Casualties Of War

Amos 7:14  Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: 

One need not have the prophetic gifts to read the signs of the times.

Well, here we are again mourning another act of madness. We try to understand, but we cannot though we should understand perfectly. We pray that it will not happen again, but we must face reality and know that it will happen. In fact, I believe it will increase in frequency and intensity.

I do not know why exactly, but I was not caught off guard when all these shootings started. I looked around my world in the seventies and said that if the Lord tarried twenty years there would be Christian blood in the streets. Would to God that I had been wrong! I was only a young Christian then and not even aware that I was a budding preacher, but I knew that the Church has lost its respectability because it had lost its holiness and that the World saw it as fair game rather than off limits.

In the eighties, I suffered a taste of what I believe is to come for all Christians. My life was threatened and I was abused emotionally at my job. Those folks had religious ties but had no ties with Jesus. Everything I held sacred was mocked and I believe that if the old boy that threatened me had figured a way that he could get away with it I would not be here today.

In the nineties, we see people needing permission to pray a neutral prayer at a public gathering. They are threatened with punishment worse than what criminals receive should they mention Jesus and this insanity was by a Texas judge! I would have figured it in some other states, but never Texas. At least, I would have figured Texas to be the last state to fall to such incredible foolishness. Our forefathers are spinning like a Texas twister in their graves. If they were alive today, that judge and any others like him would have been disbarred for life for their ignorance of the foundational laws of this country.

Of course, they had backbones. Because we do not have the focus they had back then we wring our hands and whimper. We have laid around and played around this old world too long. We have kicked back under the Magnolia tree sippin’ on our non-alcoholic mint juleps enjoyin’ the breezes of the Promised Land rather than being in training for spiritual warfare. Our forefathers fought to give us religious freedom. We thought this would always be a Christian nation. We thought we could enjoy a peace dividend and disarm the Church and muster out the Christian soldiers. Well, just as America may soon reaps its so-called peace dividend with thermonuclear fires; we are being bombarded with the fiery darts of the devil.

It is time we wake up! (Eph 5:14) We have been derelict in our duties and slept on our watch and the base is being overrun. (Ezekiel 3:17) We may have signed a peace treaty with the devil, but Jesus did not. The Church went on R&R when Jesus was still sounding the charge. The Russian bear is only hibernating and getting ready for the Spring forage and the devil played possum until we slept and became fat, spoiled children who throw tempter tantrums. (Deut 32:15) Now, he is revealing himself as the devouring lion and murderer that he has been from the beginning. Why are we shocked? (1 peter 5:8; John 8:44) We have had plenty of warning and instruction to not be ignorant of his devices. (2 Cor. 2:11) Now he has the advantage over us because we have spent too much time chasing mammon and trying to make the World like us and find us respectable by watering down our mission and the message. (Luke 6:13, Matthew 10:33-39) We were told the world would hate us as it hated Christ (John 15:19-25)

We are not in Heaven. We are in country. For those not of a military background, in country is what you were when you landed in Viet Nam. We are in a war zone. We are not here to win the polls by pen, but win the souls of men. We have used the carnal weapons of politics rather than using our weapons of spiritual warfare. We are seeing the use of satan’s carnal weapons against us because we failed to be about our job of "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor 10:4,5)

Pauls says of the lost, "Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Rom 3:15-18) Is it any wonder that "blood toucheth blood" even in a church house? (Hosea 4:2) Verse one tells us that "there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land." Then we see the result of that in verse 2. "By swearing, and lying, and killing, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Well, hello America, 1999!!! We’re number one alright, verse one and we are suffering the results listed in verse two!