John Grisham’s hero lawyer, Jake, in “A Time To Kill” presents an incredible closing argument that influences the jury to acquit a Black father who shot the white men who had raped his young daughter.
Jake’s closing argument asks the jury to close their eyes and imagine the insensitive, brutal raping of the pre-teen girl as these men destroy her tender, untouched femininity in a drunken, boastful and proud manner.
Then as he closes his graphic argument, he asks them to picture one more thing: “…imagine that she is white!” The closing words sent a wave of shock through the entire courtroom.
I want you to imagine you are sitting on your porch having read the newspaper or a favorite book. The evening shadows are falling, and it is time to head indoors to watch a favorite show or football game on the television.
You are among the mass of people who have bought into the lies of Satan about the cultural issues of the times or have settled into a neutrality of “live and let live” on the current issues of marriage, gender manipulation, sexual immorality, the abortion of life in the womb … perhaps even mocking and laughing at those who contend for moral accountability in government practices. Your view of those who contend for a morality reflected in the Scriptures and the teachings of Jesus, as well as his warnings regarding the last days, is critical and even contentious, laughable … hate-filled. Or you are silently categorizing their testimony as stupid and ignorant.
As you open the screened door to go into your house, you hear a sudden sound and look back to the eastern sky that becomes ablaze with galactic light surrounding a figure sitting on a white horse with an angelic army so powerfully armed that the united armed forces of the world cannot defend against them. Your breath is sucked from you by what you see, and the realization of truth settles upon you!
Everyone in your neighborhood rushed to their porches, decks, and front yards, but some are missing … like they have evaporated. All the young children and babies have vanished.
There is a great gasp and a cold wave of fear that comes over everyone in the world who never considered that what Jesus taught, and sought to prepare the world for, has actually come to pass. Can you even imagine the great gasp of an unsaved earth who thought it just wasn’t true?
It has already happened once, in Noah’s day. He preached every day as he obeyed God in building the ark. And when the time came for the ark doors to be shut and the rains began to fall, with the subterranean caverns of water exploding upward to the earth’s surface, there were just eight people in the ark!
The great urgency for the world is to trust in Jesus!
David Woods is founding pastor and now an elder at Park Chapel Christian Church in Greenfield. This weekly column is written by local clergy members.
