We
are reeling after the horrible event in the theater in Aurora, Colorado, but
while it is still unfolding we must now endure the army of experts and analysts
who offer their solutions, counsel and views on every detail and nuance of the
tragedy. People with shock and horror still clearly written all over their
countenance have microphones pushed in their faces followed by ridiculous
questions like, how did you feel when you saw…
The
words of the experts all start to meld together like a giant Hollywood production
that while well-funded ends up by saying nothing and offering no lasting
solutions. Unlike a Hollywood production, real life offers no alternate
endings.
Then
along comes one former Baptist minister, turned Governor, turned TV talk show
host with a summary that hits the nail on the head. Although he was saddled
with the daunting task of hitting the nail on a board that someone keeps
moving; he took aim and brought the hammer down with a single blow that drove
it in up to the hilt.
Mike
Huckabee commented that after all is said and done it can be seen that it is
not education, politics, society or a plethora of other things that is wrong
with our nation, “ it is sin,” Huckabee said, even as a muffled amen rose up
from his audience. Don’t run - take the
earpiece out of your ear, put down the iPad, tear your sweaty hand from the
game stick or shut off the TV for a five full minutes to
ponder the Governor’s conclusion. Atheist, agnostic or true believer, you will
have to admit that it is the most reasonable conclusion anyone has offered yet.
The
notion that America has tuned out the moral message of the gospel is a complete
falsehood, for two simple reasons. The first is that millions of Americans are
praying more and proclaiming the need to turn back to God more than at any time
in our recent history. The second is that the rest of the population is fully
tuned-in to something else.
They
sit like mindless sheep in the classrooms where instructors tell them they are
primitive minded Neanderthals for ascribing to any religious view that holds
man accountable to the Creator God. They have the latest tunes, news, weather
and sports pumped in between their ears on countless new electronic gadgets
that don’t pause even while they send photos, texts and messages to their
friends. For leisure they take up one of Hollywood’s latest offerings of
altered reality from a video disc or as it were on July 20, 2012, in a local
movie theater.
Now
we have come full circle to where this subject began. Sadly it was in this
setting where the world’s worst reality crashed in, uninvited, unexpected and
completely unwanted as an intrusion to Hollywood’s magic, mayhem and nonsense.
With
forensic psychologists, legal experts and social scientists offering thousands
of possible explanations who wants to go all the way back to the antiquated,
over-used and largely discarded message of the gospel? Modernity’s answer is
understood, but it is not necessarily the correct answer. In crisis, calamity
and tragedy the best answer has been and still continues to be found in an old
adage not heard as much anymore. “Wise
men still seek Him.”
It
is too easy to say that America has become a deeply sinful nation. We need only
to look around, peruse the news or listen to our neighbors to come to that
indisputable conclusion. What is almost impossible to find is someone that
admits that we are sinners and that sin is our greatest problem. Echoes of
John’s epistle fly from the past to the ailing conscience of modern man, not to
condemn, but to re-direct and hopefully stop the loss of one single man or an
entire nation. To wit:
“But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” (1 John 1: 7-9)
Thousands
of years before John offered his inspired word about man’s denial of sin and
its remedy, the writer of the book of Deuteronomy warned that when mankind
refused to deal with sin and obey God’s commandments that lots of troubles
would ensue. While we engage dozens of government agencies to avert acts of
terrorism from without, Deuteronomy warned of the terror within, but withholds
nothing about the source and cause of that terror. Yes – it is sin, just as
Governor Huckabee has concluded.
Not
only did the ancient people reject the message, but they used the same excuses
that modern man uses today. They said there is no sin and if there is, God is
not going to judge us for it. They concluded that time and chance alone
accounted for their calamities.
“I will heap mischiefs upon
them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and
devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the
teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword
without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin,
the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them into
corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men: Were it
not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave
themselves strangely, and lest they should say, our hand is high, and the LORD
hath not done all this.” (De 32: 23-27)
We
are still making the same conclusions as the ancients; “and the LORD hath not done all this.” Thus we make true, the grand
conclusion from yet another Biblical writer, King Solomon. Heralded as the
wisest man to have ever lived in his day, Solomon concluded that men would
always be victims of their own sinful nature even as they dissed, denied and
deferred their complicity in their own destruction.
Solomon
said simply; “The thing that hath been,
it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ec 1:9)
Be
it Solomon, Leviticus, John or Huckabee this is no Sunday school lesson, but a
call to the highest level of discernment a nation can muster, it is a clarion
call from the everlasting wisdom of the ages. It is our sin that is destroying
our nation – no more and no less.
http://www.americanprophet.org
has since 2005 featured the articles of columnist Rev Michael Bresciani along
with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for
Insight. Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals
and print publications across the nation and the globe.
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