For several weeks now, ever since we received the pandemic stay-at-home mandate, I have been writing about past police stories in an attempt to encourage you with the Word of God using a much different platform. I was fully prepared to send out yet another installment of the “I Can” series this morning but felt compelled to address what’s been happening in our nation.

Luke 19:41-42 gives us this record:

As He (Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

As I watch what has been taking place in major cities across this nation, just like the Luke 19 account, I am crushed, broken, and overcome with grief. By now we have all seen the reprehensible and senseless death of George Floyd at the hands of unsympathetic and heartless men—men who wore a police badge and took an oath to protect and serve. We have seen provoked, outraged, and frustrated people take to the streets in protest, only to have those protests turn violent and malicious. If all that wasn’t bad enough, we have listened to divisive, influential leaders engage in vicious, verbal debates, casting blame and twisting the words of others in order to peddle their own personal narratives and platforms.

I ask myself, “What have we become?” “How can this be happening here in America, in 2020?” I didn’t have to ponder these thoughts for very long before the Spirit of the Lord brought Ephesians 6:12 to mind: For our struggle (fight) is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil…

Did you catch that? Spiritual forces of evil. What we are living and experiencing right now is the perfect storm of evil, and evil has only one objective—steal, kill, and destroy. First the pandemic and lock down along with the death of tens of thousands of fellow Americans, unemployment and loss of income, domestic unrest, political debates, the deplorable death of an unarmed black man while in police custody, and now criminal rioting. Shall I say it again? The perfect storm of evil. The enemy is not flesh and blood; and as long as we aim our hatred, anger, and bitter emotions in the direction of other people, evil will continue to hold the upper hand.

Romans 12:21 says: Do not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.

It’s time for the Church of Jesus Christ to intervene because the Church, and only the Church, has the answer. It was given to us during the final Passover Jesus shared with His disciples, just a few days after He wept over the city. On that occasion Jesus said, “This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12

Love is the message. Love is the power. Love is the answer. Nothing else, love!

P.S. If you didn’t hear Pastor Chris’s message from yesterday’s service, please listen to it first chance you get. If you did hear it, please listen to it again.