“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” Romans (1:18-20).

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I was out yesterday, so I was late learning about the disturbing events unfolding in Charlottesville, VA. However, fear not, my Facebook newsfeed was kind enough to catch me up to speed on every disgusting detail. As with every other tragedy or controversy or tragic controversy, which has polarized and gripped our nation, everyone seems to be in the usual battle formation with their memes locked and loaded. Am I the only one who recognizes a reoccurring pattern? I could devote this blog post to the events in Charlottesville, but what will be the gain? There will be another even more hideous and sensational evil tomorrow, and then another, and then another after that. My point isn’t to diminish the significance of Charlottesville, but Charlottesville is a fruit, not the root. I’d prefer to get at the root, because I’m tired of all this bad fruit. 

I may primarily be speaking to believers here, because I don’t know how much sway a biblically based message, about the state of affairs, will have with nonbelievers, short of some divine intervention. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” Romans (1:18-20). God’s wrath here, as well as today, is nothing more than stepping back and giving us that which we have demanded—our independence, and we, in turn, are suffering the natural consequences of our disconnect from our Creator and Savior (Romans 1:24). Have we learned nothing from ancient Israel? If we continue on our current trajectory, things are going to get much worse. Thank God he has never given us the full measure of our demand; otherwise, there would be nothing left. Give evil and inch, and forget about taking a mile, like a plague, evil will corrupt and destroy everything in its path. But Jesus warned us two thousand years ago that such things would come to pass, and how remarkable it is that Jesus was speaking both of events in the near future then all the way into the present day (Matthew 24; Mark 13: Luke 21); that’s an eternal message to be sure.

No matter how well intentioned, no matter how admirable the message, Christians, the war isn’t going to be won with rants and memes. We’re not supposed to participate in foolish and quarrelsome arguments (2 Timothy 2:23); they never turn out well for me. If we live up to the command to expose works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11), by engaging in different works of darkness, then that just leaves us all in darkness. I do wholeheartedly believe there’s a season for action, but I also believe there’s a season for fasting and praying, and we may, at least for the moment, need a little less action and a whole lot more fasting and praying. Less labels would be good too; after all, are we not all one in Jesus Christ? (Galatians 3:28); the Apostle Paul thought so. We definitely need less Twitter and Facebook, and even the nightly news is questionable at best. We need Jesus.

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