Praising God In Bad Times

The enemy forces were encamped at Ein Gedi. The king and his people were filled with alarm, so Jehoshaphat called a fast and began to seek the Lord as did all the people. In his prayer, Jehoshaphat talked about evil coming upon the nation, in the form of the sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine. In the verse just before my text, the king prayed in the Temple and said, "O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do; but our eyes are upon you." (2 Chron. 20:12). Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jahaziel the Levite, who announced that the next day all this great host would be overthrown and destroyed. So it was, and so it happened, for Judah’s enemies quarreled among themselves and slew one another, leaving to the people of Judah only to gather the rich spoils of the dead. A similar situation has arisen here in America.

The last 2.5 months in America mirror something like Jehoshaphat and the Israelites were facing. It seems that we are surrounded by enemies. It has felt to me like we have been part of the opening scenes in a horror movie about a nation facing an apocalyptic ending. First, it was (and still is) the Pandemic, with health officials quarantining the well, but exposing the old and sick in nursing homes and assisted living facilities to the virus, where 42% of the deaths have occurred nationwide; where Walmart, Target, liquor stores and pot dispensaries were allowed to stay open, but churches were ordered closed then raided by police; where you’d be arrested for swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, or for surfing in the Pacific or handcuffed for tossing a softball to your daughter in an almost-empty public park, and the acts of tyranny by mayors and governors, almost of all whom are of one particular political party, goes on and on.

Then, last week in Minneapolis, a policeman held his knee against the neck of a black man for 8 minutes while Mr. George Floyd laid face down in the street, and tragically, Mr. George died. Is what the Minneapolis Policeman, who was white, did to George Floyd, who was black, evil, and illegal? Yes. Was it brutal to watch as he pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes, while Mr. Floyd was saying, “I Can’t Breathe?” Yes. Do I believe the policeman and his “3 blind mice,” associates should be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law will allow? Yes. Do I believe they should spend a long, long time behind bars? Yes. Then protests began, at first peaceful, but then soon turned into rioting, beginning Wednesday and continuing through the weekend, with clashes with the police and reckless mayhem and destruction of property, ironically, most of which were owned by minorities, many by African American business owners.

Here is a partial list:

Minneapolis – St. Paul, MN (3rd precinct police headquarters was abandoned by police; rioters entered it, trashed it, and burned it to the ground; 170 businesses were looted and/or burned down)

Louisville, KY (7 shot, not by police)

Atlanta, GA (CNN headquarters overrun and trashed)

Portland, OR (state of emergency declared)

Columbus, OH (state of emergency declared); Cincinnati; Canton

Denver, CO

Detroit, MI

Kansas City, MO

Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco CA

Des Moines, IA

Indianapolis & Fort Wayne IN

Milwaukee, WI

Washington, DC (where protestors breached the White House security fence and were repulsed by Secret Service, but the Democratic DC Mayor refused to send police to assist; the Treasury Dept. bldg. was also breached)

Rioting in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin, TX

New York City and its boroughs (police cars set on fire; NYPD Police Precinct overrun; police van set afire; officers injured)

Lincoln, NE

Boston, MA

New Orleans, LA

Newark, NJ

Richmond, and Virginia Beach, VA

Seattle, WA

Attorney General Bill Barr said Saturday, that “…it appears the violence is planned, organized, and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups, far-left extremist groups using Antifa-like tactics many of whom traveled from outside the state to promote the violence.” What should be a Christian response to the events that are unfolding in our country? We are to do what God instructed the Israelites to do: We are to praise the Lord and worship Him. We read, “Jehoshaphat stood and said, ‘Hear me, O Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established; believe His prophets, so shall you prosper.’ And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, ‘Praise the Lord; for His mercy endures forever.’ And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set an ambush against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten” (II Chron. 20:20-22).