I’ve been reading a book about racial reconciliation and injustice. In this book the main character Clarence, a black man, tells a tale from the fifties when he was nine and his family accidentally walked into the “wrong” restaurant. His parents had either missed the “whites only” and “no colored” signs or in that particular small town it was just supposed to be understood. . . Either way, Clarence’s family was met with icy stares from customers and employees. However, all the stares weren’t icy, some were pained and troubled, even apologetic. As if they thought of themselves as good people and as good people they were sorry for what was about to happen.
As they entered the restaurant a waitress wearing a name tag that said “Glenda” walked up to them and said, “I’m sorry, this isn’t…I mean, there’s a restaurant with a colored window down the way. It’s called Dottie’s. On your left just before you leave town.” Glenda hadn’t said, “No coloreds here,” or “Whites only here.” What she did say meant the same, of course, but she would sleep better having said it that way. Clarence said he remembers it seemed as if Glenda choked a bit, to hesitate. Showing her guilty conscious. Glenda would never have defended burning crosses, lynching black men, riding horses with bed sheets flying in the wind. Glenda wasn’t the one who invented the status quo. . . She was simply one who maintained it. She may have been a good woman when it came to working hard and teaching her children to do right, but she was a coward or ignorant or both when it came to resisting a degrading system so long in place it was assumed to be right.
Clarence also tells the story of a golf course owner named Mr. Spelling where Clarence and his brother tried to get jobs as caddies but were turned down because, well, because of why they were always turned down. Mr. Spelling had said, “Now, I’m no racist, those are just the rules.” Mr. Spelling had been very apologetic, I guess to make himself feel better and not as guilty. Again, Mr. Spelling was not a man that invented the status quo, but he still chose to enforce it.
Glenda and Mr. Spelling were what Clarence’s pastor had called, “little racists.” Big racists were the KKK types, the cross burners, the ones that would spit on and kick those not like themselves, but his pastor had always said that the “big racists” weren’t the dangerous ones. He said, “Bad as they are, the devil only has so many big racists, but it is the little racists, the nice people, the church goers, school teachers, police officers, businessmen, mayors, milkmen, and mail carriers. They make the community what it is. They make the wheels turn. The wheels of commerce, the wheels of benevolence. . . The wheels of oppression and injustice. They are the little racists.”
The minister had once gave a sermon on the Holocaust. He said that it wasn’t Hitler and the Nazi insiders who slaughtered the Jews. Dozens of the “big racists,” even hundreds or thousands of them, couldn’t pull off the murders of all those millions. The key was “normal” people. Those who thought of themselves as decent people. Those who wouldn’t kick a Jew to death, but would look the other way when someone else did. It was the normal people who made the Holocaust happen. . . The “good people” who tolerated unspeakable evil. The tragedy wasn’t so much the brutality of bad people as the silence of good people.
As I type this, our nation and world is facing yet another unspeakable evil. Right now the second largest abortion facility in the world, next to China, is being built in Houston, Texas. A six-story, 78,000 sq. ft., Planned Parenthood abortion “Super Center” (of which the third floor is dedicated to performing late-term abortions). While at the same time our lawmakers are fighting to pass a bill that forces us all to fund abortions under the guise of health care. I used to be in shock when I would read in the Bible of times when civilizations would openly sacrifice their children as an acceptable part of the culture. Now those ancient death temples are once again becoming a reality in our very own day and age!
In every generation and with every case of injustice God has raised up heroes to combat that injustice. When Pharaoh had enslaved the Hebrews God sent Moses to deliver His people, during the days of the slave trade God empowered William Wilberforce to confront the English establishment, during the civil rights movement God raised up Martin Luther King Jr. to be a voice of justice and equality, when sin had ravaged mankind. . . . God sent Jesus.
Now it’s our turn. In our generation I believe we face a greater darkness than any that has come before in the form of abortion, sex trafficking, and hate motivated prejudice religions. A holocaust on steroids (with approximately 115,000 abortions happening EVERY DAY worldwide, and 42 million abortions happening EVERY YEAR) But we have been the ones chosen “for such a time as this.” We can either be the “Glenda’s” and “Mr. Spellings” that turn our heads from unspeakable evil for things as trivial as “affordable health care” (which is trivial when compared to murdering millions of innocent lives) or we can raise a holy revolt.
You may be asking, “But how can I make a difference? What am I supposed to do?” And the answer is whatever it takes. Right now many of these things don’t directly affect us so it is easy to ignore and go on with our lives pretending everything is ok. But I believe that very soon the face of our nation is going to change drastically, directly affecting our lives in a very large way. But if we wait till then to act it will be too late. DON’T BE LULLED TO SLEEP. War has been waged on God’s will, innocent lives have been targeted! Where are the heroes of this generation? Where are the ones that will stand against the deepest darkness of our time to reap the greatest harvest in history?
Ask the Lord what your place in this battle is. I don’t want to be so presumptuous as to assume to know that for you. His ways are much higher than mine. But I do know that if you will seek Him than He will show you the battle plan for your own personal life. And when He shows you, obey – no matter how large the plan, how uncomfortable it makes you, or how great the sacrifice. Every hero that changed the course of history paid a great price to do so. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (read John 15:9-17 to read how God instructs us to do the same) It is important that we all take our post in this critical hour in history.
Either you are a “little racist” empowering evil to further it’s agenda through your silence and lack of action, or you are a hero wholeheartedly fighting for those that can‘t fight for themselves. There is no middle ground. Dare to become a hero. I sense that soon we are going to need them.
Living to touch God’s heart,
Chris Ulery
divine-romance.com
Assemble the angelic armies and the bride warriors of the living God! Hail king Jesus! We will shout until the walls come tumbling down.