Stop the Madness!

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?

by Pastor Carl Gallups, ©2012, blogging at PPSimmons

(Dec. 16, 2012) — In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut criminal massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Barack Obama took to the airwaves and within minutes proclaimed: “We’re gonna have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics…”

Amazing – how utterly despicable. How shameful. To proclaim with a supposed tear in his eye – let’s not be political and then to inject the obvious hint of one of the most political subjects in our nation into the first few minutes of a speech addressing the death of 20 little children… gun control legislation! What is even more amazing is the fact that most of America will laud that statement as bold, brave and forward seeing.

But follow me for a moment. I will expose the real problem and I will offer the real solution.

We, in America, entertain ourselves with violence – we bathe in it – from movies to video games and beyond. We celebrate violence. From reality TV to the constant cry for more of it in our sporting events.

The gun is not the problem. The violent, abortion crazy, evolution-believing, depraved heart and soul of the culture is the problem. For multiple decades now we have told our little children that there is not a God and that they are a mere cosmic accident. We pound it into their little heads that there is no eternal accountability and that they are nothing more than an evolved form of animal life. Then we sit back and marvel as those children, over the decades, grow up and become the leaders of our nation. As the leaders of our nation they see no problem at all (because they have been taught it from infancy) with reaching into the wombs of pregnant women and pulling out human babies and throwing them in trash cans  – all the while screaming about saving whales, turtle eggs and eagle’s nests … we are going mad. These brainwashed, all-grown-up leaders then go on to redefine home, marriage, family and cultural norms.

There would be no abortion holocaust in our nation – there would be no monumental move to redefine the boundaries of marriage and all that is decent if there first had not been a redefining of life itself and an ousting of all things Godly and eternal. The Columbine schools, the Aurora Colorado theaters, and the Newtown Connecticut massacres where virtually unheard of before our nation decided to walk away from the truth of God’s Word and the declaration of our founding fathers – “We hold these truth to be self evident that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today – that life is cheap, that liberty is waning, and the pursuit of that happiness is being purposely constrained by ever-increasing governmental regulations, ironically in the name of providing improved safety to a society finding itself walking in amplified darkness. And the dark powers of government know…. many of its society are afraid of the dark.

A gun is but only one weapon that can be used to easily kill. But a gun without a darkened heart behind it – does nothing. It simply exists – it does nothing more. What law could have been passed before the shooting that would have prevented this horrific crime? Take away guns? From whom? From all people? How?

But the criminal – the one who wants to kill us will always have something with which to kill us. Will we outlaw baseball bats, bows and arrows, knives, and rocks?  Will razor blades, box cutters, tire tools, screwdrivers and hammers be outlawed? How about chainsaws, gasoline cans, and blowtorches? How do we prevent chemical weapons and explosives from falling into the wrong hands and then turned upon those of us who no longer have guns with which to defend ourselves and our children and our families? In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, I would venture to guess that any of the teachers, administrators, etc., would now have loved to have had a gun on that tragic day. Some of those precious people would have still died. But, perhaps not all.

The real madness of it all is that we have told the criminals where to attack us! We tell these madmen – come to our school campuses! There are no guns here.  This is a safe zone. No teacher, no administrator, no one of accountability and responsibility is armed at all, they are not allowed to be armed – it’s just our children and us. Here we are!  Come and get us! And so the madmen come. The madmen feel safe at our schools, malls, and movie theaters, because we refuse to address the real issue. The real issue is not the gun. It’s the heart of man. It’s the heart of a culture that has purposely rejected all things Godly. Let’s not have a manger scene or the 10 commandments in the public square – oh no! But, let us keep the abortion mills whirring and let’s keep telling our children they come from a common ancestor to the monkey. And…let’s keep scratching our heads wondering what’s wrong with our society.

I am afraid that perhaps I have made evolution teaching out to be the only culprit in this present madness. It is the main one – but of all things, it is helped along by an anemic, wimpified church. There it is  – I said it. A church, as a whole, that has largely retreated behind its own stained glass and disengaged from the public arena – the public square. A church that doesn’t speak out, a church that doesn’t vote … as proved in the last election. A church that doesn’t engage, pastors who are terrified to light a match in the darkness lest they lose a member, or a dollar bill, or some position of power or authority.  And when a bold pastor or layperson DOES step forward to be the salt and light which he has been commanded to be (A Daniel in Babylon or an Ezekiel in exile) he is often chastised the loudest by other Christians!  “Now preacher – don’t preach politics – just preach the love of Jesus.” But, politics is about LIFE; it is about where the Word of God meets reality. If we don’t engage the world with the truth of the Word of God and the Gospel – the world around us turns to rot! Satan has pulled a neat trick on the church, has he not?

So, when the dust settles after a crime of this nature we wonder what is wrong and our politicians, all too gladly, scream into the darkness (because the preachers won’t!) “I know what – let’s have more government regulations thrust upon your liberties – and specifically, let’s have more gun control!”  It is madness – pure madness.

Inevitably, the next thing that happens is that the unbelievers and skeptics take to the airwaves and print media and cry out WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?  See, they cry, this is proof that there is no God!

But, actually, this is proof that there is a God, there is an all-knowing Creator, and He is the God who has presented Himself in the Bible. For it is the Bible, the Word of God, and it alone that addresses, even predicts the horrific occurrences of these kinds, for cultures that would dare to expel God from their midst. These prophecies were given thousands of years before they covered our land with fulfillment … (II Timothy 3:1-5 for example)

These deeds of utter darkness are not the deeds of God – they are the deeds of a depraved mankind and now an entire culture that has turned its back on its true Creator and has instead chosen to worship the created things rather than the Creator.

But this same God is still on his throne. He has never abdicated that throne and He never will. In fact, He has promised that there are eternal consequences for mankind’s deeds of darkness. He has also promised a coming judgment. He has also promised a reckoning – a setting right of all that’s wrong. He has promised a new creation, where there will be no more pain or death, or crying, or mourning. God, our Creator, says – Behold, I will make all things new … (Revelation 21:3-8)

But this hope, this light, this promise … is available only through the salvation offered in Jesus Christ. He and He alone went to Calvary’s cross to pay for your sin. He and He alone rose from a grave to prove that He is the Lord of life. He and He alone rose from the grave to prove that there is life beyond the grave. And let me remind you, there is judgment – eternal judgment  – beyond the grave for those who choose to walk in mankind’s darkness. The question is not “Where is God now?”  The question is where are YOU now?

The choice is yours – God will not force himself upon you or mankind in general – but this one truth will hold eternal:

I John 5:12

“He who has the son – has the life – he who has not the son – has not the life.”

Choose the son – choose life.  Stop the madness – at least in your own life.  Now…more than ever…this is the message of Christmas. God bless you.