Justice
No Character, No Justice
If you live in a cave somewhere, are spending too much time on social media, or reside in another nation besides the United States and haven’t watched television recently, you might not know that marches, riots, and looting are taking place in a St. Louis, Missouri suburb called Ferguson.
Nearly every night for a week.
One of the main slogans of the marchers is “No Justice, No Peace.” I agree with the general maxim that righteousness in society helps to encourage public tranquility, but it goes much deeper than that.
Without character, there can be no peace, justice or freedom.
Here’s why.
First of all for those of you who have not been following the news, here are the facts about a police shooting in Ferguson that launched the rioting:
- On Saturday, August 9, 28-ear old Darren Wilson, a six year veteran of the Ferguson police department, shot and killed eighteen year old Robert Brown during the middle of the day. Wilson is white and Brown was black.
- Just prior to the shooting, Brown robbed a convenience store (stealing some cigars) while bullying one of its employees. The robbery was caught on tape and released by the local police department.
- Shortly after the robbery, Wilson saw Brown walking in the middle of a street and told him to get to the sidewalk. He did not respond to the policeman and an altercation followed.
- Brown was a big teenager–six foot four inches and nearly three hundred pounds. He was unarmed at the time of shooting.
- Brown was shot six times–all bullets entering the front of his body, indicating he was facing Wilson during the skirmish. Wilson was hurt in the fight and needed medical attention at a local hospital.
- There are conflicting eyewitness reports on the altercation. A friend of Brown’s, who was walking with him when the confrontation took place, says that the policeman was the aggressor, trying to pull Brown into the squad car. After the scuffle, the friend says that they ran away from the car and then Brown put his hands up as if to surrender. According to the friend, Wilson still shot the teenager in cold blood.
- According to Officer Wilson (via a friend), he had heard on the radio of the robbery, assumed it might be Brown, and confronted him. Brown then pushed him into the car, went for his gun and it went off. Brown then ran from the car, but when Wilson told him to freeze, Brown taunted him and began racing back toward him. Fearing for his life, Brown fired six bullets until he went down.
- Brown had traces of marijuana in his system at the time of his death.
Those are the facts about the event. Notice that I have given no commentary because it is way too early to discern what really happened and who is telling the truth. That will be left to an investigation and possible court trial.
Yet many people–and even some news outlets–have already tried the police officer in the court of public opinion and and found him guilty of race-motivated murder.
How do I know that? Here are the facts of that case:
- The predominantly black community of Ferguson has marched every evening holding signs indicating their certain verdict of Wilson’s guilt and Brown’s innocence.
- Stores have been looted and ransacked in response to the clamor for “justice” i.e. guilt for Darren Wilson for murdering Michael Brown.
- Some of America’s race hustlers–like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton–have descended on Ferguson to join the marchers and stir up the crowds. Jackson even tried to raise money for his race baiting empire at a Ferguson rally. (Fortunately, the crowd booed his money-grubbing approach.)
- Both CNN and MSNNBC did stories which shared only one side of the eyewitness accounts–the one that implicated the white officer. On CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage, one commentator stated falsely that “Michael Brown was shot in the back.” No one challenged the accusation.
- President Obama took time off from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to “ask for calm” in Ferguson. That was an appropriate thing, but he then made other statements that indicated that the killing might be racially motivated and that black young men are unnecessarily targeted in poor communities by white policemen.
- Eric Holder and fifty FBI agents have been sent to Ferguson to “get to the bottom of the case.” This seems a bit much as 20 murders take place in Chicago each week and no feds are dispatched to look into the “injustices” there.
So it appears to any fair-minded person that all of the above are trying to push race as the reason for this unfortunate death well before the facts can be learned.
To which I say, “No Patience, No Justice.”
No person, especially a police officer who puts his life on the line every day to protect our safety, should be assumed guilty for racial crimes until that is proved in a court of law.
Law and justice take time.
At least Fox News avoided the “gun-happy police” frenzy. Last night, the O-Reilly Factor shared the facts about police shootings in the United States for 2012 (the last year we have statistics). Here they are:
- In 2012, there were 12 million crimes that took place in the United State among our 320 million residents.
- 42% of those crimes were committed by whites, 34% by blacks, and 24% by Hispanics.
- Blacks are only 13% of the US population, but commit a high percent of the crimes.
- 34,000 crimes are committed everyday in the United States.
- The number of police shootings during those 34,000 daily crimes: 422.
Yes, you read that number right. Of the 34,000 times daily that American police confronted law breakers, only 1.2 percent of the time did the police use a gun.
That’s hardly being trigger happy.
There are no statistics that tell us whether those 422 shootings were committed by white or black cops. But it doesn’t matter.
Police shootings are rare–period.
So why is there such a rush to judgment in Ferguson, marches every night demanding “justice” (guilt) for white Officer Wilson when no investigation or trial is complete?
Let the investigation or courts discover who the truth. If the facts eventually show that Officer Wilson wrongfully murdered Michael Brown, then he should face stiff consequences for his crime. If the facts say that Michael Brown wrongly threatened and pummeled a police officer, and lost his life because of it, then he should not be viewed as a victim or hero.
So why do some black leaders in America rush to Missouri to create the impression that whites hate blacks, white policeman target black young men, and that we still live in segregated and discriminatory America when the facts say otherwise?
I’m sure there are a number of reasons, but most of them are not good including winning elections, padding their wallets, and preying on peoples’ fears.
None of this would be happening if we had the heart and character of a courageous black man named Martin Luther King who would certainly be denouncing the looting and rioting if he were alive today. Dr. King said that we must judge people not by “the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
So, according to MLK, here’s what should be happening in Ferguson and in the United States:
1. The marches should be peaceful. That takes character in the lives of concerned citizens.
2. There should be no looting of private property. That’s anarchy and taking advantage of the sobering events. When you see people benefiting from a tragedy for their own selfish gain, you know you are looking at devilish behavior–not godly character. Character respects the rights of others.
3. The entire nation should be patient as the wheels of justice turn and the case is settled judicially. Patience is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit and one of the essential aspects of personal character (Romans 5:3-5).
Here’s a good summary of principles to reflect on:
If there’s no patience, there can be no justice–because time is required for facts to be learned.
If there is no character in our actions, then there can be no peace–just the abuse of others.
If we refuse to live by the godly character that Dr. King espoused, then there can be no freedom in neighborhoods, cities and towns.
And a final truth: a greater degree of character, peace, and patience is produced in a nation when people have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus who can rescue us from our selfish appetites. Even when there is patience and character, sometimes justice is not fully served on earth.
But it will be in eternity through the Prince of Peace.
Compassion as a Tool of Deception
Deception: 1. an act or statement intended to make people believe something that is not true (Merriam Webster Dictionary)
As I look around the world, I am amazed by the deceptions that dominate the media air waves and many of our classrooms. Here are a couple examples:
- Changing the definition of marriage to allow any consenting adults to believe they are “married”–something which can only take place between a man and woman as recognized by 5000 years of history. (You can watch a powerful short video here that shreds this deception into pieces.)
- That man-made global warming is the great issue of the 21st century when there is no proof that it is taking place and temperatures have been constant for over fifteen years.
I could list scores of others, from politics to medicine. But there are two that are currently in the news that really got my attention.
They both involve the tactic of compassion as a tool of deception.
It is clear from the Bible that the origin of lying and the spirit of deception so prevalent in our fallen world comes from the invisible satanic world. Jesus called Lucifer “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44) and Revelation 12:9 gives him the description “the deceiver of the whole world.”
As the dictionary definition states above, to deceive is to get someone to believe something that is not true–oftentimes mixing a partial truth out of context with a lie to create confusion.
Two stories in the news use the good character quality of compassion out of its proper context to distort our thinking.
I am talking about compassion as a tool of deception in the immigration crisis and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Immigration
The greatest illegal immigration blow-up of my lifetime is currently happening at the Mexican border. The ebb and flow of illegal immigrants has been a problem for decades, but almost overnight it has overwhelmed the border patrol, outraged the citizens of the nation, and caused a fractious debate as to what should be done.
And much of that debate is built on deception.
First of all, let’s lay our the simple facts on why scores of thousands of children are “suddenly” crossing the Rio Grande and overwhelming our border resources:
- The Democratic Party (for potential votes) and the US Chamber of Commerce (for cheap labor) have encouraged the practice for years. There are lots of things to blame Republicans for, but the border crisis is not one of them. Most Republicans want the border secured (as do 70% of Americans). The Dems and crony capitalists do not.
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President Obama used his pen to sign the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, memorandum on June 15, 2012, rolling out the welcome mat to those seeking to immigrate illegally. From 2011 to 2013, the number of minors crossing the border illegally increased from 8,000 to 25,000. Officials now expect that number to be close to 90,000 in 2014.
- The president also changed the rules on deportations and refused to obey the law when it came to other immigration statutes (which is why impeachment talk has been in the air).
- The Democrats have changed the words “illegal alien” to “undocumented worker” to try to alter American public opinion about the crisis.
- On the positive side, the United States has a history of loving and welcoming foreign immigrants–more than the rest of the world combined on an annual basis. The message of the Statue of liberty is a part of our DNA.
- We have welcomed immigration to our country for most of our 238 years. Only from 1924 to 1965 did Congress curtail immigration quotas to allow the previous flood of new immigrants to assimilate fully into American culture and values.
We Americans believe in immigration. For most of our history, it was regulated in a fairly orderly fashion. President Obama and his political and business allies have now turned it on its head.
And the rationale they are presenting to the American people is that we must approach the children and overall problem with “compassion.”
This new argument is built on a series of lies.
First, we are told people are coming here because of gangs, wars, poverty etc. in Central America. They say we should consider most of them refugees or worthy of political asylum. But the last time I checked, there were democratic governments in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, no wars are taking place, and life is the same as it’s been for decades.
I can understand poor people wanting to emigrate seeking a better life (that’s why my poor German ancestors came to America in the late 1800s), but in the past, we’ve have an orderly process.
The difference now is that President Obama sent the signal that children could come without a good system or fear of being sent home.
So the deluge started–and we have a mess on our hands.
Second, we are told that we must leave things this way because it’s the “compassionate” thing to do. We must care for them because we are a Christian nation that must take the higher moral road.
Interesting how this is the only circumstance today where our “Christian values” are being encouraged. On every other issue, they’re being shot down and removed from the public square.
Here is the heart of the deception: Governments are not supposed to be compassionate. Governments are meant to be just--to protect citizen’s property and rights. That is their God-ordained role (Romans 13:4).
Families and churches are the God-given spheres where compassion should flourish. That’s why it’s wonderful for Glenn Beck to be bringing supplies to the churches near the border to help the needy children and many charitable groups are dispensing aid.
Yes, God’s people must rise up and be charitable to those who have come because of our government’s stupidity.
But the government’s job is to seal the border–to protect its own citizens. They are failing miserably–and hiding behind the argument of compassion.
Third, this confusion of domains is akin to a father not putting doors, windows, locks, fences and walls on his property to protect his family–and inviting the neighborhood to move in. The mother might be “compassionate” toward the first guests, but it is an unworkable system if the father does not “protect” his family.
In God-ordained leadership spheres, civil government is the father (justice and protection) and the Church is the mother (compassion and nurture).
Maybe the destruction of fatherhood in America has something to do with the government breakdown. At any rate, our current political leaders are deceiving us. It is their job to provide sealed, orderly borders to protect our citizens, and also discourage the rape and abuse of children by the coyotes.
Government voices are using “compassion” as a tool of deception.
Middle East Conflict
The same thing is happening in the Middle East where Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank are at war. Before we show how compassion is being used as a weapon here, let’s state the simple facts about the current strife:
- At just over eight million, Israel’s population is a drop in the bucket compared to 300 million people who surround them in hostile Muslim countries.
- Most of those nations, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, are committed to wiping the Jews off the face of the earth.
- Israel is the only democratic nation in the region (Iraq is in turmoil) and thus America’s strongest ally. The other reason for our support for Israel is the American belief in the Bible, God’s purposes for the nation, and the messianic return of Jesus Christ.
- The Palestinians voted Hamas into power–a group on America’s watch list of terrorist organizations. The Hamas charter is committed to exterminating the Jews.
- The Palestinian Authority/Hamas started the current war by lobbing hundreds of missiles into Israel aimed at Israeli citizens. They are the aggressors who started the war.
- Hamas built miles of secret tunnels under the Israeli border for the purpose of terrorism.
- Israel has defensively invaded the West Bank for two reasons: To locate and destroy the missiles that are being fired at their people and to destroy the tunnels have hinder their security. The Israelis are fighting a totally defensive battle.
However, due to two factors, the superiority of the Israeli missile defense (Iron Dome), and Hamas placing its citizens as human shields around their missile launchers and ammo, many more people have died on the Palestinian side than Israelis.
This prompted the United Nations, liberal media outlets, and the bumbling John Kerry, US Seceratary of State, to press for an immediate cease fire in the name of compassion.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the one who has it right:
“If Arabs lay down their arms there will be no more war, but if Israel lays down its weapons, there would be no more Israel.”
It is absurd, even devilish, to ask Israel to stop fighting without utterly destroying Hamas with its arsenal and tunnels. The Jewish government, known for its extreme patience with terrorism, is doing its God-required duty–to do what’s necessary to protect its people.
Any argument about moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel is ludicrous. Hamas is a murderous rogue organization; The Jews simply want to live peacefully on their tiny piece of real estate on the Mediterranean.
Israel is not responsible for the Palestinian casualties. They didn’t start the war, but they must end it. They did not force Palestinians to be human shields–Hamas did.
Asking Israel to stop before victory–in the name of compassion for civilian casualties–is a lie of the highest order. It would reward terrorism and leave our democratic and biblical ally exposed to annihilation.
Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) is credited with saying that “Hell is full of good intentions or desires.”
Sadly true.
We must never allow godly compassion to be a tool of satanic deception.
The Obama Scandals: Character is Destiny
It has been stunning how the growing scandals within the Obama administration have multiplied and widened over the past few weeks. It’s true that second term presidencies are often tainted by scandal during the final four years. Think Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra in the late eighties and Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the nineties.
But those scandals were relatively minor and confined to one area of either policy or personal conduct. In the case of the Obama scandals, they seem to be popping up everywhere in numerous area of foreign and domestic policy.
I was tempted to title this column “The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost” (to use the infamous phrase of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright). But that would overlook the central truth of it all.
In all of our lives, character is destiny.
I’ve thought a lot about the subject of character over the past few decades because I came to realize many years ago that I needed a lot more of it in my own life.
This coming week I’ll be in Texas speaking at an Hispanic Discipleship School. One of the subjects that they asked me to share on is the development of godly character. I wrote a book on that subject in 1992 with a provocative title–If God Has A Plan for My Life, Why Can’t I Find It? You Have a Destiny. The book is a study in 2 Peter 1:2-11 where the apostle describes seven building blocks of good character:
- Moral Excellence or Virtue
- Knowledge
- Self-Control
- Perseverance
- Godliness
- Kindness
- Love
Peter says that if we possess these qualities and they are growing in our lives, then we will be fruitful and successful both in this life and the next.
Good character produces a good destiny (and reputation).
There are many other character qualities mentioned in the Bible that emanate from the being of God Himself. In Galatians chapter five, Paul first lists a grouping of bad character traits: (5:19-21)
- sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness and orgies.
Then he turns around and gives the famous “fruit of Spirit” listing of great character attributes: (5:22,23)
- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
In the first list, a person chooses to develop bad character by not imitating the character of God but rather spiraling down into a self-centered world of narcissistic choices.
Paul’s second group is the opposite. A person recognizes their need for God in their life and invites the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to produce good character in them. They are being born again and cooperate with God’s amazing grace.
Good character is the totality of moral traits that we find in the Godhead. We human beings aren’t known for growing it in great abundance. It takes the invasion of God into our lives to soften and humble proud, selfish hearts and re-make them into the image of the Holy.
Character growth–being full of the Spirit of God–should be a supreme goal of our lives.
Paul follows up his teaching on character in Galatians 6:7, 8 where he soberly brings in the destiny part:
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever you sow, you will reap. The one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
This is the original context of the chickens coming home to roost comment. You reap what you sow. If you have good character then good consequences will ultimately come to you (though not always immediately). On the other hand, if you have bad character (i.e. do shady, selfish, or evil things) then bad consequences (though not always immediately) will be visited upon you.
And so we come to the Obama scandals. Some things have been “sown” in this present administration. For a time they were hidden or beneath the surface. But now they have come to light and the consequences are beginning to set in.
Benghazi
Many people on the street are still not aware that this small Libyan outpost was the scene of a brutal terrorist attack on September 11, 2012 when four brave Americans, including US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were viciously murdered.
Why has half of America never heard of Benghazi? Because during the 2012 election, the mainstream media in America chose to not cover this story to quietly aid in President Obama’s re-election.
That’s bad enough, but the greater story is that, from the very beginning, the Administration did not choose the necessary character quality of honesty to report the tragic Libyan events. We now know that the White House and State department circulated a bogus story about the deaths being attributed to a spontaneous uprising or related to an anti-Muslim video.
Benghazi is now a burgeoning scandal, similar to Watergate, in that there was a failure of leadership coupled with an orchestrated cover-up to limit damage to the president. In Nixon’s case, documents were stolen. In Obama’s case, security was neglected and four people died.
Time and many hearings will tell how close this gets to the president himself. But there is no doubt that the administration is now reaping the results of a well choreographed lie.
Truth or honesty is vital in all of our lives. Don’t get too high and mighty pointing your fingers at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. What about your own life? Any cover-ups, misstatements of the truth, or episodes of dishonesty? Do you always tell the truth or do you embellish it at times for personal gain?
We all have a Benghazi-type incident in our closet. The present administration needs to come clean on theirs. How about you?
The IRS
Benghazi is the most lethal of the various scandals because it led to the death of four people. But the biggest scandal now being uncovered in Washington, D.C. is the monstrous perversion of the IRS to intimidate and harass faith-based and conservative movements in this country to silence their voice.
This took place through the non-profit division of the Internal Revenue Service where a different set of principles and tactics were used to suppress conservative voices over the past two years. I’m sure you’re aware of the story by now and it should send tingles up every American spine.
The IRS is the second largest and probably the most feared agency of the US government. It can destroy lives through both taking away our time and confiscating our resources.
The IRS must possess the character qualities of justice or fairness. It must treat all American equally with respect before the law.
To read just one example of IRS intimidation, click hear to hear Dr, James Dobson’s story.
The IRS scandal could bring down the present administration because the IRS touches the lives of nearly every American. If one group can be abused, so that another. That should trouble all of us.
But this scandal should also be a wake-up call of character for us individually. Do you treat all people and groups fairly, or do you carry a self-oriented bias? Are you fair with everybody or do you show favoritism to some?
Let’s clean up our act and be fair and just. Good things follow the sincere pursuit of justice.
The Associated Press and Fox News
The third major scandal swirling in Washington, D.C. involves the Justice Department collecting the phone records of hundreds of AP reporters supposedly to suppress the leakage of government secrets. But by nearly admission, the DOJ went way too far in snooping on reporters, and not focusing on the government leakers themselves.
In the case of James Rosen of Fox News, the Department obtained warrants for e-mails, phone records, and even monitored the phones of Rosen’s parents because they suspected Rosen of being a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act. Even the Washington Post condemned this blatant abuse of the government spying on “its enemies.”
The bad character traits here are prejudice and concealment. The opposite good character trait is transparency–something that President Obama pledged his administration to when he first took office.
Again, all of us can relate. Got any secret sins that you’ve tried to conceal from others or a Holy God? While we’re rightly pointing the finger at some of our government officials, we’d better be pointing them simultaneously at ourselves.
SUMMARY
A major reason for the current Obama scandals–and there appear to be more than the three mentioned here–is the cancerous growth of government beyond accountability and control. Lord Acton was right when he said that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Erick Erickson of Redstate puts it this way: “The more power any government has, the more power it will abuse. The more money it spends, the more money it will mis-spend. Dysfunction and corruption grow on government like mold on otherwise perfectly good bread. It has nothing to do with party or ideology – it has to do with human nature.”
The Obama Scandals are revealing character flaws within the Administration that will affect its future, its destiny. You reap what you sow. The chickens do come home to roost. Even if it is overlooked or suppressed in this life, it will be fully exposed in the next because the God of the Universe operates by perfect honesty, justice, fairness and transparency.
If the president wants a good personal and public legacy, then he needs to clean up the scandals surrounding him through the practice of godly character. Proverbs 28: 15, 17 tell us, “You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them.” And “Among leaders who lack insight, abuse abounds, but for one who hates corruption, the future is bright.”
If he tries to sweep them under the carpet or run out the clock on them, he may dodge a bullet temporarily, but not altogether.
1 Timothy 5:24 tells us, “The sins of some people are obvious, leading them to certain judgment. But there are others whose sins will not be revealed until later.”
Character is destiny. You can no more escape that truth than you can escape death itself.
So choose wisely to develop godly character. And choose leaders who will do the same.