If you were the devil, the most wicked and uncool entity in the known universe, and you wanted to give yourself a very positive and public makeover as kind and benevolent, what would you do?

Well, you would simply inspire TV shows like “Lucifer” and develop a character like Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis), and depict yourself as a caring consultant to the LAPD.

But what if you wanted to further flip the script? You would make your enemy – the one true and benevolent God – look evil; or at least indifferent to the evil and suffering in the world. You would inspire a TV series like “Miracle Workers” and cast Steve Buscemi as “God”. You’d also cast Daniel Radcliffe, a professed atheist and a fan of militant atheist Richard Dawkins, as an angel. (You might recognize Radcliffe from his role as Harry Potter.)

The new TBS series “Miracle Workers” is the brain child of former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, and is an adaptation of Rich’s “What in God’s Name?”. It is bad enough that Saturday Night Live writers are adept at mocking their political enemies, but when one is on a mission to mock God it entails a whole new level of sophistry and blasphemy.

A number of Harry Potter fans, who had already been seduced into the glorification of the world of the occult via Daniel Radcliffe’s portrayal of the master wizard Harry Potter, have now fallen prey to a weak and beleaguered caricature of God in Miracles Workers. Talk about brain washing and propaganda!

In his TV adaption, Rich is careful not to portray God as blatantly evil, as if Richard Dawkins were writing the script, because that would kill the ratings and professing Christian’s would not be so easily seduced into his diabolical web. Instead, Rich portrays God as evil by depicting Him as totally indifferent to the suffering of His creatures. “God” is depicted as a crack head that is so obsessed with worthless hobbies, like pretending to be a rock star, that he couldn’t care less about the prayers of His suffering creatures.

Radcliffe says, “The answering of our prayers is very low priority in this version of Heaven.” (Source)

In fact, in Miracles Workers, God doesn’t really do many miracles or answer many prayers at all. They simply stack up by the millions while very few are answered. The few that are heard are answered by an angel (Radcliffe) and eventually his protégé Eliza (Geraldine Viswanathan).

Radcliffe admits that the show can be “very dark,” and “the ends justify the means.” He says, “We do some bad things to people who are getting in our way in order to try and save the world.” Radcliffe further admits that the show contains “darker humor” and “our depiction of God is kind of crazy.” To be sure, “God” is the butt of most of the jokes. (Source)

Unfortunately, it is not just the God-hating atheists and Satanists who are relishing the blasphemous depiction of God in Miracle Workers. Sadly, many professing Christian seem to have no problem with God being depicted as a bumbling idiot. In response to an atheist, who expressed sheer joy in seeing God depicted as weak and pathetic, some professing Christians were quick to let them know that they were all right with some mockery of God.

Victoria: “I’m a Christian and I’m enjoying this show so far. Just because I believe in God doesn’t mean I don’t think God jokes are funny.”

Avery: “I’m Christian, rather devout, but I have a sense of humor. This irreverent show does not damage my faith, and I can enjoy a chuckle.”

Can we truly know and love the Lord and not be appalled when His good name is dragged through the mud and unbelievers are turned away from Him via the wicked caricatures done by the God haters in Hollywood?

If my wife, children or friends were mocked and derided in such a way, I would be heart broken. I certainly wouldn’t watch it for entertainment! How much more heart broken should we be when our Creator and Redeemer is mocked and blasphemed?

In Miracle Workers “God” is depicted as so uncaring that he picks up a globe of the Earth and chucks it into the trash. Later, this beer guzzling “God” informs the angels that he will soon be destroying the Earth.

However, two of his more benevolent angels (Radcliffe and Viswanathan) hatch a plan to make a wager with God that will force him not to destroy planet earth.

They wager that if they can answer the prayers of two people (who are already interested in each other) that God will have to relent of his plans to destroy the earth. They state that all they should have to do is get them to have a date or two. “God” counters by saying they have to have “full sex,” if they are to win the bet.

Of course, getting to heaven is a whole other thing. Salvation does not occur when a repentant sinner places faith in the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Getting into heaven is totally random. Radcliffe says, “that it’s random whether you get into Heaven, in our story, as well. There’s one moment when Eliza is trying to rally the troops, and she’s like, ‘Come on guys, you know, we’re all in Heaven, that means we’re the best humanity has to offer.’ And somebody else is like, “No, no, no, that’s not how it works. It’s random.” (Source)

I gained a great deal of insight into Rich’s anti-God subterfuge in Miracle Workers when I read some of his other works. Simon Rich did a short story that puts a spin on the biblical book of Job called “The Book of Simon” (from Hit’s and Misses).

In Rich’s rewrite, the story of Job is turned on its head in “The Book of Simon.” Rather than having a previous allegiance to God as Job did, Rich is a perverse atheist and already belongs to Satan. Rather than Satan’s objective to get Job to apostatize from God, God’s objective is to get Rich to apostatize from the devil. Rather than depicting God as testing a righteous “man in the land of Uz whose name was Job,” we read, “Now, there was a wicked Hebrew in the land of Brooklyn named Simon Rich. And no one had less faith in God than he did. And Satan would often boast about this man.”

One day when Satan is boasting of what a wicked man he has made of Simon, God wagers with Satan that if He pours out even more blessings on Simon’s life, that he will surely become a devoted believer, “‘Let’s go double or nothing on the Job thing. I’ll bless Simon and give him reward upon reward until his cup runneth over. And you will see that he starts to believe!’” Then “God” says, “’Maybe Simon would believe in me if his life were more blessed?’ And Satan laughed and said, ‘How?’ For Simon had been raised in luxury and had never experienced hardship of any kind.”

“God” becomes so obsessed with winning this bet that he “puts everything aside, including [the suffering in] Africa.” This is exactly how God is portrayed in Miracle Workers; too busy with his hobbies to be concerned with the suffering of the masses on planet Earth. In fact, in Miracle Workers he is betting with the hope that he wins and can destroy the planet.

Now observe what Simon Rich says about what “Simon” did when God blessed Him:

“Now, Simon had graduated from an expensive college, but he had almost no skills. All he liked to do was sit around in his underwear, making up jokes and then laughing at them. So God said, “Fine,” and let Simon do that as his full-time job. But, instead of praising God for this miracle, Simon took everything for granted, and even began to write some jokes that made fun of God. And Satan would read these jokes out loud to God, in a funny voice” (Simon Rich, “The Book of Simon”, The New Yorker, September 2016).

God is depicted as permitting Simon Rich to continue to do evil in the hope that he will repent and come to faith. However, rather than turn to God, he became even a greater enemy and made it his life’s work to mock Him for fame. This of course is suppose to be ironic, as in the real story of Simon Rich, he is still serving Satan and is now blaspheming God for money and fame in the TV series Miracle Workers!

In the end we are told that Simon “wrestled deeply with the question of faith. He thought about all the blessings he’d been given while other, more deserving people had suffered. And the mad injustice of his life convinced him, unequivocally, that God did not exist. Because if God existed then surely by now he would have got some horrible comeuppance.”

We then read that God tells Satan, “You win.” “God” is so defeated that even Satan feels sorry for God, “And Satan tried to gloat, but he couldn’t enjoy the victory, because God was so visibly upset.”

It is important to note that Rich states in his little biographical sketch that his motivation for being an atheist is due to God’s alleged indifference to the injustice and suffering in the world. Of course He stacks the deck by falsely caricaturing God as not caring about entire continents like Africa.

Note that this is also how he caricatures God in Miracle Workers. It is hard to escape the fact that Rich is doing so in an effort to make more atheists. Ironically, Rich lets us know that he has been doing the devils bidding all along.

It is also interesting in Miracle Workers Rich subtly depicts Radcliffe (the former chief wizard in Harry Potter) and Eliza, as Satan, the one now making a wager with God in an effort to save planet Earth. Of course, insidiously, Rich again portrays God as the one who doesn’t really care for the suffering, but simply wants to win a bet.

The truth is that God is not indifferent to our suffering, nor is He afraid of leaving heaven and coming to Earth, as he is so depicted in Miracle Workers. In fact, the reality is that God actually left Heaven and came to earth and partook of our humanity and entered into our suffering (John 1:1-14). He was rejected and beaten beyond that of any other human being (Isaiah 53). He was mocked and blasphemed and finally crucified, bearing the suffering, wrath and shame that Simon Rich, you, and I deserve. He was condemned, bearing our punishment so that we could be accepted and enter into heaven upon our death.

Hollywood is incapable of writing a story with the breadth and width and height of God’s great love for sinners. The Lord God left His heavenly throne and became one of us and died in our place:

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Romans 5:6-9).

The truth is that what Simon Rich and other Hollywood elites are doing in mocking God is fulfilling biblical prophecy. Rich’s blasphemous portrayal of God in Miracle Workers as a deity who sits around twiddling his thumbs, as people wait hopelessly for Him to come and help, is exactly what God said would happen in the last days just before Christ’s return:

“Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

In “The Book of Simon” Rich digs his feet into the ground and becomes an even stauncher atheist because God not only allegedly permits injustice, but because “surely by now he would have got some horrible comeuppance [punishment].” Tragically for Rich and others like him, their comeuppance is not asleep, but ready to come up real soon.

The truth is that God does not permit injustice because He is indifferent to evil, but because He wants to deliver us from the evil within our hearts. If God did not give us time to repent and He gave us what we deserved all at once, Simon Rich and the rest of us would have been destroyed a long time ago. We should all thank God for His great longsuffering, because if He were not patient we would all be toast!

However, because God is just and righteous, He will eventually judge the world in righteousness. In fact, right after the Lord declares that mockers like Simon Rich would come in the last days, He states, “it escapes their notice” that God has judged the unrepentant wicked world before with a flood and that He will do so again with fire. The Lord goes on to reveal the reason He has not yet come to condemn the present wicked world:

“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

As a former ignorant blasphemer of God myself, I sincerely pray that Simon Rich and those like Him turn to the Lord before it is too late. Let us call on the Lord for salvation now, while there is still time. For the day is soon coming when He will “execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 1:15).