October 4, 2021 – Click here to listen
I rolled into the Florida Keys mid-afternoon Thursday and it’s great to be home in this paradise of turquoise water and to sleep in my own bed. I traveled far and wide on this adventure that began in mid-July, and we saw the beauty of this nation from the Florida Keys to the Arctic Circle and back. We saw some unforgettable terrain that was just short of heaven.
Sadly, not all that we saw was beauty and splendor, however, and I was deeply disturbed by some of it. In the panhandle of Florida, I was stopped at a red light and saw two little girls who looked to be in middle school, one black and one white, walking together smiling and laughing. In front of me at the red light was an old black man sitting in a dilapidated old truck that must have come from the television junkyard set of Sanford and Sons. Suddenly a young white man comes roaring around the corner with the largest confederate flag I’ve seen flapping in the wind in the back of his truck.
The little girls saw it and kept walking. The black man saw it too and when the light changed slowly drove away. I told my wife that the flag this boy was flying was further stoking the fire of racial hatred in this country and it was just uncalled for.
Lest one thinks this display was limited to whites insulting blacks we also saw on this trip numerous Black Lives Matter flags with slogans concerning their hatred of whites which are unprintable. We saw this especially in California where groups of young blacks were driving around with an African flag on one side and BLM flag on the other. Sadly, this is not even close to being limited to a black/white issue and we also saw a huge Mexican flag flying in a pickup truck near Miami.
What happened to the United States? One nation under God? Folks in this country don’t seem to want a melting pot, they want their very own stand-alone pots and everyone else can just be damned.
If you don’t like different colored people, then you definitely won’t like heaven. The Bible does not mention skin color as criteria for joining Jesus in heaven. We will all be Christian brothers and sisters with our Father God at the head of our family.
It seems every country has ethnic hatred. It reminds me of when I was in high school. The county I lived in my senior year in high school was the only “wet” county for 150 miles. Thus, if someone wanted to drink alcohol they flocked to our community. So, on weekends people from Alabama would flood our bars and beer joints. We had an air force base in close proximity, and they would come in droves. We were just 30 miles from Mississippi State University, and they would come in large numbers. And then there were the rednecks from the swamps and woods who left their logging trucks and trailers behind to come for a visit. In the center of our town was Mississippi State College for Women which was called the “W”. The local rednecks of which I was a part, claimed all the women in this college and in our town for ourselves and we fought every weekend to defend our turf. So did the Alabama rednecks, airbase guys we called “prop-heads”, the MSU guys who we referred to as MOO-U punks, and of course the trailer trash, and assorted other groups. On Saturday night everyone converged on our little town, and it was like going to war. Each group all hung together, and fights were numerous, so numerous in fact if we couldn’t find anyone else to fight, we fought each other.
Sounds similar to the racial hatred in the United States, eh? Asians being attacked, Muslims, blacks, whites, Native Americans, Haitians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, you name it.
And it is not limited to racial hatred, there is religious hatred. Many countries are experiencing persecution to include genocide because of their faith. There is political hatred. There is hatred of the “haves” and “have nots”. There is plenty of hate to go around.
Sometimes one has to wonder why we cannot all get along.
It is satanic. Jesus told us that we are to love one another. Satan wants to divide and destroy. He is accomplishing His mission because we ignore Him and His Holy Word.
I felt deep sorrow for the two little girls and the old black man in the truck. I wondered if they were fearful or intimidated. I wondered how long we would have to put up with Satan. I prayed that God would put him and all his followers in the deepest pit in hell.
Patience my friends, patience. I believe we are rapidly approaching the end of Satan and his chaos and we will enjoy Christ’s rule forever with no Satan or his evil to bother us. Why even the animal world will cease their killing and mayhem. Oh Yeah . . .
Isaiah 11:6
Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf and young lion and fatling will be together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will graze with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox . . .