April 2006

Jeremiah 19:3-6 “Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place ‘ Granite City ’ that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. For they have forsaken me and made ‘Granite City’ a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled ‘Granite City’ with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal; to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal- something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind…people will no longer call this place ‘Granite City’ or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.”  The signs upon entering Granite City, Illinois should read “Welcome to the City of Slaughter severing over 366,000 mother-child relationships, infamously known as the baby-dumping capital of the Midwest”and counting…

During this Holy week the devil requires much innocent blood to be shed to satisfy his appetite. More babies will be killed on Good Friday as it is a high killing day. The devil hates any attention given to Christ. Most Christians this week will be focused a lot on the sacrifice Jesus gave to the world, or so it should be. We have become a nation of murderers. The weak have become a prey in America because truth has stumbled in the streets and justice has been driven back, Isaiah 59:14-15. As truth and justice have been removed from the courts in our land, an enemy has come in and bloodshed is filling the corridors of our schools, workplaces, and streets.

The enemy was first allowed to enter through the gates of the Church of Jesus Christ. The prophet Jeremiah says it best when he laments over the fall of the great city of Jerusalem in Lamentations 4:12-13

Where is the passion for Christ and His children?

In America today, we are under a curse but Christians refuse to recognize God’s hand in the matter. America and the American Church at first glance looks prosperous but inwardly we are full of dead man’s bones drowning in sin and innocent blood. We are like an empty tomb. We refuse to see the sin in our church and in our own lives. We claim to be against abortion but what are we doing about it? We, the Church of Jesus Christ in America , have failed to protect the least of these My brethren and because we have, an enemy has come in and he is savaging us. Until we confess the egregious sin of abortion, the least of these My brethren, and turn from our own wicked ways, help from God will be withheld. What’s worse, precious friends like Terri Schiavo will be starved to death and murdered with increasing ferocity.

Are you surprised that it would all come back to abortion? So were the people in Jeremiah’s time. They felt that they could worship Almighty God while sacrificing their children at the same time, Jeremiah 7:31.

Most professing pro-lifers try to vote for pro-life candidates and throw money at the local pregnancy center but they would never bother to stand outside an abortion mill and literally lay their lives down. They can’t even admit that just 40 feet from where we stand daily little babies are being ripped apart limb from limb and thrown into buckets. What it means to be pro-life is not whether you support pregnancy centers or vote conservative. It’s a way of life. WWJD. Professing pro-lifers would take on the character of Christ, they would have a broken heart over the atrocities that break God’s heart. They would actively speak for those without a voice or support those that are actively fighting for their lives, and rebuke the wicked. God promises us our daily bread but He doesn’t promise us it’s going to be buttered. In other words, picking up our cross and carrying it is not going to be easy. Nothing in life worth having is. If it were easy everyone would be doing it. When the men of God fail in rightly representing the truth and justice of Almighty God, it isn’t long before our murderous enemy makes his serpentine way through the government of a land. This is why Terri Schaivo had no real defense. The men of God have failed and an enemy is savaging us. We Christians have failed. We are the wicked ones.

But God did leave us a promise didn’t He?

2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Matthew 16:21-26 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Where is your passion for Christ and His children? How do you want to be remembered? How are you making a difference in the world today? 

2 Timothy 4:7-8 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

2 Timothy 4:16-18 “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen”

I don’t know about you, but I want to leave the kind of legacy that will one day be read by future generations, that we fought the good fight, we stood the battle and when we went down on the barb-wired fence, my children and their children came running over our back and led the charge.  When men and women go to war they do valiantly when done in Christ’s name and the true passion for Christ and His children. They will go in the history books, as those martyrs and legends that have gone before us. They will have not died in vain. 

Joshua 1:6 “Be strong and courageous” ~Angela