The irony of the Black Lives Matter movement lies in its consistent insistence to assign motives to policemen prior to any process of investigation. While it’s clearly wrong for a policeman to assume, without evidence, that a person of color is a criminal and to act on that assumption, it’s surely the same leap for people of color to assume that a policeman who is making a traffic stop is pulling a person over because he is black and not because he is violating a traffic ordinance.
A young black girl got into the car of a friend of mine recently. This friend has gone out of her way on multiple occasions to transport this young girl, whose family is unwilling or unable to provide transportation for her. The conversation, on this particular day, turned to law enforcement officers. The young girl commented “I don’t like cops. They don’t like us. They just want to hurt my people, just because we’re black.”
Now the girl is just a young teen. She was, very likely, just spewing forth what she’d heard others say. Surely she didn’t realize, though, that she was saying it to the mother of a young man who puts on that uniform every morning and works diligently all day to protect the people of her city—to protect her. She didn’t know she was profiling. And there’s lot of profiling going on in the BLM movement.
The reason all human lives matter is because all souls matter for all of eternity. God is the soul-giver and He doesn’t make souls in colors or with bank accounts. When we come to understand that in each hoodie and in each uniform is a soul that will live in eternity in heaven or hell, we’re gaining ground toward peace; not because some aura of compassion comes over us when we attach a spiritual connotation to the people around us, but, rather, because when God is recognized as the Creator and Soul-giver, recognition of and respect for His inherent authority necessarily follows. His Word is the prescription for peace in our land. It both ordains and controls law enforcement agencies (Romans 13) and it instructs the citizenry in living with respect and deference to fellowmen. When we remove that Word from our society and make a mockery, on so many levels, of its precepts and authority, surely we should not be surprised when chaos ensues.
Are there thinking people who truly believe life’s better in America now that we’ve divorced ourselves from a national respect for the Word of God? Give me respect for the Word in our land any day and take me back to an era where children could safely ride their bikes all over their communities, where babies were safe in the wombs of their mothers, where fathers worked hard to provide for their families and mothers nurtured children in loving homes. Bring repentance to the hearts of those who have prejudice and malice, and a strong desire in the hearts of God’s people to bring souls to the Cross. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross. But the cross is not an invitation to a free-for-all. It’s for all, but it’s not free. The Cross is not a compromise with sin. It’s an ultimatum.
The men in blue are clearly a part of the Biblical system of authority found in God’s Word. Christians in the first century church were called on to respect and obey civil authority even though their Roman government was oppressive and persecuted Christians. But when we estrange our government and our citizenry from the One who is at the top of the chain of command, all the links are weakened and governmental systems fail. The reason we can’t find the band-aid to put on the violence that’s erupting around our nation is because it’s really hard to find a band-aid when internal bleeding is quickly draining life away. Our nation, without any respect for truth and righteousness, is under cardiac arrest.
