I am Pastor Paul Holt and this is the Bible factor where we look at life and current events through a biblical lens, through a biblical perspective. Because each and every story that we can examine on this program and really any news story you want to pick from the headlines of this week, I can point to a biblical principle that is either being upheld or violated or because of what happened in the past, the reason for current event is because of the biblical principle that is currently being well fulfilled.
Prophecy ultimately, is about God’s fulfillment of His word, whether we violate that word or whether we keep His word, the future is a result of those decisions and so when we look at current events, when we look at what’s happening in our world and really what’s happening in your life, I can guarantee you that there are biblical principles at play and there are biblical reasons for the things happening in your life and in our world.
So, this morning, I wanted to look at a few different things. I wanted to look at well first off this police officer that was shot to death. He died early on Thursday and I believe it was around 2:30 in the morning according to reports that I saw.
Officer Daniel Webster, this Albuquerque police officer, was shot to death during a routine traffic stop or what appeared routine.
Which we understand that traffic stops these days are never routine because of the lawlessness that is so pervasive in the United States but particularly in Albuquerque, we find that because of lawlessness, because of our inability to prosecute, our inability to well enact the law. We are seeing lawlessness and more death.
Officer Webster was shot, just after a four-year-old girl had been shot in the head by another individual.
See, what we find in both cases is that the prosecutor in Albuquerque, the district attorney, did not pursue charges against these criminals previously and in the case of Officer Webster’s shooter we have learned that this individual had been in prison for a little more than 10 years for the murder and he was convicted of manslaughter.
But we should understand that the prosecutors didn’t feel they could make the case for actual murder and seek the death penalty. I think it was laziness on the prosecutors part out now granted it’s Monday morning quarterbacking.
You know the fact is that I am not a prosecutor I’m not an attorney I don’t know what case they had before them but because we have gotten rid of the death penalty in New Mexico because of Gov. Richardson and the Democrat-controlled House and Senate at the time.
We took away one of the most important tools we have to fight crime and that is the death penalty for murderers especially murderers of police officers. We should understand that a police officer represents us.
A police officer is a representative of a community, of a society and the laws of that society has passed, the laws that we feel make our society orderly.
And when a police officer is attacked and shot or stabbed or in any way injured by a citizen and especially if that police officers killed in the line of duty, we need to hold to a higher standard because what we’ve understood for a very long time, and it is been so true, is that if a human being can murder in cold blood a police officer even in the heat of the moment, if they take the life of a police officer that tends to degrade the entire society and it shows a total disregard for humanity that is human life, but humanity in general and that should be taken very seriously.
It is not that police officers are more precious than anyone else, but that they should have a special status because of who they represent; you and I
They represent our society and when we allow police officers to be brutalized, when we allow them to be, well, killed in cold blood and we don’t exact a greater punishment for such actions, that has consequences that has ramifications that we don’t fully understand.
When Gov. Richardson got rid of the death penalty a few years back, well it created, and this is happening across the country is not just New Mexico, but here in New Mexico it created this idea that we don’t value human life.
It created a cheapening of humanity, of human life and that has consequences.
We can’t just allow a police officer to be murdered in cold blood and not expect that the society will pay the price a little further down the road and that’s what happened in this case.
See this godless murderer literally put to death the police officer. He did not he did not spend enough time in jail for the killing of Blake’s Lota Burgers founder’s grandson, Mr. Chancellor and you know he didn’t he only had 10 1/2 years when he should have suffered the death penalty.
But here’s what happened when he was released to continue to his crime spree he continued his violence just last December this individual was caught on video beating another man hitting them with this fits beating him to within an inch of his life. And only because other people intervened, I believe that he would have taken that person’s life.
But what’s tragic is that he was released from jail on his own recognizance by the by a judge who didn’t see the severity of the crime that this man committed and the prosecutors were lazy in their prosecution and so he was released without any charges being filed without any prosecution occurring because they didn’t file in time and the state Supreme Court said you only have a limited amount of time before you can prosecute people and so this person didn’t face justice for the beating that he gave someone back just last December and in fact the prosecutors chose not to pursue any charges on this man.
Again, I don’t like to give out criminals names that’s my own personal choice and I think it’s important that we don’t give them any honor and one of things about separation from God and what we understand about hell is when Jesus told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the rich man does not have a name in that parable but Lazarus dies we should understand that one of the ways that we can effectively punish someone is to forget their name is to not recognize who they are and to ignore them and then not ignoring their crimes they should certainly be punished and you know that’s one of the reasons that traditionally a inmate was given a number and called by that number rather than their name there is a psychology behind that there is an understanding of real punishment in not recognizing someone by their name and so this individual that killed officer Daniel Webster should not be remembered for his murder.
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