[Darris McNeely] Like so many others, we’ve been sobered by the attacks in Paris last Friday night that left 129 people dead and more than 300 wounded as they were setting out on a weekend of entertainment and activities at a stadium and a theater and in the streets of Paris, when suddenly, terror struck that city, leaving the nation stunned and the world watching exactly what was taking place. Our thoughts and certainly our sympathies go out toward the city, toward the nation, toward the people and all who have been involved in that. We recognize, after having been through it in America, just how close these things hit. And you begin to wonder if you’ve got friends, family, acquaintances in those areas – are they safe and are they okay?

This is going to be playing out for a number of days and the ultimate ramifications of it. I feel a bit sobered by it because just a day earlier I had done a Beyond Today program along the lines of why they hate us and the spirit of hatred – speaking about the hatred focused on the west by Islamic fundamentalist groups out in the Middle East over the recent years and the real root cause of these problems. In that program, we went back to the deeper spiritual roots – that’ll be airing in a few weeks on Beyond Today television – but as we look at this and wait and see what the reactions will be, it’s sobering to recognize that Europe itself is going through a number of changes with all of the migrants that are coming in – one million slated to come into Germany this year – it is changing the entire European continent. And now with this most recent attack and the threat of others, the reaction is going to be something that is long-term and far beyond probably what most pundits and experts even understand can happen in a nation like France, the continent of Europe, and certainly the Middle East and the impact upon the world.

To bring us down to our own level, again, my program last week was focused in on the book of Daniel, and I’ve been going through a series on that. We just recently aired a program on the handwriting on the wall, that story that comes out of Daniel chapter 5 – the finger that appeared in the night of Belshazzar’s feast and trumpeted the collapse of the Babylonian Empire.

There’s a very personal lesson from that. As Babylon was numbered and weighed and divided and found wanting, and judged by God, all of us can take a lesson from that. And as we look at what has happened in France and what yet might happen, these are very serious times, and the handwriting is on the wall for many nations. And if we recognize this as an opportunity, perhaps we can see that the handwriting is on the wall for us. And God is judging us. And how do we react to the events of the world today? How do we act what’s taking place in our life? Do we use them to motivate us to a serious reflection of worship of God, getting our lives in order, to understand the seriousness of the times in which we live? That perhaps for all of us is very sobering, and can be motivating to help us all recognize that these are the times for us to look at our own lives, and to be moved to godly righteousness and godly action, and to consider exactly where we are in our relationship with God as nations should also look and understand where they are in relation to God and His ultimate plan and purpose.

It’s a lesson – it’s a thought out of these most tragic events of the last few days.

That’s BT Daily.