“Make a chain, for the land is filled with crimes of blood, and the city is full of violence” (Ezekiel 7:23).
News headline, August 2, 2022 – SIX MAJOR CITIES ON PACE TO PASS HISTORIC 2021 VIOLENT CRIME TOTALS HALFWAY THROUGH 2022
“I think … you can see a trend in increased violence across our country as a whole,” Alabama Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Everett Johnson.
“I can’t speak for the country, but people in Louisiana certainly know it’s one of the … most dangerous cities,” Darrell Basco, president of the Louisiana FOP, speaking of New Orleans.
“He also believes there is a cultural lack of ‘respect for human dignity and human life’ in cities like Birmingham with high murder rates. There is also ‘a drug culture’ of Birmingham residents trying to compete with one another that leads to violent crime, he explained.”
“Based on my knowledge of Birmingham and similar cities, they have a very lenient bond process and pretty much a signature bond that let[s] you back out regardless of the crime. When violent offenders aren’t locked away, violence increases,” Everett Johnson, president of the Alabama FOP said. “… I think it’s a lenient bond system and a lenient criminal justice system. We currently in Alabama have a ‘good time’ law that allows offenders back on the street for serving so many days for good behavior, but I think that law is … being perverted.”
“Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
Jesus Christ said that the days before Christ’s return would in many ways parallel the time of Noah before the flood.
“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:11).
When God is rejected as an authority figure in human life, the natural tendencies of human nature rise to the surface. Without law and significant deterrent to restrain these tendencies, crimes of blood and violence ensue. The chickens have come home to roost.
While we are not in a position to change how society operates, we can observe and be motivated to do what God has called us to do. That is, to be an example of His laws in motion. We are the salt of the earth, a light set upon a hill. Living examples of the beauty of God’s law and the positive effects it can have in the human realm.
Instead of clucking with our tongues at the sad commentary of bloodshed and violence we see every day, we are to gird up our loins and take our calling very seriously. We need to see these times as a call to duty and a call to action.
“… for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the Lord of hosts will be with you, as you have spoken. Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (Amos 5:13-15).
Another way of saying it is that we are His witnesses that He is God (Isaiah 43:12).
We need to be examples of a system of law that Christ will bring to this earth shortly. When God’s government of peace, judgment, and justice is the world-ruling government, we will be kings and priests assisting Christ because we will have been schooled in that system.
It is an evil time, so let us hate evil and love good.
Brian Orchard
