Preacher’s Point
By Pastor Timothy Johnson
Mass shootings have been all over the news in recent weeks. The leaked Supreme Court papers are also in the news every day. Mass shootings and abortion are closer than most people think. When you break both down to the core, they are a disregard of human life.
I went to the list provided on gunviolencearchive.org and counted the shootings involving five or more victims; wounded plus killed must add up to five or more. The leak of the Supreme Court ruling hit the press on the evening of May 2. So, starting with May 3 Through Sunday, May 15, there have been 17 shootings with five victims or more. For comparison, from April 3 to 15, there were eight, less than half.
Food for thought: Since the Supreme Court leak, the disregard for human life in the womb has rung loud and wide. Should we not expect a rise in the disregard for life on the street as well?
In other news, wildfires burn from Texas west. Drought is a major contributor to the fires. Looking at the map on droughtmonitor.unl.edu, roughly half of the nation is in drought conditions. Draw a line north to south on the eastern side of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas; nearly everything west of that line is suffering from drought.
God is the one who sends the precipitation. Job 37:6 says, “For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength.”
God is withholding the rain.
On the flip side of this is something that has not yet hit the news. Many fields remain unplanted here in farm country (Indiana) because of mud and flooding. Our crisis is too much water. If the seeds do not get planted, the food does not grow.
One must concede that “crisis” is an overused word in today’s media; however, not long ago, we usually only suffered through one crisis at a time. Now there are several going on at once.
-The gun crisis.
-The woman’s health crisis.
-The baby formula crisis.
-The supply chain crisis.
-The border crisis.
-The Ukrainian refugee crisis.
-The war in Ukraine crisis.
-The energy crisis.
-The global warming crisis.
-The unemployment crisis.
-The education crisis.
Need I go on? By the way, is Covid still a thing? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, the lockdown in China crisis.
That China crisis brings me to our foreign relations crisis with China.
Grammarly tells me I am using “crisis” too much, so I reckon I will stop there. But, before I do, I must say, the toilet paper crisis was stupid.
Let us give the news media the benefit of the doubt and say that half or more of these situations are crises. If all this stuff is at crisis level all at once, should not we be asking why? The powers that be in this nation blame each other. But, maybe we should ask a more profound question — What is God trying to tell us?
Fires, drought, floods, wars, rumors of wars, death, a lot of death in the streets — over a million from pestilence, tens of thousands through murder in the streets, and millions murdered in the womb — almost sounds like the apocalypse. No, this is everyday life in America. Add to that, that those on the lower end of the income spectrum pay more than a day’s wages for a tank of gas ($7.25 (minimum wage) x 8 hr workday = $58) (15-gal gas x $4.48 (national average price of gas) = $67.20).
America needs to realize that there is a God, and He is the God of the Bible. God told Israel that if they continued to sacrifice children to the god Molech, He would “set his face against them.”
As a nation, we have slaughtered the innocent in the womb. Those we have elected to office cheer when they pass laws to kill children in the womb. We fight for the right to dismember children inside what should be the safest place in the universe. Add to that the streets of Dodge City and Tombstone of the Old West were safer than present-day Chicago.
Cause and effect — God’s face is against us.
I leave you with the words of Jesus Christ as recorded in Luke 13:2-5: “Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
Hmm, the tower fell, and then came the final warning.
Preacher Johnson is Pastor of Countryside Baptist Church in northern Parke County, Indiana. Webpage: www.preacherspoint.wordpress.com; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Timothy-Preacher-Johnson-101171088326638email: [email protected]; address: 410 S. Jefferson St. Rockville IN 47872. All Bible references KJV. The Daily Advocate does not endorse these viewpoints nor the independent activities of the author.
