Matthew
19:14
December
16, 2012
Introduction
- This last week has been horrific
- During this past week there have been three mass shootings
- One was in Portland, OR, when a 22 year old shot two people and himself
- Friday 20 young children and 6 adults were shot at the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT
- And yesterday there was another shooting in a parking lot outside a mall in Newport Beach near Los Angeles, but with no fatalities
- This is a crazy world
- Today we are mourning all those who lost their lives in these events this week
- As we do so we wonder, how could this happen?
- Why would God allow things like this to happen to such innocent young lives, in particular
- Today we will take a look at this question which has been asked so many times this week, why does God allow such terrible things to happen?
The
core of the question
- During this week, particularly after the Conneticut shooting, I have heard this question so many times
- And this question needs to be considered at two levels - mentally and emotionally
- First of all we need to understand what brought this about
- We don't know all that much about Adam Lanza
- Police have been delving into his past in an attempt to discover why this happened
- My comment at this time is only, that this has become a violent society
- Video games our children and grandchildren play have become more and more gruesome and sadistic
- The bible tells us about this in a description of our society
- 2 Tim 3:1-3 perilous times will come
- This society has become like this
- Life is about self-gratification, about taking care of self
- 2Timothy 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
- Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
- Society has become like this, emotions have been shut down, and people have become desensitized to other peoples feelings
- But not all of us go around shooting people
- This is something deeper, something which causes people to overstep all boundaries
How
it all started
- Let's go back to Gen 3
- Here we see the account of how things went bad
- This is why it is in the Bible, to show us the origin of things
- God gave man some instructions - the principle was, be obedient, do what I say and all will be cool
- God had every right to say this!
- He had just taken red earth and created a statue in the shape of a man, and then he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul
- Man was God's project, God had the right to tell him hopw to conduct himself
- But man chose to rebel against God
- He ate from the forbidden fruit, he tried to evade responsibiliy, and he hid from God
- As a result a curse came upon the world
- The nature of things changed
- Vegetation changed, and weeds and painful stuff took over
- The nature of animals changed and some became predators and carnivores
- And mankind's nature changed to become hostile to God
- As a result of this, he became a fallen being, unable to please God, even if he wanted to
- Being hateful towards God, put him totally under the sway of satan the devil
- God's intention for man was that he would inherit all things, but by choosing for satan, the world became a painful place
- This world is now under the sway of the devil
- I believe these crazy incidents are because people have surrendered to the devil
- John 10:10 He is the one who wants to kill, steal and destroy
- He shares this nature with the whole world
- Ephesians 2:2 Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience:
But
what happened to these little children?
- Mat 19:13-14 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
- When these children died, their spirit went to heaven
- Ecclesiastes 12:7 - spirit returns to God who gave it
- They are now with Jesus, in safekeeping, until; the day that we are reunited with them on the day Jesus returns
- They are not little angels, as one pastor said on the web, God has a higher calling for them than to be an angel
- But we will see them again
- Even if they had not yet formally accepted Jesus, we are told, of such is the kingdom of heaven
- They had not yet reached an age where they were accountable, and they still lived in relative innocence
How
about our emotions in the face of these events
- Emotionally this is hard
- We particularly find it hard when these things happen to children
- As a result, we grieve, there is a sense of loss, an emptiness
- Today, Foursquare chaplains have flown to Conneticut to minister to the grieving parents and the children who were so brutally shocked
- We will pray for them and ask the Holy Spirit to bring them comfort in this time of loss
Prayer
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