God Will Not Be Mocked

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Brian Hunter · May 31, 2026

Scripture Referenced

Recap

Brian set aside the “Work Smarter, Not Harder” series for a week to address a time-sensitive situation unfolding overseas, framing the whole message as a call to prayer and intercession for Israel. He opened in Isaiah 5’s Song of the Vineyard: God plants, clears, and tends a vineyard with total care, then finds only wild grapes when harvest comes. Isaiah makes the metaphor explicit: the vineyard is Israel, God’s “pleasant planting,” and the wild fruit is a nation that turned from him despite everything he’d given it.

Brian traced that relationship back to its root: Exodus 4:22 calls Israel God’s firstborn son, and from that point on, Scripture describes God relating to his people the way a good father relates to a child: nurturing, guiding, and, when necessary, disciplining. Hebrews 5 was brought in to make the same point about individual believers: discipline isn’t evidence that God has abandoned you, it’s evidence that he hasn’t.

The title phrase (God will not be mocked) wasn’t delivered as a threat but as a sober reality check: care and closeness with God don’t exempt a person or a nation from consequences when they walk away from him. Brian’s closing ask was direct: set the series aside for a week and actually pray, specifically and by name, for Israel and for what was unfolding there.

Touch Points

1. When you think about God’s discipline in your own life, do you experience it as rejection or as a father who hasn’t given up on you?
2. Where might you be expecting a harvest of “good grapes” from soil you haven’t actually tended?
3. What does it look like practically for you to intercede in prayer for a situation you can’t control or fix yourself?
4. Is there an area of your life where you’ve quietly assumed there won’t be consequences for drifting from God?

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