better than the guys wanting to corn-hole the angels.

I suppose people got a little better by the time Jesus finally came around. Which, I figure, is a good thing. Gives you hope that we're not total screw-ups anymore since God doesn't have to keep sending Angels to assholes every other day before blowing our shit to smithereens.