How Orlando is No Different than Sandy Hook
It is a tragic act of absolute violence. It is cold-blooded murder. And it is happening more and more every day. The recent Orlando massacre is the latest shooting where innocent people became victims of terror. To try and figure out why these things are happening and what the motivation is behind them is really probably not going to solve the current situation in our world. And without being insensitive to any person affected by any of the mass shootings on our soil or abroad, let’s go ahead and state one thing that all of these terrible acts of violence have in common: A God who is very sad.
Whether it is a hate crime, a terrorist plot, or a person who is mentally ill who goes on a rampage, in the end, the result is the same. Innocent people have been violently murdered. For a moment can we pause and simply consider what is going on in the mind and heart of God? Let’s not try to spin each situation. Let’s not make it political. Let’s not make it about the presidency, or gun control or international terrorism, or the need for awareness concerning people who suffer from mental illness.
From Orlando to Sandy Hook, Blacksburg to San Ysidro, San Bernardino to Columbine, or any other location where innocent people are being killed, do we think that the why of it all makes any difference to God? It could be the Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11 or the incident at the Boston Marathon. To God, it is all the same. God is the giver of life. Satan and his work in the world through weak humanity is the author of death. The chapters may be different and the writers may be new. But people are dying, innocent people who don’t deserve to be killed.
I am growing weary of anyone making it about race or sexually immoral activity, or bad parenting, or whatever. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He has no pleasure in sin and death at all. We created sin and death. We keep recreating it in different ways for different reasons. The real problem is sin. It is the darkness that is typical of a world that is getting farther and farther away from God.
In Genesis 6 we read of a time in human history where every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually. What else does it say? It says that God was sorry that He had made man on the earth. He repented in His heart that He had made man. So God chose to start over through a man named Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
I am not suggesting that our world today is anywhere as bad as the Genesis 6 world. But I am suggesting a few things. I am suggesting that God is devastated when humans are wicked. I am suggesting that wicked people wax worse and worse and human morality (or lack of it) always trends in a particular direction from generation to generation. And I am suggesting that, no matter how bad it gets, there is still a God who is gracious and offers mercy for the people who will shun such evil and turn to Him in humility and repentance.
I see no signs of these mass killings coming to an end anytime soon. There is no safe place foreign or domestic except one. There is safety in the arms of Jesus. And God be thanked that if we are His there is nothing that Satan or man can do to us. Because He still has the whole world in the palms of His hands.
“So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” – Hebrews 13:6
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