Bible prophecy headline news “Death In The City”
In Lamentations we read: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow … all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies” (Lam. 1:1–2). The prophet Jeremiah was mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. He had witnessed the destruction of the city and its temple by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian armies. Though Jeremiah predicted this would happen it was, nevertheless, something that caused him great sorrow.
There is another city—actually many other cities—for which we must weep and mourn. They have become sanctuary cities. Their destroyers are radical left-wingers who have turned their cities into garbage heaps of disease and death. In a report by Kira Davis posted on redstate.com we read:
San Francisco is swiftly moving from one of America’s most beautiful cities to one of America’s most troubled cities. The city struggles with crime and the consequences of illegal immigration after declaring themselves a “sanctuary city.” The transit authorities (BART) recently announced they would stop providing video evidence of violent attacks on public transportation so as not to “bias” citizens against certain ethnic groups.
Most recently, San Francisco has joined Los Angeles and San Diego as three of the major cities that have caused Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency due to a Hepatitis A epidemic currently brewing in each location.
The outbreak can be directly tied to the homeless problem in California, which is only exacerbated by a constant flow of liberal policies that make removing homeless encampments difficult and even allow for the homeless to set up camp in places like the front lawn of Los Angeles City Hall and other public parks.
Citing the ubiquity of human waste, software engineer Jenn Wong has mapped the city’s most “poop-ridden neighborhoods.” Her project, called Human Wasteland, is a pretty exhaustive listing of reports made by emergency 311 calls (yes, there is a 311 fecal alert emergency number) from 2008 to 20015.
European cities were devastated in the mid to late fourteenth century. Although the Bubonic Plague—“the black death”—was spread by fleas on black rats, the rats frequented garbage heaps, such as are appearing in tent cities along bike trails and in parks. The living conditions in both urban and rural communities, along with the lack of proper sanitation, weakened the population and contributed to the casualties. It was common practice for people to use chamber pots which were emptied into open sewers that typically fed into streams and rivers. Historians have noted that displaced people—vagabonds and rootless youths in Medieval towns and cities, i.e., “the homeless”—contributed to the unhealthy conditions. Local and state officials that are encouraging sanctuary status are bringing upon the people they serve a horrific plague of monstrous proportions. Open borders are allowing people to come into the country from faraway places, bringing disease and contagion with them. “Rocket Man” in North Korea can save his missiles and warheads and avoid a war with the United States. The proponents of sanctuary cities and states will soon bring their own form of disaster on America!
The purposes of sanitation is to provide a healthy living environment for everyone, to protect natural resources, such as surface water and groundwater, and to provide safety, security and dignity for people who live together in towns and cities. A growing number of people in California, and elsewhere, are health conscious. They work out, eat right, watch their weight, and try to maintain good health and vigor. Unfortunately their elected leaders—yes, they’ve put them in office—are working against them.
It’s time for fence-straddlers to get off the fence and come down on the right side. The continual violation of biblical standards of sexual morality, decency, and wholesome living cannot continue much longer without there being dire consequences for everyone. Gay bath houses, marijuana, public nudity, transgenderism, and a host of other whacko ideas will bring disaster. Do we really want God to wash his hands of our sinful folly and abandon us to our own destructive tendencies? Divine abandonment will be individually and nationally devastating. Living according to biblical standards always produces blessing. While European cities were reeling under the weight of the plague, the Jewish physician Balavignus instituted a clean-up movement in the Jewish community by studying, and applying, the health standards of levitical law. The casualty rate dropped in the Jewish community but devastated other areas. There was such an obvious contrast in the health of the two groups, that many outside the Jewish community claimed that the Jews were poisoning them!
This growing proliferation of tent cities and an inundation of human fecal matter is creating a situation that looks more and more like what Jesus described in His end-time discourse. In Matthew 24:7 Jesus said, “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and PESTILENCES.” The word “pestilence” is in the plural, suggesting a number of diseases and illnesses created by these unhealthy conditions produced by sanctuary policies. Though many mock biblical standards, the Bible gives explicit instructions regarding health and sanitation. Deuteronomy 23:9–14, in summary, indicates that human excrement needs to be buried outside the city. People need to relieve themselves outside the camp, bring a spade, dig a hole with the spade, and cover the excrement. This is one of the reason that the Israelites were told that they would enjoy a measure of freedom from the diseases that ravaged the camp of the Egyptians. “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God … I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians” (Exod. 15:26).
We need to remember that California is an incubator state. What’s in California will, in a couple of years, be common practice in your neck of the woods. That’s why we have to be alert to the issues that are raised by the concept of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states. A sanctuary city is a city where illegal aliens, criminals, and gang members can find sanctuary from federal deportation laws. Pro-sanctuary leaders want to reduce the fear of deportation and possible family breakup among people who are in the country illegally. They believe that such people will be more willing to report crimes, use health and social services, and enroll their children in school. Municipal policies in sanctuary areas include prohibiting police and city employees from questioning people about their immigration status, and refusing requests by federal immigration authorities to detain people.
Sanctuary governments and leaders are lawbreakers. They not only refuse to cooperate with federal law, but actually perpetrate criminal activity. The murder of Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015, made illegal immigration a front-burner issue in the 2016 presidential election. While walking with her father and a friend in the Embarcadero district of San Francisco, Steinle was fatally shot by an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times. Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, who initially claimed that he fired at a sea lion with a gun he claims to have found, was only convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was acquitted of all murder and manslaughter charges. President Trump described the verdict as “disgraceful!” Libertarian policies, fueled and energized by political correctness, have allowed evil to multiply with impunity. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,” we read in Ecclesiastes 8:11, “Therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” Don’t miss the words “fully set.” Let’s look at some hearts that are “fully set to do evil.”
Fox News reported on January 17, 2018, that an illegal immigrant began his murder trial for the 2014 killings of two Northern California sheriff’s deputies. The illegal immigrant shouted at the judge and police with a profanity-laced rant, calling a partner of one of the slain officers a “coward.” The prosecutor was recounting the events that led to the death of Sacramento sheriff’s deputy Danny Oliver outside a Sacramento motel in October 2014, and described how Oliver’s partner, Deputy Scott Brown, was able to retreat from the heavy exchange of gunfire. Then, Luis Enrique Monroy Baracamontes, 37, the alleged killer, interrupted the court when he grinned and called Brown a “coward.” Baracamontes began to shout and scream, “I wish I had killed more of the mother- – -s” Then he said, “I will break out soon and I will kill more, kill whoever gets in front of me. There’s no need of a f- – – trial.” In typical liberal fashion, his public defenders tried to enter a plea of not guilty by insanity, and argued that it is unlikely their client will receive a fair trial due to the anti-immigrant sentiment encouraged by President Trump’s hardline stance on immigration.
Sanctuary leaders don’t agree with the law, so they fail to enforce it and protect the people they are sworn to protect. Matthew 24:12 describes what we are seeing: “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” The word iniquity is a translation of the word a-nomos—meaning “lawlessness.” “And because lawlessness shall abound the love of man shall wax cold.”
PJMedia (a conservative news, opinion, and commentary collaborative blog that has set out to challenge mainstream media with a network of citizen-journalists) reports that nearly one in five California residents is poor; that California has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. The state’s generous welfare spending has not only failed to decrease poverty, but it actually seems to have made it worse. Californians are in for another surprise: permanent water rationing is coming to California. According to the California Policy Center, AB 1668 will impose a mandatory limit on water consumption of 55 gallons per person per day. Homeowners will be forced to install retrofit gadgets costing thousands to comply. So, why is California openings its doors to illegals, gang members, and convicted criminals when it can’t even provide for its own law-abiding people?
