Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-14-25

We heard this week of the nightmarish floods in central Texas, and we saw, too, the landscape of devastation that brutally swept away a wide swath of land, houses, and recreational sites. We also learned of Camp Mystic, a Christian kids’ site, where dozens of young girls disappeared in a rising and rushing wall of water. Many people are missing, perhaps never to be found.

Early on July 4, 2025, the Guadalupe River at Kerrville was flowing at three cubic feet per second, according to USA Today. At that rate, it would fill an Olympic-size pool in eight hours. But soon after sunrise that day it was gushing at 134,000 cubic feet per second, a rate that would fill the same pool in less than a second. The river height surged from fewer than 12 inches to more than 34 feet.

Among the heartbreak we all shared with victims and families, there were stories of bravery, sacrifice, and faith. Young female Christian campers sang hymns and Gospel songs while the horrors still swirled. Boys up and down the Guadalupe River saved lives. Parents of drowned children told the world they knew their kids were in a better place, in the arms of God.

“The rain falls on the just and the unjust”… and so, obviously, does rainwater-turned-floodwater. The full verse from Matthew Chapter 5 is He maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. In other words, our rewards and punishments are in the afterlife; and in the meantime in this world that is beautiful but also corrupted by humankind’s sin, we experience both conditions apart from our innocence or merit.

There are ignorant cynics whose knee-jerk reactions to events like the Hill Country floods are “How can a loving God allow…” and “What sins did those little girls commit…?” Christians occasionally ask the same questions. Naturally. But we live among disasters, tragedies, and horrors every day of our lives. They touch all our lives. Questions are scarcely ever asked, however; and answers are seldom discussed, despite the fact that they are right before us. Not easy answers, but solvable.

I will ask a few; and answer them all.

We bemoan the drug problem in America. Tons of drugs illicitly arrive at, and through, our borders. Millions of Americans are addicted; hundreds of thousands are dying. Criminal cartels manage this toxic invasion.

How to stop this condition, end this nightmare? – Monitor the border? Stop the Chinese from manufacturing, and Mexico smuggling? Lock up dealers? NO. Let us eliminate the demand. If this were a thoroughly Christian nation, there would be few customers for drugs. End of that problem.

We note the scabrous reality of human trafficking in America. Millions of people have pierced the borders, and the government has no idea of their numbers or locations… or activities now that they have blended into the population. Many children are sexually exploited; women are abused; millions are working as virtual slaves in fields, factories, and homes.

How to stop this condition, end this nightmare? – Arrest every human trafficker? Deport every child and abused woman? Stop the smuggling at the sources, lock up gang leaders? NO. Let us eliminate the demand. If this were a thoroughly Christian nation, there would be few customers for prostitutes, child pornographers, vulnerable people. End of that problem.

The shocking numbers of fatherless homes and illegitimate children? If this were a thoroughly Christian nation, the family unit would return and be respected; sex would cease being a vile sport. The sin, and emotional scarring, of abortion? If this were a thoroughly Christian nation, people would be responsible, and be repulsed by the idea of killing babies. Abuse, violence, crime? If this were a thoroughly Christian nation, people would respect others… and themselves, again.

The stark truth is that most of our societal, cultural, and moral crises in America would virtually disappear if there were no market for them.

If and when that millennium comes – if average people came to their senses and returned to decent standards and Christian values – we would still have the challenge of those who profit from these awful acts. I do not mean only the dealers, traffickers, and gangs. I mean Hollywood, the TV producers, popular singers, publishers who promote the deadly problems we face – the hidden enemies who glamorize illicit sex; glorify violence; ridicule the nuclear family; normalize a drug culture; and denigrate religion.

Their operations might dry up, if the hungry audience disappears and ceases to provide the demand. None of these people will go away easily. But life is not a game; our nation and our children, and the very Kingdom of God, are at stake. Remember that Jesus said that He had come not only to bring peace to the earth, but also a sword, the weapon that divides and severs.

My word to America 2025 is from II Chronicles 7. It has become a familiar verse lately, cited by people who pray for revival – but I believe wrongly cited. Many people plead to God that He will bring revival, but that is not how He works. We must bring revival… kindle the souls of the people… mend our ways, ourselves.

People should practice all the admonitions in this chapter, which includes:

The Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to Myself for a house of sacrifice.

If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people; if My people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land…

But if ye turn away, and forsake My statutes and My commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them, Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of My land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for My name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.

And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that He shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and unto this house?

And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath He brought all this evil upon them.

Have we forsaken the God of our fathers? The supply of sin is abundant, but can we end our insatiable demand for it? As a nation, we are demonstrating that we love sin more than we love our Father God.

+ + +

Brian Delaney performs Gram Parson’s jeremiad Sin City in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn, where Gram died, too young.

Sin City