Going Beyond the Gun

Hundreds of students across the Piedmont Triad walked out of class during Wednesday’s nationwide walkout, but Connor Groce had his own way of taking a stand by staying in his seat.  Connor said, “I just spent the moment in prayer and in reflection,” the West Forsyth senior explains.  “Obviously, for the families of the victims in Florida and the horrific tragedy down there but for our nation as a whole because I think we live in a very fragile time.”

At its core, the current debate taking place about gun control is about more than guns.  What’s being protested is a symptom of a much larger problem.  We will not be able to legislate away evil.  No laws written on any book will change the human heart.

Our day is a lost culture that the students have inherited from us.  It’s a lost culture that mocks or ignores God and His “Timeless Truths“.  We live in a generation that is top-heavy for carnal pleasures and temporary thrills.  We have lost control of ourselves.

There is a growing epidemic of gun violence.  In addition to Florida, there have been school shootings in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  “How many schools, how many children have to get shot?” Andrew Pollack asked and pleaded with the President of the United States.  Mr. Pollack’s daughter, Meadow, was murdered in Parkland, Florida.  He said, “It stops here, with this administration and me, because I’m not going to sleep until its fixed.”  Any parent can understand this man’s broken heart if it were one of us before President Trump.

Many of the people who want to control and eliminate the symptoms are the very ones, sadly, who want to ban the very things that will lead to healing and revival.  Unless this country and her churches turn back to God, those with a fervent and sincere faith are going to be continually mocked and marginalized rather than respected and uplifted, meaning there is absolutely no help or hope from outside of ourselves, for God is out and Satan is in.

John Adams, second President, remarked that “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  History is very clear:  godlessness and immorality leads to any outbreak of evil.  If Conor Groce can take 17 minutes to pray in a classroom, can not God’s people take more and call upon God’s grace and mercy to start in us.

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  • Terminal

    “Return, and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee. On the third day thou shalt go up into the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 20:5).

    Hezekiah, the king, the captain of God’s people, was a godly man but he had great troubles heaped upon him. His country was under siege and he was deathly sick. National crisis is bad enough but to have a personal crisis is trouble piled high.

    What do you do? He turned to the Lord with tears and used the means God had given him for healing. Sometimes God will alter things in His universe just to meet our needs. Sometimes God heals on earth and other times He heals in glory.

    Friend, we do not know when we will die, but we do know we will. It is up to us to live and to live well in the power of the Spirit of the living God. To live in lethargy, complacency, or self-sufficiency, is to live with the threat of settling down in a world that is cursed with sin and death.

    This is not God’s best. God’s best is to allow our needs to continually drive us to Him upon our knees and for each of us to stay close to Him. Let your troubles drive you to Christ. This is the power of the third day. And by the way, we are all terminal, for we do not know when or where, but we do know we will not live forever in this body of clay.

  • The Sovereignty of God

    “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:41).

    There are so many times when we do not realize the sovereign hand of God at work behind the scenes, caring for His people.  Are we left at the mercy of stalled cars on a railroad track, or of a car that breaks down and costs us our income, or even at the mercy of people who are intent on doing us wrong and harm?  No, a thousand times no!  We are in the hands of a sovereign God who controls every circumstance of our lives and who rejoices in doing us good.

    Many would say that God is in the miraculous, and He is, especially in the scenes we find in the Word of God.  We see it with Moses and Elijah, the miracles of God.  But is God also in the details of our life, of those details we can’t see?  Is God in the events of our lives for our good?  In other words is God in a car wreck?  Or is God with those involved in a Tsunami?  Must we conclude that God always orchestrates the events of our lives to fulfill His purpose?  According to Romans 8:28, the answer is a solid yes.  That verse says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose“.  That is why we are commanded to “give thanks in all circumstances” (I Thessalonians 5:18).

    How can we give thanks to God for all that happens to us, the circumstances of our lives, if He were not at work in them for our good?  No circumstance is outside of God’s sovereign will.  And no plan of God’s can be thwarted.  God does as He pleases, and only as He pleases, and no one can frustrate His plans or hinder His purposes!  Look at Psalm 115:3, Job 42:2, Isaiah 14:27, and Isaiah 43:13.

  • Making It Easier For Ourself

    “So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day” (I Kings 12:12).

    The decision of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, would break or unite the kingdom that God brought together under the headship of David and Solomon. What would he do?

    Rehoboam met with the older elders and then with the younger group, his peers. Who would he listen to? He didn’t listen to God who was above. Instead of turning to a multitude of counselors–he listened to his peers–he already knew what he would answer the people of Israel when they returned the third day.

    If the decision does not lead by serving, to lighten the loads that people carry, and that which takes us to the throne of God, then it is a bad decision. The king used his people to build his agenda which resulted in a divided people and nation.

    The Lord Jesus grew up with the people. He served them, loved them, and lifted their loads by taking the heavier loads. A leader leads by serving, asking God, and leaning upon Him no matter the cost.

    Are you leading by serving or leading by selfishness? We are all leaders but the question is “How are we leading?” A true servant puts himself last while a selfish leader desires his desires.

  • The Time is Now!

    “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness”–Proverbs 30:12

    We are that generation! That which is wrong is now declared right. The time when right is wrong is now upon us. The avalanche of impurities have reached an all-time low. And it is reaching high into the nostrils of a holy God.

    The Apostle Paul said that in the latter days there will be a form of godliness but the power of a changed life will not be evident. Many will come before the Lord saying, “And why call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom it is like” (Luke 6:47).

    Rebellion will be the agenda of the day. And truly the rebellion is not against the church but against the God of creation. Man continues to sin without consciousness of a reckoning day, but that day is coming.

    What shall we do in the shadow of His coming to receive us unto Himself? We are to live soberly, righteously, feverishly praying, weeping for the lost, and yearning for others to enter into the Kingdom of God. Live in high gear in public and low gear in private with Almighty God.

  • What Big Teeth You Have

    “Woe be unto the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! Saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:1).

     

    You remember the story of Little Red Robin Hood? She was speaking to the wolf who tried to disguise himself with her grandmother’s cap. Red Robin Hood kept mentioning body parts of the wolf until finally she said, “What big teeth you have.” Of course the reply came back from the wolf, “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

    There are a lot of shepherds out there who rather eat the sheep instead of feed and teach the sheep. The True Shepherd will come one day and sue for malpractice. God’s people are to be teachers and learners at the same time. Many are hirelings who flee at the intrusion of anything. The wolves in disguise cover themselves in religious overtures but reveal themselves for what they are in the day of trouble.

    May we remember that God will set up in His kingdom teachers who will lead and not drive, visit and not be self-serving, and learners instead of just talkers. One of the reasons for the mess that many local churches are in is because of many who talk Bible but who do not incarnate the Word of God.

    True Shepherds will feed the sheep so that they will not fear, nor be dismayed, neither lacking in their lives. Yes, Red Robin Hood saw correctly, but she was slow to see before it was too late.

  • Is God on America’s Side?

    “Are you for us, or for our adversaries? No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord” (Joshua 5:13-14).

    Is God an American?  Is He a Republican?  Is He a Democrat?  Is God King and Defender of our nation?  In Christian thought God has been often invoked for political ends, but history shows He will not be so used.

    We are not just another country, but neither are we God’s chosen people.  We should not believe that America is God’s chosen nation.  God established one chosen nation and people:  the Jews.  We are not Israel.  We are not God’s gift to the world.

    There is no doubt we drink from wells we did not dig and we eat fruit from trees we did not plant.  We will no doubt be judged nationally and individually with stricter judgment for “unto whom much is given, much is required.”  We expect blessing, but we have done plenty to expect judgment.

    Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, was asked whether God was on his side and he replied, “I do not care whether God is on my side; the important question is whether I am on God’s side, for God is always right.”

    Our greatest gift to this country is to return to biblical priorities of the church, and, more importantly, in so doing we will be pleasing to our Heavenly Father.