Something's Changed

I saw a meme on Facebook last week that got me thinking. It spoke about how life has changed since 1968, specifically addressing gun violence and mass shootings by asking the question: "What has changed since then?" Why are there more mass shootings today than in 1968. What HAS changed?

Back in 1968 I was a freshman in high school, our country was waist-deep in the Vietnam war, but life in general was good. It was safe. There were no mass shootings, The Beatles topped the music charts with Hey Jude, and I was more worried about "being cool" than I was about passing math class. So what has changed in our society since 1968? Here's a partial list:

Prayer removed from schools 1962

Bobby Kennedy shot 1968

Marin Luther King shot 1968

Women's Lib Movement late 60's

Woodstock 1969

Roe v Wade 1973

Jesus Christ Superstar 1973

Vietnam War ends 1975

As gun law restricting gun ownership increase, so do the mass shootings. Clearly, gun ownership is not the problem. I believe it is our government increasingly taking God out of everything. They're even talking God's Word out of the pulpit, calling it hate speech. Sad.

Some people will think this is a "political piece" - a story about gun rights rather than about God. They will be wrong. The gun battle is just that, a battle in a larger war. The war is taking place in our hearts.

Yesterday there was another Potential mass shooting taking place . . . in a church!! However, recently passed laws enabled members of the congregation to carry guns. And it was a good thing they did. But the shooting quite possibly never even occurred had the shooter known Jesus.

There will always be crazy people in the world. Like Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you." There will always be Herods, Stalins, Hitlers, etc. but a good home with God-fearing parents in it is the best way to combat violence.

"Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." - Genesis 6:11-12

Jesus will return one day. Most think that day is coming soon. I hope so. Once He removes His church from the scene, what do you think it's going to be like then?

Guns?

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed." - John 3:19-20

After a while one would think we'd become rather numb. Numb to the seemingly endless violence and evil that exists in our world these days. Things like what happened in Connecticut this past week happen all too often. Acts of evil have been happening since the beginning of time. Crimes against humanity happened when Jesus walked the earth. Evil exists. It hurts. It kills.

I would submit to you today that we as a people have ALREADY become numb. People die every day and, unless if affects us personally, we usually go about our daily routine as if nothing has happened. Car accidents, illness, suicide, even brave soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan barely make the news anymore. The only deaths worthwhile in the eyes of the media must have an air of the bizarre or something extreme about them to be made news worthy these days.

And how quickly we tend to forget other such tragedies. Remember a guy named Tim McVeigh? He killed WAY more people back in 1995 (168) than this guy in Connecticut did. He killed nearly as many innocent children (19). Yet, we seem to forget about the building he blew up rather quickly.

Here's another number that should freak us all out. Over 3,200 children are murdered each day, in this country alone, through abortion. Where is the uproar over THAT act of murder? "I knew you before you were born," says God in Jeremiah 1:5.

I have already seen the Facebook posts and heard the presidential speeches calling for us to take action as a nation as a result of this tragedy. It's good to take action but we must target the right things. "It's the guns!!" they say. My friends, it is NOT the guns. It is us. That's right, it's you and it's me. WE are the problem.

We killed those children at Sandy Brook Elementary through our inaction. Through our inability to tell the world about the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Skeptical? Should we be cleared of all guilt in this matter?

Answer these two questions for me.

Question 1. How many people would be murdered tomorrow if we banned guns today?

Before you answer, remember that Tim McVeigh used common agricultural fertilizer, some fuel and a truck to kill his victims, the 9/11 terrorists used planes. Islamic terrorists use suicide bombers AND IED's. Anthrax gets mailed in envelopes, nerve gas gets dispersed in subway stations, "weapons of mass destruction" are seemingly everywhere . . . and we humans invented them all.

Question 2: How many people would be murdered each day if we ALL had the love of Christ in our hearts?

That's an easy question to answer. The number of dead would be zero.

John 14:15 - "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

Exodus 20:30 - "You shall not murder (the sixth commandment)."

And the greatest commandment . . .

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” - Matthew 22:36-40

When the neighbor kid throws a rock through our window, we don't have a rock problem. Someone needs to have a talk with Little Johnny. And they SHOULD have had a talk with Little Johnny LONG before he threw the rock. About right and wrong, about sin and repentance, about life and death and about heaven and hell.

The nation is right to mourn the deaths of those 28 beautiful children and teachers in Connecticut. God had plans for each of them, plans to prosper them. But ultimately it is WE THE PEOPLE, we Christians, the church, who should be held responsible for their deaths. We killed Jesus after all, the Prince of Peace. Then we took Him out of our schools. And now we wonder why we have a problem?

People die every day without knowing the saving grace of Jesus Christ. No weapons are being used. We all need to step up our efforts to reach the dying in a world that is growing darker every day. Time is short. God has commissioned us to spread The Good News to all the nations. How we doin' on that?

This time of year should be all about love. It should be all about grace. Instead, the news media is choosing to take the spotlight off Jesus (as if they had it on him to begin with) and they keep focusing it on the sensational, gory details. We should be talking about the cure we have in Jesus instead of the disease that rules this world - the evil one.

2 Peter 39 - "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."