A Pastor’s perspective of the Kyle Rittenhouse trail

As a Christian pastor, as I watched the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the jury's verdict, the media outlets, the videos of the shooting where life was lost, the aftermath of the supposed peaceful protests, the loss of property, and the raging fires that took place, all the looting and thievery of personal belongings, the profanity and blasphemy of the

Lord's name, and all of the terribleness leading up to these events, I am greatly reminded of sin, hate, godlessness, wickedness, deceit, fallenness, turmoil, and lawlessness.

The question must be posed, why? To answer this question, you must have a standard to answer it from, because without an absolute standard, all these observations are nothing but subjective opinions that along with the actual events are completely meaningless and are void of any real merit or purpose.

So what is our absolute standard? It is God. So with God as our absolute standard, we can ask, why?

And find a meaningful response and a purpose in all things. So then why?

All this wickedness, evil, and destruction, why? To answer this, we must look to the beginning.

You see, in the beginning, God created man and woman from the dust of the earth.

And from this dust, he made these creatures into the imago Dei, his own image.

And he dwelt with them in paradise. And this was the promised state for eternity, with only one stipulating command, which these creatures from the dust of the earth violated.

And so when they sinned, all mankind fell along with Adam that very day.

The image of God had warped because of sin. And the image bearers that day and on were enemies of God and his law.

Not only had we become enemies of God, but because of this sin, hate entered into our hearts, causing us to be enemies to each other.

Looking back to our very most distant relatives and their first offsprings, we see

Cain murdering his own brother. Since then, throughout history, we see wars being waged, lies and deceit on all our tongues, sexual immorality on all our minds, lack of care for one another and for our neighbors that are in distress, a destroying of life and where he or she should be most protected.

We do supposed self -righteous acts to puff ourselves up above each other.

We forget and we reject the God who gives us the very breath we use to blaspheme him.

And all of these atrocities, the worst of all of these is that we 2000 years ago took the only innocent, perfect, sinless, holy and righteous one.

We mocked him. We smote him. We crowned him with thorns. We called out for him to be crucified and we pierced him by nailing him to a cursed tree, the cross, and killed him, the perfect lamb, by means of death that you and I deserve.

You see, in Romans 6, 23, it says, For the wages of sin is death, and Jesus had never sinned.

But what do we see? He came unto his own, and his own did not receive him.

Yet Christ received not praise or worship, but he received death. Verse 23, that same verse goes on to say this,

But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. This gift of eternal life only comes about through the gospel message, which to put simply, we must understand that this eternal gift comes from God himself because he is the only eternal.

And since the wage of sin is death, and that debt that has to be paid has to be paid by man, we see that God himself becomes flesh and dwelt amongst us.

And he lived a perfect life, a sinless life, and that through Jesus, this

God -man, the perfect lamb, that great high priest, the king of kings, and that Alpha and Omega, through him, the

Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, he paid the wage of his sheep and defeated death, securing our salvation found only in him.

It is through faith in this gospel that we are saved.

When Adam partook of the tree, sin had entered into the world, and through sin, death has spread to all mankind, including you and I.

When Jesus partook of his tree, that cross, he became sin on our behalf, bringing life and righteousness to those who have faith in him.

So to answer the question of why, why all this pain, sadness, evil, wickedness, sin, and even death, because we, having fallen with Adam, we sin against a holy

God and our children of wrath, when I watched the Kyle Rittenhouse trial,

I am reminded that we all, too, must and will stand before a holy, righteous, and just judge.

And when you stand before this judge one day, you will pay for eternity for your own sins, because you and I are guilty.

This is a reality that we all must face. But we could also stand before this same just judge in another way.

You see, if we place our faith alone in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, you will stand before that same just judge, justified, saved, and covered in the blood and righteousness of Jesus.

I urge you, repent and believe in the gospel and be saved today.

Come and bow before the King who reigns on his throne today.

When we see any world event where evil and sadness takes place, we must be reminded that you and I, too, are just as equally entrenched in sin.

And because we are a great sinner, we need an almighty and greater