Within a few hours after hearing about the tragedy in Charleston, S.C. some were asking, “Pastor will you be making a comment in your blog?”  Replying in the affirmative I said that it would be a couple of days so that we would be able to learn the real facts first.  Don’t you wish our President would have done the same?

Once again Obama was quick to use a crisis to stir racial strife and in general division among various groups of people while calling for confiscation of guns instead of proclaiming compassion and promoting healing in the fashion of previous Presidents.  Most likely he felt he had to rush out to the video cameras because he was afraid the actual facts will get in the way of the agenda he has been pushing.  Time and again, the facts prove to be vastly different from what Obama purports them to be but he doesn’t really care because he knows that most of his followers will blindly follow whatever he tells them and ignore the truth when it does come out at a later point in time.

• Church was apparently a “gun-free zone”
• Shooter sat in bible Study for nearly an hour before he started shooting people
• Shooter reportedly reloaded 5 times
• Al Sharpton was quickly dispatched (to stir up strife)
• Drug user – another killer on psychotropic drugs.  Suboxone is a habit forming drug that has been connected with sudden outbursts of aggression.  It is also used to treat opiate addiction.
• Common thread in these incidents isn’t race, it is godlessness

Although Al Sharpton was quickly dispatched to promote racism and bigotry in Charleston and to stir up as much strife as possible (it is his M.O.), there were others who came together in an effort to promote healing and unity and to comfort the broken-hearted.

Founders’ Bible article Ezra 8, page 715. Excerpt from President John Tyler: “When a Christian people feel themselves to be overtaken by a great public calamity, it becomes them to humble themselves under the dispensation of Divine Providence, to recognize His righteous government over the children of men, to acknowledge His goodness in time past as well as their own unworthiness, and to supplicate His merciful protection for the future.”

At the bond hearing  the Judge said, “Charleston is a strong community we have big hearts….”  He also stated words to effect that we must find it in our hearts to help all the victims of this crime, including those in Dylann’s family who were not a part of that crime or accessories to it in any manner.

One relative of one of the slain victims said, “Hate must not win” and another said “I forgive you” and another “I don’t understand, we reached out to you”  but also expressed a forgiving heart.  They were wonderful representatives of a wonderful church which is obviously truly following in the footsteps of Jesus the Christ.

I have no doubt that the late Reverend Martin Luther King would be ashamed of this President but proud of the slain victims and their families.  They are over-comers and the blessed ones of God.

Pastor Ward