"Mental health is your problem here. We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries. But this isn’t a guns situation. Fortunately, somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction; otherwise... It would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event.” ~ President TrumpI'd go one further, as does Erick Erickson. Evil exists, and demons are real...
Excellent interview between Mark Levin and Gov. Abbott Monday evening, discussing the heroism of former NRA instructor, Stephen Willeford, the man primarily responsible for ending Sunday’s mass-murder carnage in Sutherland Springs before the gunman took more lives, and also discussing another government screw up that led to a mass shooting (Air Force forgot to add his name to the national database after a felony conviction!). As important of details as those are, something else that Levin said immediately following the interview stuck with me the boils it down to base level...TheResurgent: The Bible makes clear what a lot of people seldom ever think about. Demons are real. Protestants tend to think it is all Catholic talk and secularists think it is all in the movies. But evil is a very real thing and demons are part of it. Though we may not see them commonly, they are there and the church shooting in Texas should remind us of that.
“Where is your God?” the secularists heckle as the American progressives and Nazis and Soviets and Romans and Persians and Philistines all have heckled Christ’s church. He sits on his throne, still sovereign, mourning the dead and welcoming them into His kingdom. On this earth, as it grows more secular, we should expect more of this as evil creeps back in. I think Augustine was right that evil exists in the absence of God.
...Christian churches need to wake up and realize the evil creeping back in with the rising tide of secularism in America. There will be more church shootings. There will be more persecution of Christians. There will be more evil, often masked under the guise of progressive enlightenment. It all comes as American society increasingly shoves God aside.
We do not know all the details of the shooter in Texas. But we should recognize evil and call it evil. And churches should see what happened in Texas and what is happening to culture as a whole and start preparing their congregations for a harder life in the United States. Actual demons are actually real. They take many forms. But they are all evil and all wish to harm the church.
No exorbitant amount of governmental regulation, or lack of compliance thereof, can isolate us from evil acted upon."There are evil people who do evil things. And not just in our country. In fact, most other countries. ... Historically even, in manner cases worse. That's just a terrible thing."
Related links: 7 things you'll want to know about the hero of the Texas shooting
Air Force Failed to Put Sutherland Springs Shooter in FBI Database Preventing Felons From Getting Guns
Circling back around to something Erickson picked up on, "I think Augustine was right that evil exists in the absence of God." This is where modern atheism is leading...
And the media fools only aid in the assistance of progressing secularism as they tirade within hours of this horror on the need to infringe on certain individual rights while openly mocking the power of prayer...TR: Atheists have no moral boundaries beyond death, which they consider to be the end of existence. The same sentiment that supports euthanasia, so-called “death with dignity,” Iceland’s shameful extermination of Down Syndrome babies, and the push for unlimited abortion, also allows for people like Kelley to exit this life with no conscience after committing hate-fueled mass murder.
This crime will likely be chalked up to “mental health,” as President Trump indicated. But it’s a hate crime. Kelley hated God, hated Christians, and took every opportunity to display his disdain with both of these, based on what the Daily Mail reported.
Trump was right that this is not a “gun problem.” But the militant brand of atheism which cannot account for anyone’s deeds besides “be good for goodness’ sake” has no argument to dissuade others from doing the same thing.
Christians should be suspicious of those who vehemently argue online against God, who belittle and attack Christianity and other religions of faith. We should treat them all as potential Jeremy Joseph Christians and Devin Patrick Kelley’s.
These are the people who would have all Americans disarmed at the hands of our own government, who belong to organizations that would purge the government of believers in God. These are the people who would impose their own narrow morality on the world. These are the people who draw their ideals and trace their moral ancestry directly from Robespierre, Lenin, Mao and Guevara.
Kelly is the face of atheism and the working out of its consequences. Those are: for the dead, there are no further consequences, and that affects us all as the living. Better to believe in a Sky Daddy who can condemn your soul to eternal hell than to trust in those who kill with no consequence.
TR: Between the vehicular attack in New York on Halloween and the terrible mass shooting in Sutherland, Texas yesterday, it’s been a tough week with violence in the United States of America. Compounding the tragedy is the by now familiar compulsion of bad actors across social media to use these events to push some kind of political agenda.It's in these moments, as Peter Heck suggests, that perhaps we should set aside all the noise long enough to really meditate on one thing: our own salvation...
Here is a nice little montage of Democrats, reporters and pundits questioning and mocking thoughts and prayers with no action. This is all about not taking action they want and nothing more.
TR: The response to mass killings has become a sick joke.
After yesterday’s mass shooting in Texas, leftists took to the internet to attack gun laws, the NRA and the Republican Party before the bodies were even cold. As an added measure, anti-religious zealots attacked Christianity and the effectiveness of prayer since the mass murder took place at a Baptist church. Never mind that the killer was apparently an atheist who got his gun illegally.
The sick joke is the reflexive jockeying after terrorist attacks and mass killings to determine who can benefit politically from the tragedy.
Despite the media and political deterrents, much, much more prayer is quite necessary.TR: I’m burdened to say this much to anyone who takes the time to read these words: it could have been you. It could have been you with your small children climbing over the church pews and sharing in fellowship with your best friends right as those doors flew open and a man in tactical gear began unloading his rifle. Not that we need to be reminded, but not a single one of those victims yesterday had any expectation when they pulled into their church parking lot that they had just moments left to live.
The same can be said of the concertgoers in Vegas last month, or the bike riders in New York City last week. They didn’t know they were living out their final seconds here on Earth until it happened. And we don’t know but what we aren’t doing the same right now.
Nothing is guaranteed in this life except death. Think about that. We spend so much time and so much energy preparing, planning, and providing for future events that we have no assurance will ever come. We plan for our weddings, but we don’t know that our fiancé will actually show up to the ceremony. We plan for our retirement, but we don’t know that we’ll ever live to see it. We plan for our careers, but we don’t know that anybody is actually going to hire us.
Yet the one thing we are guaranteed – that we will die – is something we avoid planning for, preparing for, or even thinking about. We contemplate it at moments like this because it becomes real to us. But in a few days, we’ll be consumed with what is happening on this side of the grave again, and our thoughts about death will be pushed away until the next tragedy unfolds. But given that we could be involved the next time it unfolds, that seems to be a tragically and needlessly risky way to live.
My humble suggestion is that this time, rather than using this unspeakable horror to spur our deliberations about gun control, concealed carry, security systems, armed guards, and politics, let’s try – just this time – to let it spur our thinking about death.
I think that thinking about death is as natural as death itself. I think we are wired to think about death. And I think we’re wired that way because the One who did the wiring wants us to think about death.
No, I’m not calling God dark or morose. He is everything the opposite of those things. He is life (John 14:6) – true life, vibrant life, pulsating life. And He knows what awaits us on the other side of these vaporous few years (James 4:14) is eternally more significant than the temporal things that consume far too much of our thinking here on this side of the grave.
We should be thinking about death and preparing for it far more than our weddings, what movies we’re going to see, the careers we’re going to have, or the retirement we want to enjoy. We should be obsessing about the preparations needed before death in comparison to the preparations needed before parties, picnics, and promotions.
Not because we are macabre. But because we wisely recognize what God has told us – the entirety of our existence on earth is merely the beginning of our life. Only a fool then would fail to think about what happens when the beginning ends.
It ended for 26 precious souls Sunday. It could end for you today. Are you ready?
