Were you aware that a wrong doesn’t make a right? Just within the past few days, a young black man in South Carolina was assaulted by a white Army Sgt. while the black man was walking in his neighborhood. On this particular day, he was just walking through. It is reported on two previous occasions, this young man touched a neighbor and picked up a child. Now I do not know if these previous accusations are true or not, but as my Mother always told me as a child, a wrong doesn’t make a right.
If the neighbors had issue with this young man, they should have called the police to come deal with him. Unfortunately, the Army Sgt took the law into his own hands and angrily ordered the young man out of his neighborhood and ultimately assaulted him by pushing him and then violently shoving him. That constituted assault in which the assault was captured on video and the Army Sgt was arrested for third degree assault.
Now people are coming to the defense of the Army Sgt stating that he had the right and he was defending people or he was defending his neighborhood. If this is true, what was the crime of the young man that day? Was it walking through the neighborhood? The young man was on a public sidewalk. What was his crime?
Regardless of what someone does to us in the past, we have many mandates (commandments) from Christ Jesus in how to live and conduct our lives. Not only are we to love God with all our hearts, soul, and minds, we are to love our neighbors as our selves. See Matthew 22:37-40.
We have other mandates as well. Jesus said that we are to forgive those who do wrong against us seventy-seven times seventy. This means that we are to forgive indefinitely regardless of what others do to us or do to others. See Matthew 18:22. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us in the 12th verse of Matthew 6, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In some translations it says trespasses. The point is that if we do not forgive, then God will not forgive us. See Matthew 6:14-15.
Many might say I do not understand their anger at another because I am not in their place. They may say I do not understand because I haven’t experienced loss of a family member murdered or an assault. Well the fact is I have experienced a murder in my family. My sweet uncle was murdered by a young Black man in North Carolina with a shot gun during a robbery. Although I have never met this young man that killed him, I can say without a shadow of any doubt of anger that I have forgiven him. I forgive that man. My mandate by Jesus is to forgive those who trespass against me and my family. I do not have prejudices against anyone of color.
In a separate incident, I was almost killed in the line of duty when I was a police officer. A black man tried to kill me and my field training officer on a traffic stop. Since that incident, I have forgiven that man.
Jesus said we are to forgive regardless. He said we are to love others regardless. Whatever the young man in South Carolina did previously did not warrant him being assaulted. I will stand up for people who cannot stand up for themselves, regardless of their skin color or differences. If we want to see change in our world, it needs to start with you and me. We need to follow Jesus’ commandments.
In my opinion, the Army Sgt took the law into his own hands and assaulted that young man. He will now have to answer for his crimes against that young man. This all could have been avoided if the Sgt had called the Sheriff’s Office and allowed law enforcement to handle any issues. But the Sgt took it into his own hands and this is where he is today.
The point of this post is this. As a Christian, we should take a stand for what is right and just. It wasn’t right for the Army Sgt to do what he did to that young man. I choose to stand on Biblical principles and stand tall. Forgiveness and love is the key to changing the wicked hearts of men and women in our society today. Where will you stand?
Copyright April 16, 2021. Marketplace Evangelism Ministries Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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