So, Chicago police claim they ended 2016 with 762 deaths. (Data kept by the Chicago Tribune tallied at least 781 homicides for the year) Many times that number were wounded.
It is an epidemic of black on black crime. Victims were 90% male . . . Offenders were 88% male . . . Their former police commissioner blamed the increase in Chicago and other urban areas around the country on Black Lives Matter and their demonstrations against police. Interestingly the group’s name implies they want to save black lives, but it seems more are lost because of them.
So, will it continue in 2017? Unfortunately, that question was answered in an uptown Chicago bar just a few hours into the new year when some young black men got into an argument which accelerated and left two dead.
It is difficult for an average person to fathom what it might be like to live in an area where gunshots ringing out are the norm. We don’t live in Damascus or Aleppo Syria, but parts of Chicago are similarly dangerous. I’ve lived on some dangerous streets, and though my experience was nowhere near as bad as Chicago, I was always paranoid and wondering if this would be the day I would die a violent death. It is a horrible way to live and one that is tough to escape thus leaving a sense of hopelessness.
Chicago is one of the foremost examples that gun control laws simply do not work, because no city in the United States has stricter gun laws. What must take place there is spiritual revival. Fathers must obtain a job and take responsibility for raising their kids, (more than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock.) and the trafficking in drugs by gangs must be curtailed. Somehow a work ethic must be instilled in a people who have generationally been subjected to welfare slavery by a Democratic machine that needs their votes.
Sound impossible to solve this problem? Although there was no spiritual revival Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City which by all accounts was just as devastated by urban blight. He had the courage to put crime bosses in jail and otherwise eliminate lawlessness. Chicago’s mayor Rahm Emmanuel is a power hungry political hack and no Rudy Giuliani. He does however control the mighty democratic machine that has cursed Chicago since the days of Al Capone and somehow that must change.
Why should God fearing people in the rest of the country care about those lost black souls in Chicago? Many say let them kill each other, they’re just gang member dope heads.
Jonah said similar things about Nineveh, (Mosul in modern days). The Book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city like Chicago in many aspects, and worthy of destruction by God. In fact, Jonah refused to go there and preach, preferring that they die in their sins. He set out to sea to escape and ended up spending three days in the belly of a whale as a reminder of the consequences of disobeying orders from God.
This encounter changed his mind and the second time God sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites of their coming destruction, he did. Afterwards they fasted and repented because of it. And as a result, God spared the city.
When Jonah protested his going to Nineveh, God stated to him that He was showing mercy for the population who are ignorant of the difference between right and wrong (“who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.”
We need to view all sinners with a similar lense. Chicago needs a modern-day Jonah. Pray for one to rescue them from their sin.
Jonah 3:1
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
January 2 2016 – Click here to listen