How did we get in this mess?

What if I told you that on September 12, 2001 terrorists in the United States killed 3000 people, and the story didn’t even make the news? What if I told you that on January 7th terrorists killed 2500 people in the United States and it didn’t even make the news? What if I told you that every day in between terrorists killed between 3000 and 2500 people in the United States, all with the full knowledge and legal protection of the United States federal government, and it didn’t even make the news? What if I told you that every voter in the country, for both parties, knew this was going on?

When my wife and I watched the President’s first press conference on COVID I came away shocked. The sheer audacity of suspending travel, of ordering lockdowns was like nothing I’d seen before. Then, a few months later, protestors not only took to the streets across the nation, in a few jurisdictions they took the streets, establishing their own autonomous regions. That was something I’d never seen before. A few months later an election left us wondering not only who had won, but if we would ever know. That question culminated in violence at the Capitol Building. Something I’d never seen before. All of which, added together and multiplied ten times is not worthy to be compared with the ordinary, banal truth that over the past 51 years more than 60,000,000 times parents hired trained assassins to murder their own child with the full legal protection of the federal government.

What we accept we have every reason to expect. A culture that hasn’t the moral capacity to end the greatest atrocity in its history is not a culture that can expect peace on its streets, an orderly transfer of power, the blessing of the God of heaven and earth. We got in this mess because we determined that the state had an obligation to protect our right to pursue our sexual appetites as we see fit, without a thought for our victims. We got in this mess because we refused to submit to His created order. We got in this mess because we think we know better than He does. We got into this mess because from top to bottom, in our streets, in our churches, in our homes we are in rebellion against God.

It was a great shock to me and to just about everyone else to see violence at the Capitol Building. It was not, however, a shock at all to the living God. First, He planned it from before all time, for His glory and the well-being of His children. Second, every one of His children, and every one not His child daily seeks to break into His own most august chambers and wrestle Him from His throne. We all do this with every sin. January 6th, 2021 may be remembered for some time in this country, but for all the wrong reasons. The great evil, the true affront, the most wretched display of lawlessness was the legally protected murder of unborn children. Pearl clutching over the Capitol or Trans Visibility Day is just one more manifestation of our guilt.

Accuse me of “what about-ism” all you like. Until babies are safe in their wombs from the assaults of their parents, nothing else should shock us. Until this greatest evil ends we can expect nothing but judgment. How do we get out of this mess? We repent, and believe the gospel.