A TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS IN NEWTOWN CONNECTICUT
But, we Christians cannot escape criticism and judgment. We relented to culture, we became like the world. And when the world calls us judgmental and uncaring, and unloving because we tell the truth about sin, judgment and righteousness, we apologize for our beliefs and we amend them. Soon churches are collectives of positive feelings and happy songs. Our compromise is not love. Love compels us to tell the world about Christ. Love compels us to warn our people about the impending judgment of God. Love of God calls us to stand against the tide of compromise that has become second nature in our society. And we have not spoken to the corruption of our political leaders who constantly lie to us and mislead us for reasons we do not understand.
Because of our corrupt government, we will soon have to decide whether we will live with freedom and live in danger from out-of-control citizens? Or, will we give up our freedom to an ever increasing oppressive government so that we might be safe? We may soon cross that line where we have so little moral restraint, so little moral knowledge that we cannot govern ourselves.
Our nation of freedoms requires us to have moral restraint so that we do not use our freedom to abuse others. Our corrupt political leaders support the killing of unborn babies, the killing of the elderly when medical care becomes high. Our corrupt leaders support homosexual marriage, which is another form of death. Marriage is supposed to lead to children but not so for homosexuals. Our leaders support the legalizing of drugs and a drunken, drugged out culture–if they did not, they would have stopped it a long time ago. Marriage means nothing today. You need at least one divorce to get marriage done right. So, now many are just skipping marriage all together. We live in a violent world. Video games, movies, TV, and music, glorify violence, gang life, and filthy language. We are so materialistic that we live our lives to consume things and to look conspicuously wealthy. Does anyone really think that God is pleased with our world?
But, of course, many will say it is God’s fault, why did he not stop it? Why is it so hard for us to understand human responsibility? It is not God’s fault that we misuse the freedom that he gives us. When are we going to stop being violent? When are we going to properly care for the mentally ill? When will we get our priorities right and stop paying sports figures and movie stars and rockers millions of dollars while we still pay teachers and care givers such small salaries? Have we gone so far that we cannot return to common sense? Or, is common sense now dead too?
We must realize that God’s moral law is given to tell us how to live. Sin is the neglect of the law of God. The moral law is given to us to keep us from hurting ourselves. But when we neglect the things of God, we do harm to ourselves and to our neighbors. We have sinned so long that we have coarsened our world. We are a vile and filthy people and our actions change us. We kill, we steal, we cheat, we envy, we do all these things because our sins encourage us to. That lifestyle is the result of living immoral lives. Our coarse culture has created a world where it makes sense to some people to shoot up schools and kill innocent children. It is time for our society to man up and take responsibility.
Sociology, politics, psychology, anthropology, none of our modern authorities can give us an answer to our troubles. They cannot fix us. The only thing that can fix us is if we repent and return to God. Our society will continue to get worse if we leave God out of our lives. We will have repeats of Newtown CT. We will have schools and churches and libraries and supermarkets and movie theaters shot up and people killed because we live in a world that has no morals or fear of God or fear of judgment.
How do we deal with this as Christians? Certainly we should pray for the victims and pray for the nation. Look at what those children had to see. Think about the parents whose children were torn from their lives and the loved ones who died trying to protect the children. And pray for the counselors and ministers who must work with these broken souls.
But there is one thing more that we should be doing. We should be pouring out hearts out before God seeking an awakening, a revival in our land. We need to repent of our sin. We need to understand our despair and return to God. I fear that God is judging us by turning us over to the consequences of our sin. But we should mourn, we should call out in despair to God that he might hear us and heal our land. Our prayers should have feet on them and take us to our neighbor and bear witness to the reality of Christ. We must pray, but we must also tell.
It is Christmas time when we celebrate the grace of God in the flesh.. I pray that God will extend his grace to us this Christmas as we seek him and call upon his name.
