For many, rebellion is cool. Pop star Britney Spears admitted in an interview: “When someone tells me not to do something, I do it, that’s just my rebellious nature.”
Why would anyone make a statement like that? Because there is a rebellious streak in all of us called the sinful nature. We inherited this streak from the first rebel in history, our father Adam. Our culture, however, feeds this stubborn beast in each of us.
PBS in 2001 made a shocking Frontline documentary, “Merchants of Cool,” narrated by Douglas Rushkoff. The documentary exposes media giants “Viacom, Disney, AOL/Time Warner and others who study America’s children like laboratory rats, in order to sell them billions of dollars in merchandise by tempting, degrading and corrupting them.”
The opening line of the documentary: “They want to be cool. They are impressionable, and they have the cash. They are corporate America’s $150 billion dream.”
David Kupelian of WorldNetDaily.com did an expose on American youth based on the Frontline documentary.
“The entertainment companies, which are a handful of massive conglomerates that own four of the five music companies that sell 90 percent of the music in the United States – those same companies also own all the film studios, all the major TV networks, all the TV stations pretty much in the 10 largest markets,” University of Illinois Communications Professor Robert McChesney reveals in the documentary, ‘They own all or part of every single commercial cable channel.’”
“They hold focus groups, and they send out ‘culture spies’ (which they call “correspondents”) to pretend to befriend and care about teens, so they can study them – what they like, don’t like, what’s in, what’s out, what’s cool and what’s no longer cool. They engage in ‘buzz marketing’ (where undercover agents disguised as ‘one of the crowd’ talk up a new product). They hire shills to interact with young people in Internet chat rooms, and ‘street snitches’ (a roving group loudly talking up a band or other product in public to raise interest). They bring the entire machinery of modern market research and consumer psychology to bear on studying this gold mine of a market – to anticipate the next, and always weirder and more shocking, incarnation of ‘cool’”.
These corporate media giants create caricatures of the youth they want to market and exploit such as the “mook” and the “midriff.”
Kupelian describes the “mook” as a marketing caricature of the wild, uninhibited, outrageous and amoral male sex-maniac.
“Take Howard Stern,” says Rushkoff, “perhaps the original and still king of all mooks. Look how Viacom leverages him across their properties. He is syndicated on 50 of Viacom’s Infinity radio stations. His weekly TV show is broadcast on Viacom’s CBS. His number one best-selling autobiography was published by Viacom’s Simon and Shuster, then released as a major motion picture by Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, grossing $40 million domestically and millions more on videos sold at Viacom’s Blockbuster video.
Rushkoff in his documentary says that girls ”get dragged down right along with boys. The media machine has spit out a second caricature. … The midriff is no more true to life than the mook. If he is arrested in adolescence, she is prematurely adult. If he doesn’t care what people think of him, she is consumed by appearances. If his thing is crudeness, hers is sex. The midriff is really just a collection of the same old sexual cliches, but repackaged as a new kind of female empowerment. ‘I am midriff, hear me roar. I am a sexual object, but I’m proud of it.’”
Rebellion is expressed on three levels
Level One: Personal Rebellion as in Psalm 1:4-6. Each of us is born a rebel with a sinful, rebellious capacity. This obdurate nature goads us to say, “When someone tells me not to do something, I do it, that’s just my rebellious nature.” Even after salvation, we retain the sinful propensity but now we are equipped with a new nature that enables us to submit to God’s rule in our lives.
Level Two: National Rebellion as in Israel in 1 Samuel 8:5 when the leaders said, after rejecting God as their King, “Give us a king to judge us like all the nations.” Christ presented Himself to Israel as King when He preached, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Israel’s response was “We will not have this man rule over us.” “The Merchants of Cool” are not only national but also a transnational influence.
Level Three: International Rebellion as presented in Psalm 2:2: “The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed.”
MTV is international and “Everything on MTV is a commercial,” explains McChesney. “That’s all that MTV is. Sometimes it’s an explicit advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product. Sometimes it’s going to be a video for a music company there to sell music. Sometimes it’s going to be the set that’s filled with trendy clothes and stuff there to sell a look that will include products on that set. Sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming movie paid for by the studio, though you don’t know it, to hype a movie that’s coming out from Hollywood. But everything’s an infomercial. There is no non-commercial part of MTV.” Just remember Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime sponsored by MTV.
The Christian organization American Family Association has criticized MTV for its negative moral influence for promoting a “pro-sex, anti-family, pro-choice, drug culture.”
These soulless marketing companies are international and are selling rebellion to our youth.
We Must Submit To The Rule of God. This is oddly expressed in one of the commands in Psalm 2:10-12: “Kiss the Son.”
This is not the romantic kiss of a husband and wife, the affectionate kiss of a mother and child but the kiss of submission. Submission to an Assyrian king was expressed by kissing his feet. In 1 Samuel 10:1 and 1 Kings 19:18 are similar acts of submission.
Thank God not all of the youth in American have bought into the culture of rebellion sold by the “Merchants of Cool.”
The Rebelution is a group of young people committed to rebelling against rebellion.
“The Rebelution is one of the most encouraging developments I have seen in many years. Alex and Brett Harris, younger brothers of Josh Harris, are young men of conviction, passion, and courage. Their call to their generation is faithful to the gospel and honoring to Christ. The Rebelution is a sign of hope – and a call to action” wrote Albert Mohler.
Here is a quote from a post entitled Rebellion vs. Rebelution, “As Christian young people, as rebelutionaries, we must wage war against that mindset. We do ourselves an incalculable disservice by ignoring the means of grace God has given us in the form of our parents, grandparents, and the other godly men and women in our lives.”
In Psalm 2, David commands to Submit to the Rule of God because
1. It is Futile not to Submit (Psalm 2:1-3) Part One
2. God has determined to Exalt His Son (Psalm 2:4-6) Part Two
3. God will Judge all Who do not Submit (Psalm 2:7-9) Part Three
A. If you Submit, you will be a Child of God in 2:7.
1) Historically, When David was exalted king of Israel God promised “I will be His father, and he shall be my son” (2 Samuel 7:14). “In the ancient Near East the relationship between a great king and one of his subject kings, who ruled by his authority and owed him allegiance, was expressed not only by the words “lord” and “servant” but also by “father” and “son.” The Davidic king was the Lord’s “servant” and his “son” (2Sa 7:5, 14) (The NIV Study Bible, 788).
2) Prophetically, according to Paul’s sermon in Acts 13:33, Christ was exalted at His resurrection. Psalm 2:7 is not referring to the day of David’s birth when it says “This day have I begotten you” but his exaltation as king. Neither is the day of Christ’s birth referred to but His exaltation at His resurrection.
3) Personally, we are become sons of God at salvation according to 1 John 3:1, 2.
What happens when youth become angry or disillusioned with parents and start listening to the “Merchants of the Cool”? Some turn to sex.
David Kupelian reported that American youth have devolved from extreme body piercing to tongue splitting, to branding their bodies, to amputations. American youth are also turned on with suspension which is hanging the human body from (or partially from) hooks pierced through the flesh in various places around the body.
Kupelian also in his expose quoted “psychotherapist Steven Levenkron, bestselling author and one of the nation’s foremost experts on anorexia and other emotional-based illnesses, explains it in his landmark book, ‘Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation’: ‘The self-mutilator is someone who has found that physical pain can be a cure for emotional pain.’”
If you know Christ, God is your Father. He is what no earthly parent is, perfect. He loves you unconditionally and will listen anytime you need to talk. He can solve any issue you are battling. The solution is not physical pain but a relationship to God the Father through Christ.
B. If you Submit, God will give you an Inheritance in 2:8.
1) Historically, David ruled the known world but never without rebellion from the Philistines and Jebusites.
2) Prophetically, Christ will rule the world but not without rebellion (Zechariah 14:16-21) .
The rebellion in 2:2 of a few kings snowballs into a mountain of rebellion of many kings in 2:8. The kings of the earth rebel in the future as seen in Revelation 19:17. The rebellious nations of 2:1-2, however, become the property of Christ in 2:8. This phrase was used by Christ in the great commission of Acts 1:8 “The uttermost parts of the earth.” What is our mission field today, “the uttermost parts of the world” will be Christ’s future kingdom.
3) Personally, we will reign with Christ according to Revelation 2:26. But we can reign now! Instead of being slaves to sin we can reign with Christ over the rebellion in our lives.
You don’t have to be a “mook” or a “midriff” or a pawn in the hands of the media. You can be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. You can rebel against the rebellion within your heart.
If you fill your mind with what the media is selling you, you are not going to rebel against the rebellion. You will have to fill your mind with the Word of God. Listen to two other verses David the Psalmist wrote: “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to your word” (Psalm 119:9). “Your word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against you” (119:11).
C. If you do not submit God will judge you in 2:9.
1) Historically, David defeated the nations that rebelled against him.
2) Prophetically, Christ will defeat the nations that rebel against Him (Revelation 19). Egyptian kings would take their scepter and break pottery vessels that represented their enemy nations.
3) Personally, the rebel will be broken by God. Matthew Henry said, “Those who do not bow will break.” You either break and bow now and be saved or be broken by God at the final judgment. Either way you will be broken. Broken now over your sin or broken by God in the future over your sin.
In John 6:37, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me shall come to me: and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.” In 6:44, Jesus added, “No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him.”
