Will the President's assassination really change anything? Will a deep sense of morality, Christian conscience, respect for law and order begin to be evidenced in the United States and abroad? Read the stern answer — gathered from present-day news and the pages of your Bible!
"THE land is FULL of BLOODY CRIMES, and the city is FULL of VIOLENCE!" shouted Ezekiel (Ezek. 7:23). He meant OUR lands — he meant OUR days — he meant OUR bloody crimes! What is happening to us? What shocking, frightening, horrifying times are these?
You Can't Ignore It
To many Americans, Britons, Australians and others, violence is easy to ignore. It is easy to ignore when it always seems to "happen to someone else." The average citizen among us seems almost obsessed with the determination to ignore the constant violence all about him — as long as he is not personally involved! But suddenly, last November 22, each individual was, to one degree or another, PERSONALLY involved in violence! Our peoples were stunned into shocked disbelief, into complete incredulousness, upon hearing the heart-sickening news of the brutal killing of the President of the United States. Regardless of one's personal point of view, his opinions concerning governmental policies — millions felt they knew President Kennedy, personally. More, we here in the United States naively assumed that the majesty of the highest office in the United States was somehow above it all — untouched by the filth and slime of the twisted, demented minds of depraved monsters lurking on the fringes of "decent society." Oh, we knew there were murders and murderers. We knew there were the dope addicts, pornographers, prostitutes, queers, criminals, and the mentally deranged. We knew the filth and obscenity was always somewhere around us — but the average citizen simply chose to look the other way, or deny the grime was really there. But suddenly the grime, the filth, the decay, the noisome stench that is crime and violence burned searingly into the public conscience! Suddenly crime was PERSONAL! Why? Why did it happen? How did the same society produce a young man who, regardless of his faults and human frailties, could be chosen to occupy the highest office in the land, and another young man of darkened and distorted reasoning who would lie in wait to kill? Many will ponder the answers for years, and still, perhaps, be groping in the dark — simply because they do not know the SOURCE to which to go for the answers!
National Shame and Remorse
Millions wept openly. Millions felt that somehow, THEY, collectively, had killed their President! It was as if the nation, as a people, had crossed the threshold from a culture to a jungle — from sanity to insanity — from sense to senselessness! MOST of the nation was stunned — shocked! This article is not intended to be a eulogy — nor a repetition of that sense of stunning shock we all felt, and felt very deeply! Rather, it is intended to confront all of us with a hard, inescapable fact that this great sense of national conscience and shame was NOT felt by everyone — that it did NOT last very long — and that it will not change anything! Nothing could serve as more sickening testimony to this clear fact than to read of how some depraved American citizens, so swept up in their own narrow-minded beliefs and convictions, actually CHEERED at the news of the death of their President! It makes one wonder whether they COULD have cheered if they had stood in the rotunda of our capitol building, and, at the moment when Mrs. Kennedy advanced to kiss the flag-draped coffin with her daughter Caroline, could have stepped forward and cheered in front of that solemn group at that solemn moment. No — nothing is very much changed! Here is some of the shocking proof.
Another Lee Oswald?
In the immediate aftermath of President Kennedy's brutal murder, a Cuban citizen, Omar Padilla, 19, began practicing with a rifle. The Cuban exile worked in an 8-story commercial building as a stock clerk for an engraving firm. Padilla admitted having fired 40 practice shots atop the 8-story structure, and that he had said to friends he was going to use the rifle to kill the President (President Johnson). When arrested by Bronx police, Padilla said he made the remarks about killing President Johnson "as a joke." Padilla was being held on maximum bail of $25,000 on the day President Lyndon Johnson visited New York City. Co-workers of Padilla related how he had said the late President was "asking for this." But the case concerning Padilla is only the beginning. Actually, a flurry of assassination threats were made against President Johnson's life IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING the death of President John Kennedy! Massive security precautions were put into effect even through the funeral processional in which President Johnson and his wife walked behind the members of the Kennedy family. Think of it! Can you begin to imagine it? Already, with President Kennedy as yet unburied, a telephoned threat had been made against the life of the new President! Yes — almost incredible — but in spite of the fact that virtually the whole nation, and, for that matter, much of the world was in solemn mourning, mixed-up cranks and crackpots were still thinking only of VIOLENT DEATH!
KILL-Crazy!
KILLING is accepted as NORMAL today, according to a noted psychiatrist and author who reviewed the assassination of President Kennedy. He indicted our nation for its total lack of moral character by saying, referring to our entertainment media, our national customs and practices, "that's what one does (killing), that's what we teach our children." He referred, as I have done so often over The WORLD TOMORROW program, to the frightening specter of millions of little toddlers literally learning to kill with toy guns! He said, "That's why we sell so many guns... and we even sell them real guns... we tell them this is normal." The psychiatrist, Dr. Wertham, was asked whether there would be a real CHANGE in the nation — a return to morality and deep sense of regard for human life, as a result of the violent act that took President Kennedy's life. Dr. Wertham predicted this act of violence would beget even MORE VIOLENCE! He felt that regardless of any temporary feeling of national remorse, crime and violence would go on as usual! His prediction has already come true! In Los Angeles, for example, just a few days after President Kennedy's brutal murder, when millions of families gathered together in solemn thanksgiving and in deep reflection — MURDER went on as usual! In three separate homes in Los Angeles, three separate arguments ended in MURDER! Think of it! On one of the most solemn Thanksgiving Days in living memory, with flags at half-mast, a husband leapt from the table, snatched up a shotgun, and blasted the life from his wife over their turkey dinner! In another home, a man argued with his brother-in-law over their pheasant dinner — leapt from the table, and gunned down his antagonist. In yet a third home, a man killed his brother-in-law as a bloody climax to a heated Thanksgiving Day argument! Yes, KILLING, MURDER, VIOLENCE is truly the trend of the time! Until HATE is somehow cleansed from the human heart — until BIGOTRY, PREJUDICE, LUST, GREED, and all the basest qualities of human nature are somehow completely expunged from human nature — VIOLENCE will go on, as usual!
As in the Days of Noah
The prophecies of your Bible predicted it would be this way! Jesus Christ of Nazareth foretold these exact times — our society, our deep problems, our terrible crimes! "But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be!" (Matt. 24:38-39) Scoffers and doubters predict only continuing cycles of "good" and "bad" years ahead — true to the prophecy of the Apostle Peter, who said, "knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying 'where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation' " (II Pet. 3:3-4). Peter went on to say they are WILLINGLY ignorant — deliberately blinded and deceived — READY to believe a lie! But deceived about what? About the soon-coming destruction of THIS calamitous age, this murderous, hate-filled time — just as surely as that ancient depraved society of murder and violence was destroyed! Notice! "For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth which ARE NOW, by the same Word (and that Word is SURE!) are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men" (II Pet. 3:5-7). JUDGMENT is coming! Whether you want to believe it or not — whether some people wish to continue to "kid" themselves or not, our days of violent, crazed, hateful, murderous times ARE NOT GOING TO LAST VERY MUCH LONGER!
The Real Lesson
You need to realize, as never before, that the tremendous warning and witness you've been hearing over The WORLD TOMORROW program, and in the pages of The PLAIN TRUTH magazine, IS TRUE! No more shocking and grisly exclamation point could be added to the stark warning of Bible prophecy of the frightening times in which you are living, and the absolute NEARNESS of the return of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, than the fact of the brutal murder of President Kennedy! That such a thing could occur in the United States, and during these days, only serves to illustrate that our very way of life, the very roots of our whole society, our very methods and processes of reasoning — are absolutely WRONG! Many tried to "justify" this deed — to "talk around it" and to "excuse" themselves. They said the nation should not be "ashamed," but only realize that there were some "few" who were crackpots, schizophrenics, and oddballs. Many lashed out at those who were openly and unashamedly expressing their feelings of deep remorse in a NATIONAL sense, saying that the nation SHOULD NOT feel any sense of responsibility for this depraved act — since it was the act of only one individual! But Jesus said, "You shall know them by their fruits!" What ARE the real "fruits," the evidences, the proofs, the RESULTS of our modern way of life? Look around you — CAN you delude yourself further into believing you are living in any times other than those frightening days prophesied by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, in your own Bible? You need, AS NEVER BEFORE, to search your own heart — and to be fervently praying, "THY KINGDOM COME, Thy WILL be done, IN EARTH, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!" Our God is going to answer that prayer — MUCH sooner than you think!
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