Another horrible tragedy and senseless death toll bring another opportunity to fail to see and hear the unmistakable truth.
Joy Behar of ABC’s The View, recently criticized Vice President Mike Pence for saying that he hears from God. Behar protested that Pence’s statement demonstrates that he is mentally ill. Such absurdities are common fare on the radical left-wing talk show, but this one illustrates the dangerous twin spirits of ignorance and belligerence that liberalism has wrought upon the United States over the past several decades.
Like most Americans, I will never forget where I was on September 11, 2001. Days that contain such terrible events seem to become permanently etched into our beings. Memories are more vivid and ghastly images more stark. Nearly 3000 people died in New York on that horrible day.
For many people in Parkland, Florida, February 14, 2018 will now be an unforgettably tragic moment in time. It is the day that a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Nikolas Cruz, shot dozens of students and staff. For now, the death toll is 17, but it may rise even higher.
April 16, 2007 will forever live in infamy in the minds of Virginians. It was the day that Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech, including himself.
October 1, 2017 is another dark day seared into the minds of Americans. Fifty-nine country music fans were killed in Las Vegas last year when Stephen Paddock sprayed gunfire upon them from a hotel room. Lives were wasted, dreams cut-off and thousands of citizens were permanently scarred by the sinister spree.
Deadly events like these bring out the best and worst in people. The evil actions of the shooters contrast strikingly with noble examples of heroism, like that of Douglas High School football coach, Aaron Feis. Coach Feis used his own body to shield many students from gunfire. He died from his wounds the next day.
Because we are humans, those of us who are connected with these episodes are forever altered in some way. To a lesser degree, we often experience the same five stages of grief described by Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler: denial, anger, bargaining (with God), depression and acceptance.
The amount of time that a person spends in one of the stages of grief varies widely, and is partly related to how closely connected he is to the event. There seems to be no short-cut through the process. Healing and restoration require the subject to fully experience each stage. Only after acceptance is reached, can restoration begin.
Self-serving politicians and media celebrities will rush to the anger stage and remain there. They will stand firmly upon this platform and use it as a power base, in order to achieve their personal objectives. Some already have.
Hours after the 9-11 attacks, Reverend Jerry Falwell suggested that God may have lifted His hand of protection from the United States as the requisite consequence of a culture of death and depravity brought about through America’s abortion holocaust and acceptance of beastly sexual deviance. Dr. Falwell was viciously condemned and scornfully mocked by those whose hearts were pierced by his call for each of us to examine ourselves.
In those early days of September, 2001, we prayed with survivors, we prayed for the families of the dead and dying and we pleaded for God’s peace. But in the weeks and months that followed, our prayers dwindling, little, if anything substantially changed. Over the intervening years, we plummeted further into darkness.
Planned Parenthood continues to receive public funding defiling our land with gruesome barbarism. Reprobate godless judges extol wickedness as a “right.” Celebrities issue public threats to assassinate the president, agencies of the federal government subvert the will of the people and elected leaders betray their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.
Those of us who know God through Christ, recognize that He often speaks to us through circumstances as well as through His still small voice. Is God speaking to us today? If He is, we don’t seem to be listening.
Are Vice President Mike Pence and Christians hearing from God now? Or have we, like Joy Behar and her belligerent ilk, grown deaf to God’s thundering commands? Rebellion, evil and sin beget violence, destruction and death. As the truth becomes more apparent to the righteous, the ungodly become increasingly convinced of their delusions.
For now, we mourn the victims and pray with survivors. But when the time for mourning is finished, will we continue to intercede for our nation and turn from our wicked ways?
|
