On this weekend as we celebrate Juneteenth, please remember that while its historical value is of great importance, its spiritual value is of a greater importance. On June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas and announced the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation, that the slaves in Texas were free. The slaves were free! Slavery was the most dehumanizing evil, the greatest example of man’s inhumanity to man. In Genesis 1:26, created man was given dominion over much of God’s creation, but he was never given dominion over another man. It is out of a Genesis 6:5 heart that we see the thought process that can produce slavery: (And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually). Only an evil heart could birth slavery, but we serve a God who is a deliverer. “And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians” (Exodus 3:7, 8a). God is the sovereign Lord who sees, and He hears, and He cares. It was the delivering God that prompted President Abraham Lincoln in September 1862, to issue the Emancipation Proclamation that would be effective January 1, 1863. Evil delayed but could not stop the hand of God. On June 19, 1865, Juneteenth, word came to Texas. To God be the glory for His delivering power.
Pastor J. Amos Jones
