Ransacked

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.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:24).

How do we explain…

1.   The massacre in a Florida High School.
2.   A barrage of sex scandals from Hollywood to Congress to our Seminaries.
3.   Continued attacks on Christianity.
4.   The willing slaughter of our nation’s unborn children.
5.   Growing distrust.  Violence.  Confusion.  Turmoil.

Nothing that is happening in our world today — not one act of perversion or evil — is an anomaly or an accident. What we see today are symptoms of an accelerating moral and spiritual unraveling of our country and world — the natural result of a nation that has turned away from the absolute truths found in the Bible.

The only way for change in the direction of America is the change that happens through hearts of human beings, and that catalyst is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That change must first happen to God’s people.  W.A. Criswell said it this way, “The nation cannot turn to God if I do not turn to God.  The nation cannot repent, if I do not repent.  God doesn’t win nations or companies or crowds or throngs.   He wins souls one by one.  And the only way we can lift our nation Godward is if I am moved Godward.”

The true church can never rest and a faithful pastor’s work is never done.  We need to constantly preach to the world and to ourselves the true gospel, and strive for greater clarity and precision — not less.  By so doing, we cultivate our own spiritual growth, we protect the health of the church, and we strengthen our witness.  Salt and light is what we are to be and that is what will retard the leaven of sin.