No King? No King.
“In those days there was no king
in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”[1]
God’s heart is breaking and His
Spirit is grieved over the tragedy and chaos this nation has experienced just
in 2018. Some say from January 1st to February 14th there
has been eighteen school shootings. Snopes website, quoting The Washington Post
says, “No, only five”[2].
But even one is too many. My
heart also breaks, not merely for the Parkland, Florida school shooting victims
and their families, but for every school shooting victim since the first,
Columbine.
Last week this insanity came closer to home. A
Jackson Middle School student shot himself in the school restroom and he has
now succumbed to his wounds. At first the shooting was thought to be
accidental, but later being labeled a suicide.
Sadly, it seems the panic arising from the
Jackson Middle School shooting may have spurred a social media threat to at
least one of our local schools causing several schools to go on lock-down. My
twelve-year-old granddaughter told me the day after this shooting, she was
afraid to go to school. The Jackson boy wasn’t even in high school yet – he was
a seventh grader just like my granddaughter. These shooters are getting younger
and younger.
We are shocked, frightened to send our children
or grandchildren to school. I’ve even heard some mothers considering
home-schooling for the first time. We scream, “When will this craziness stop?”
But maybe our question should be, “What is the cause?”
Revenge for bullying may be the motivation, but
despair, most likely, is the root cause. It has overwhelmed them and at such a
young age. No hope. No one they feel they can turn to. And their
parents are left, shattered, grieving, and blaming themselves.
But why despair? Doesn’t despair come from a
sense of what you believe is right and wrong in your life and the realization
you can’t change the wrong things? So they do something unthinkable to force a
change. They play God and get rid of the hurt. They want the person or persons
who “wronged” them to suffer, feeling these people have no right to live. From
where does this mindset come?
I have a theory. Did you know it has been 71
years since our, oh so wise, Supreme Court took Thomas Jefferson’s “separation”
metaphor out of context? In 1947 they applied it to the Emerson v. The Board of
Education case stating, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church
and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve
the slightest breach.” This was a lie.
Keeping Jefferson’s private letter quote IN context actually proved
the First Amendment PROTECTED religious rights FROM governmental control.[3]
Fifteen years after this fiasco, the United
States commenced reaping the consequences. In 1962 the Supreme Court began
systematically removing Christianity from the schools, ruling it
unconstitutional for a student to say a voluntary prayer in school.[4]
Free love and flower power was born – and now this.
Unbeknownst to the Supreme Court, their rulings were doing exactly what Israel did when they demanded the prophet, Samuel, make
them a king to judge them like other nations. Of course this displeased Samuel,
but the Lord said, “Do it. …They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”[5]
Over one thousand years later, Jesus told a
parable about a nobleman who went away to receive a kingdom. Before he left, he
gave ten of his servants a mina or talent and commanded, “Do business until I
come.” But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not
have this man to reign over us.’[6]
This was Israel’s mindset when Jesus was on
trial. “Let Him be crucified…His blood be on us and on our children,” they
cried.”[7]
And when Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered,
“We have no
king but Caesar!”[8]
For too long our nation has sown the wind. Now
we’re reaping the whirlwind.[9] We’ve rejected the rule of
our heavenly
King, as did Israel. And when there is no TRUE King in the land, alas, the people do what they deem right in their
own eyes.
Oh Lord, be merciful to us sinners![10]
[1]
Judges 21:25
[2]
https://www.snopes.com/2018/02/16/how-many-school-shootings-in-2018/
[3]
David Barton, Our Godly Heritage video
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
I Samuel 8:5-7
[6]
Luke 19:11-14
[7]
Matthew 27:22-25
[8]
John 19:15
[9]
Hosea 8:7
[10]
Luke 18:13
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