LAMPLIGHTER CALL TONIGHT! 9PM ET. Please make plans to join us. (605) 313-5156 access code 552-690. Use *6 to mute/unmute. Invite your friends to join us!
NEW BOOK! WHITE HOUSE WATCHMEN. NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER! Publication date August 18. To preorder CLICK HERE.
DEAR LAMPLIGHTER FAMILY,
FIRST—PRAY FOR LEBANON after a devastating explosion killed more than a hundred people yesterday, severely damaging approximately half of Beirut. Our hearts are with the Lebanese people for recovery.
SECOND—PRAY FOR A JUSTICE TURNAROUND! If you followed our posting Sunday and Tuesday, we are strongly sensing that the Lord is calling the Lamplighter family to surround the Department of Justice in fervent prayer at this time. I awoke Sunday with a deep sense of urgency on this. There is more at stake than you know. And your intercession will make all the difference!
On a new development in this arena, additional video footage of George Floyd’s arrest has been leaked to the UK’s Daily Mail. And it is extremely disturbing. At the very least the additional footage, taken from the moment police approached George Floyd’s vehicle with a gun drawn, indicates they were entering a crisis situation with a man known to be dangerous. Unfortunately George Floyd’s actions only validated this assessment. Both his words and actions indicated he was irrational, most likely on drugs. He violently resisted the officers’ request to get out of his car. He resisted being arrested. Then he violently resisted getting in the back of the officers’ patrol car, exclaiming he was scared he would die and that he could not breathe. This was long before the officers held him down. They actually took this action because George Floyd wriggled across the back seat and out of the patrol car on the opposite side from where he was forced in. It was at that point that officers held him down.
Was there excessive force used when the police held him down? From my untrained eye and heart, absolutely. But the circumstances surrounding this take-down were purposely hidden from the public by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Again, in no way am I saying the death of George Floyd was in any way justified. But the use of force by police officers to subdue him absolutely was.
Attorney General Ellison went on camera himself early on in the unfolding drama to explain that withholding the additional camera footage from the public was necessary to ensure a fair trial. That’s an interesting take on things. Especially after protests and riots erupted across the nation, resulting in extraordinary brutality AGAINST the police, deaths of many innocents, billions of dollars worth of damage from Minneapolis to New York and Washington DC, to Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, and other hot spots across the nation. Doing the most damage primarily to the most vulnerable of America’s communities, yet also setting structures on fire even by the White House.
And lets not forget the recent stabbing even of a black conservative in Portland—at what was at one time, at least, a Black Lives Matter protest. So black lives matter unless they happen to be conservative? Isn’t the denial of freedom of thought and personal conviction just another form of slavery?
And to me it was patently unjust to withhold additional facts about the George Floyd case—his violent resistance against the officers attempting to subdue and arrest him, the state of mind he was in most likely due to the drugs he was on at the time, etc. America would absolutely still have protested the injustice George Floyd suffered. First because his death was wrong. Secondly because that’s who we as Americans genuinely are. All of us.
But the facts surrounding the travesty of George Floyd’s death paint a dramatically different picture than what has been so comprehensively portrayed. It does matter that he was on drugs, and exhibited violent behavior and mental instability while resisting arrest. Protests over this became riots, catalyzing unimaginable destruction and injecting vicious anger and division into the very fabric of our culture. Violent crime is up dramatically. Meanwhile entire cities have had their protection removed from them due to defunding the police.
Beloved these issues are not so much a matter of right vs left, but right vs wrong.
Final point. Most of you know I attended a few of the protests myself. The majority of those gathered were sincerely and passionately advocating for justice and reform. Many of their messages referenced Christ and the justice of His blood to redeem every tongue, tribe and nation. I celebrated.
But to my astonishment I also witnessed a leader demanding that the crowd vote for Democrats. Either President Trump is voted out, or the riots continue.
The same American resolve which will not tolerate racial injustice or injustice by law enforcement also refuses to tolerate allowing our nation to be held hostage. Through riots, politics, through terrorist tactics or deliberate sabotage of all we hold dear. Instead it’s time for a justice turnaround. Teshuvah. Repentance that provokes all of us to embrace Jesus’ best for ourselves and for America. It is time to break free from the manipulations of Pharaohs and secure genuine justice and freedom for generations to come.
NO KING BUT JESUS.
