Katrina Log For Monday September 19

I’m urging anyone who asks not to rush back home into the New Orleans area. While the various city and parish leaders seem to be inviting residents to return, the FEMA director says not so fast. He cautions there is not enough clean water, not enough stores open, and that things are still not up and running sufficiently to take care of hundreds of thousands of citizens coming home.

If you are where you can stay another week, please try to do so.

My brother Ron sent me a weird article from someone who called himself an eyewitness of all the ugliness of the evacuees. This fellow had decided to volunteer in Houston, and after receiving a brief tour of the Astrodome, he stood outside handing out bottles of water to evacuees coming off the endless buses that were arriving from New Orleans. He was offended that few said thank you, and that many preferred a coke or a beer. Then as he did other labors, he was horrified to see the New Orleanians being harsh and demanding and selfish. The conclusions he came to–using ugly profanity and racial epithets–seemed to justify his own mean spirit and his bigotry.


I found myself thinking they should let Christians–I mean mature men and women of faith, not just church memebers–deal with these sad people. Someone needs to understand that these people were scared out of their wits, and then endured the bus ride to what, another Dome. And the writer expected them to disembark from the bus in a jovial mood, thanking everyone for their generosity.

Someone needs to understand that we are all sinners, not just the poor people, and that under the right circumstances each of us is capable of the worst of behavior. During the chaos following the storm, the police arrested a grandmother who had gone to the store and emerged from it with over sixty dollars of merchandise she had not paid for. The windows were broken, looters were everywhere, but evidently our law enforcement officials could catch only Grandma. She finally got out of jail the other day, with her family protesting her innocence. The police stand by their story. Me, I have no trouble believing she could have done it, because almost any of us would have under those circumstances, in that atmosphere.

Man is a sinner and in need of a Savior in the worst way. That’s what Jesus’ coming was all about. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” Jeremiah said, “Who can know it?” God knows it. In fact, He is under no illusion about the character of the people He is dealing with. Psalm 103 assures us, “He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.”

That’s why the same chapter that gives us the Ten Commandments–Exodus 20–also follows it up by giving us provisions for an altar. God said Here is my standard; however you are not going to be able to live up to it, so here is an altar. This is how you get forgiveness.

From the earliest days, God knew what we were capable of and made plans for our forgiveness and our restoration on a daily basis.

Don’t ever say the Old Testament is a book of Law, and the New TEstament about grace. It’s all grace, friend. Even God’s laws were given by grace. But the greatest evidence, the strongest manifestation, of His grace is the cross of Jesus. The ultimate altar.

That’s the primary lesson of the ugliness of our citizens’ behavior following Katrina. Man is once more demonstrating why he needs a Savior so much.

Pray for those who know this Savior to be faithful in telling others. That would be the best thing to result from this storm, if many of our residents were to discover the Savior. The same One who motivated those untold thousands across this part of the world to open their homes and shelters, their cities and their hearts, and take them in.

“I was a stranger and you took me in.” –Matthew 25 There’s a lot of that going on these days, and a lot of God’s people are making Him mighty proud.

5 thoughts on “Katrina Log For Monday September 19

  1. I agree – man does need a Savior, and that Savior is Jesus. Man also needs to remember that Jesus said John 8:31-36 KJVA Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; {32} And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. {33} They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? {34} Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. {35} And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: [but] the Son abideth ever. {36} If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

    Christians should act like Christians, but those who know not Christ act like the unsaved. May God show the unbelieving world what true Christianity is all about. God Bless!

  2. Thanks, Joe. I always need to be reminded of Jesus’s love and forgiveness. If it weren’t for His grace I wouldn’t be here. What an awesome God we serve! Only by His mercy and grace!

    Deborah

  3. Pastor you did hit the nail on the head when you wrote that “under the right circumstances each of us is capable of the worst of behavior”. When we let go of God even for a second we could act as worst sinners. The psalmist says in Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God,and know my heart try me, and know my thoughts

    Psa 139:24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

    I pray this should be our prayer everytime.

    My prayers again goes out to all Affected (and also you Pastor) that the Lord will heal and bind up all wounds. Amen

  4. Bro. Joe, It’s so good to hear a voice from home. I know the situation it terrible but I think it is pretty interesting how God is using for good something that Satan would love to use for evil. We are in the Memphis area and hearing reports of many evacuees responding to the gospel as they hear it and see true Christianity in action. How interesting that all these lost, hurting people would end up scattered across the Bible-belt, many in church shelters, being ministered to by Believers. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Hope to see you back home soon.

  5. Joe: Thanks for your Baptist Press news article for September 22, 2005.

    It’s a shame we can only volunteer our services to destroyed locations if air-conditioning is still operational; the finest blown-away restaurants are fully functional; disasters only occurring in the balmy weather period; and we can partner with a church if no money or inconveniences are involved.

    Reality will not land in the mind of many until it is too late.

    Having lived eleven years in Biloxi and New Orleans, in the heart of the most destroyed locations, I can only empathize with the many who have lost everything. Devistation did not happen to just the sinning Christian as a punsihment, but to the faithful Christian, the lost and all others.

    The people who have scattered want to go home, however it is not yet safe to return. People all over the United States to where the people evacuated need to “adopt” the families, their churches, their area in order to help. The commitment will be long lasting–not just a handout to them, and a prayer.

    Thanks for the good article.

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