The Insanity Continues in Yet Another School Shooting
A lone gunman killed 26 people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut today (12-14-12) including 18 children, in a terrifying early Friday morning shooting spree. The Associated Press and local media reported the shooter, a 24-year-old male, was also dead inside Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I just looked at an internet site listing all the school shootings that have taken place worldwide since 1996. Amazingly it totals about 75. Most of these shootings took place in Middle Schools or High Schools but today’s massacre took place in an Elementary School. My heart is very heavy for the parents who are finding out their child or children are dead. I can’t imagine sending my third grade son or daughter off to school only to get a call a shooter has ended their lives. We’re going to need to pray much for them. Dear God, have mercy. Something is horribly wrong.
I’m reminded of the days of Noah when the Lord God saw the level of man’s wickedness and said it was enough and He decided to send a destructive flood and for all intents and purposes start over with human kind.
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” Genesis 6:5-7
Every intent of the thoughts of men’s hearts was only evil continually. Later in verse 11 we read, “The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence.” It’s interesting to see that the primary evidence of the corrupt condition on the earth was violence. Why was there so much corruption and violence? We go back to the first two verses to get our answer.
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6:1-4
Now some believe the sons of God refers to angels who had sexual relations with women and produced these giants (Hebrew “nephilim”) who became fighting warriors. But I believe the better interpretation is that the sons of God refers to the godly descendants of Seth who were devoted to God (4:25-26; 5:22) and the daughters of men they married refers to the ungodly descendants of Cain who were “characterized by cleverness, culture, civilization, selfishness, sensuality and ungodliness” (Genesis 4:16-24). [Believer’s Study Bible Notes] This intermarriage of the godly and ungodly produced a generation of people who were corrupt in nature having forsaken God.
A desire for sexual immorality and ungodly living on the part of those who previously had been devoted to God brought a breakdown in what God intended for marriage and the home that produced a generation of corrupt people. Over time the condition of the culture worldwide deteriorated and God was so grieved He sent the Flood.
We can certainly see the deterioration of culture in America and around the world. More and more good is compromising with evil and just as in Genesis, this leads to evil corrupting the good. When a culture turns its back on God there is no limit to the evil that will come. James called it living by worldly wisdom that produces chaotic evil. “Such wisdom does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:15-16).
While we may not understand every nuance associated with the insanity of a twenty-four year old man intentionally killing 18 children in their classroom one thing is clear. We desperately need to return to the Lord our God. And the church must lead the way.
Something is horrible wrong. The solution we need can only be found in the Lord. Therefore, as we grieve this tragic event let us as God’s people pray not only for God’s grace for the families of the victims but let us also pray for ourselves asking God to bring revival to His church and make us the godly influence He intends for us to be.
Pastor Dan