As
for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my
people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy
paths. Isa. 3:12 KJV
This
past week the shooting of 17 people has dominated the news in America. Every time a school shooting takes place or a
mass shooting there is a rush to blame
the gun. First let me say, I do not own
a gun, I am not a member of the NRA, but I do support gun ownership and the Second Amendment. I have a life gun permit because it is my
Constitutional right. I believe that an individual has the right to protect
themselves, their family and property.
As a minister, I believe the church has the right to defend those who worship with whatever force is
needed to save lives. As a retired
teacher, I believe schools should not be
allowed to become soft targets but protect students with armed security and the
use of deadly force. With all that said,
I have a few observations that I would like to share.
Isaiah
told us what would happen when we turn away from the LORD. There would be judgment brought upon the
nation. This judgment would be
identified by children becoming oppressors and women ruling over them. The leaders of this country have lead us down
the path of destruction and have turn our nation away from the LORD.
There
is a generation in America today that has no regards for human life. It is not the evil of the gun that has taken
so many lives but the darkness in the
hearts of the people. What I found
interesting was when Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the NRA was confronted by the
parents of Parkland victims, they displayed the same anger Nikolas Cruz had
when he killed his seventeen victims.
The people who rushed the stage and were screaming “burn her” to Dana
Loesch, were no different from Nikolas Cruz.
They want to ban guns but are
willing to use firebrands to burn her to death.
Not
long after Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, 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. And it
repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him at his heart. (Gen. 6:5-6). How much longer will evil continue before the
wrath of God is poured out on mankind?
Paul,
in writing to the Church at Rome describes today’s generation, since they did not see fit to acknowledge
God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They
have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and hatred. They
are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms
of evil; they disobey their parents.… (Rom.1:29)
It
is this generation that is demanding to be heard, children who are disobedient
to authority of any type, lack respect for human life, feel they are entitled
to whatever they demand. This is the generation that does not know
God.
How
did we get to the place we are as a society today? We rejected the LORD.
I was a junior in high school in 1966 when I became aware of the
depth of evil in our country. Mass murder would become a common event over the next fifty some years. Some of these
murders would make a lasting impression on me. The pictures of the eight nurses
from South Chicago Community Hospital murdered by Richard Speck to the clock
tower at the University of Texas campus in Austin where Charles Whitman, kills
15 people and wounds another 32 before being shot dead by police. That was in
1966. I have never forgotten the picture of the clock tower or the bodies
scattered on the ground or the images of
the eight nurses. Evil hearts have a bloody
face.
Over the years, I have also often asked myself this question,
“What has changed in America that can explain the increase in evil by
individuals?” After fifty years in the ministry and almost thirty years as a
teacher what has changed is that there is far less religious influence today.
When I first started teaching in public school,
I was amazed at the number of students who had never attended a church service,
and that includes funerals and weddings. So, it is not surprising they would
not know “Thou shall not commit murder.”
That brings to mind the next question, where does the idea for these horrible evil crimes originate? Violent
movies? Violent video games? Political warfare language? Or could it be the mind-altering antidepressants which are associated with violence? Are, these
factors contributing to the increase in mass murders?
Not to sound arrogant but I do have the answer, as the Shadow
would say, “It is the evil that lurks in the hearts of men.” The prophet
Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?” Murder starts in the heart, not with a gun. It is a spiritual condition. I know the progressive
socialist won’t accept this. They will look
everywhere for an explanation except where the answer lies---in the heart. To
stop these violent acts the heart needs to be changed by the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Much of popular culture minimizes religion, glorifies
foolishness, wallows in corruption, and revels in cruelty, mayhem, blood, gore,
and sadism. All these feeds the evil
heart. Will it ever stop? History would tell us, NO! Not until we change the heart, and this can
only be done by the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
It is no the government’s responsibility to teach right from wrong. It is not the school’s responsibility to teach to teach right
from wrong. It is the parent’s
responsibility to train their children in the right way. It is the churches responsibility to help
train and support the parents in teaching their children right from wrong. However, churches cannot help parents if they
fail to see the importance of religious training.
Parental involvement is extremely crucial to a child’s life;
parents‟ involvement, or lack thereof, both in the school, home and at church,
will automatically influence the future of our children. It is up to the
parents to have the will to be present, both physically, mentally, and
spiritually and available to their children.
Parents have a huge role in a child’s life. They are the determining factor in a child’s
success or failure: academically, socially, spiritually and financially.
Furthermore, an extreme abundance of parents in our 21st Century are divorcing
and spending less valuable time with their children. The family is broken. Single mothers are left to raise their
children without the support of the father.
Parents have become too busy with their jobs, marriage issues, financial
needs, and social life. Many must work two or more jobs to sustain the family’s
basic needs and to provide their children with the most they can to be
well-educated and achieve the most in life, while others face multiple problems
with husbands or wives, not even to mention the issues
outside of home with jobs, government rules, and other fundamental life issues. Consequently, they lack involvement in the
child’s life. Most of the reasons why children do not care about school are not motivated to learn, start
drinking and smoking, become parents at an early age, cause accidents, are
placed in jail, and even die early are because of the lack of parental
involvement. However, a child’s life can completely turnaround from failure to
success if a parent decides to address the spiritual needs of their child and
their own life.
Finally, the lack of
parental involvement has become, and will continue to be, a severe issue in our
society, unless parents start to make a real “change.” That
change cannot happen by moving away from the influence of a godly home based on
the principles of God’s word. Until we address
the real issue, we will continue to see
an increase in violence and face the judgment of God upon our nation.
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