I was watching the unmitigated, deliberate evil of Aubrey Coleman’s stepping on the face of another athelete, during a mere sporting contest and the only residual question left, as applied to him, is why he would be allowed to ever play basketball again, anywhere on planet earth, ever, for so long as he lives, absent appropriate repentance and its fruits. The team that allows him to play is not worth watching as mere sport. It is, rather, a ghetto image of murderous hatred of others you have decided are less than you, much like Reginald Denny being hit with a large brick during the latest ghetto riots in Los Angeles, following the Rodney King case against Lawrence Powell, et al. Why any professional basketball team would find it either entertaining or profitable to have such a low-level mind on its rosters would stun even the demonic animal that inspired Aubrey Coleman to do what he did in the first place.
More than this–the incident begins to tell us what we look like in society today. Winning is everything. Step on someone’s face if you want to really show who is on top. Leave your feetprints on the face of another human being laying on the ground.
It is the same spirit that drives road rage in parking lots and street intersections everywhere, worldwide. It is the same spirit that permits one to steal from another, to churn his bank account or stock brokerage account worldwide. The spirit that produces conduct like that achieves mass murders as well, for there is no meaningful difference, really. It is hatred of one’s fellow man. And it is always in each instance proof beyond any reasonable doubt of the hatred even for God, for man was made in God’s image and that is the spiritual reality of stepping on the face of another, deliberately, purposefully.
“haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away.” –2 Timothy 3:1-5–But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming,
AND
“. . .If anyone makes the statement: “I love God,” and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should be loving his brother also.” –1 John 4:20-21–
Aubrey Coleman probably does not know any better. He lives and breathes the spirit of the world and thrives in it. He feels more powerful than most, perhaps; maybe he is convinced that he can live that kind of life and remain on top. His “attitude” is Satanic if that is fairly descriptive of how he subjectively truly feels. One would hope not. Yet this is truly what the entire world is coming to. It cannot contain its hatreds much longer. It–humanity–wants to break out into a fiendish carnival of hate, a murderous spree of smashing all whom are hated, and it–humanity–does not even understand why. It just wants to hate and it wants to smash and it wants to destroy.
What humanity is unable to discern is how that is something else being expressed in a much, much larger case being played out worldwide, everywhere, all at once. That face stomp we witness in the link above, and the heart condition that led to it, is what the children of the demonic realm will act as things wind down to the end. You can tell the children of Satan by their conduct just as plainly as almost anyone can now tell the children of God.
“The children of God and the children of the Devil are evident by this fact: Everyone who does not carry on righteousness does not originate with God, neither does he who does not love his brother.” –1 John 3:10-11–
That is telling us just how close things are. We truly are living deep into the times of the end. We always know that the weeds would need to grow up side–by-side with the wheat, but we overlooked how stunningly obvious the weeds would ultimately become to anyone paying attention. Let us hope the wheat becomes equally as obvious.
Let us turn away from such things as the sport that ushers in face stomping violence as part of the contest. It is time to walk out of collegiate basketball games for good if this violence, as is evidenced in the Aubrey Coleman case, isn’t severely punished by collegiate authorities. This is not entertainment: it is the loving of violence. And the faithful worldwide know what that means … and why no person among the faithful would be caught dead at such a game any longer …
“Jehovah himself examines the righteous one as well as the wicked one, And anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.” –Psalm 11:5–
Post Script: January 27, 2009
I am not sure if I believe Aubrey Coleman is sincere in offering an apology for the misconduct descibed above and in the news reports about the incident, but it is, at bare minimum, fair that it be mentioned that he has in fact apologized. The reason why I am finding it difficult to believe Mr. Coleman is because he looked right at the player on the ground, his eyes saw him where he was, and the player did not move significantly or at all, in between the step by Mr. Coleman and the affront of stepping on another player’s face, on the ground. The second reason I am reserved is because the apology came by way of a spokesperson and not Mr. Coleman himself. Third, I am as of yet reserved because the apology is tardy, and comes on the heels of a suspension from playing in the next home game by C-USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky.
Nonetheless, … this is what Mr. Coleman’s publicity apparatus says about the incident: “Coleman Apologizes For His Flagrant Foul,” Houston Chronicle.com
“I want to apologize to Chase Budinger for what happened,” Coleman said. “I never meant to step on him. I have never been in an incident like this before, and I have nothing but respect for him as a great player. I love the game too much to do something like that intentionally. I want to say I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
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