“The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever. Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in Thy sight. Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men.”  (Psalm 9:17-20)     

 Those are harsh words. We live in harsh times. With all of our affluence and entertainment, our rush to meet the coming Christmas Holiday, tragedy strikes and we are again shocked at the inhumanity of man. On December 14, 2012 the nation was stricken with grief at the horrible murder of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Bret Baier of Fox News said, “We can’t make sense of this…it doesn’t seem real.” In an interview with former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani declared, “There’s no simple solution…it’s an incomprehensible act.” The news media crews were “hungry for the details of the slayings,” according to one individual. Broadcasters were eager to grasp an explanation of what had happened.  They stumbled to produce an understanding of why it happened.

In simple words Daniel Malloy, the Governor of Connecticut said, “Evil visited this community today.” In spite of many celebrating the birth of Christ, the Prince of Peace, our attention was turned again to evil and the sin of blatant, indescribable murder.

To find some semblance of an answer I think we need to ask some very pointed answers.

• Who are we as a nation? Our founding fathers were believers in God. Fifty-three of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were professing Christians. Today many of our political leaders are atheists, agnostics, and humanistic elitists who band together to push God out of our public places and the conscience of Americans. We tout multiculturalism, preaching tolerance for the beliefs of pagans who flood our shores, bringing their value systems and belief in gods who do not exist. As a nation, we have forgotten God and the Bible that He gave us to provide the building blocks of a government established on His providence.
• What was Adam Lanza’s worldview? What were his personal beliefs? The national abandonment of our Judeo/Christian heritage and supplanting it with a philosophy of secular humanism has spawned a generation of individuals who have swallowed the lie of evolution that says we are simply an advanced primate and it’s up to ourselves to set our own values and concepts of truth.
• What was Lanza’s home life like? A broken home..a missing father..and a culture that ridicules the concept of the Biblical family and glamorizes an immoral lifestyle. Another young life struggling for some form of identity without a father’s influence and a culture saying, “Do it your own way…the hell with tradition!”
• What was the mental and emotional health of this troubled young man? Who were his heroes? What did he read? With whom was he associating and texting? Did he prescribe to the Goth subculture – to gothic rock, deathrock, post-punk, and darkwave? Did he struggle with concepts of eternity and loneliness? Had he “lost his connection” with the real world? Was he a “gamer,” spending hours immersing himself in the myriads of horror, war, and violent video games? When a nation kicks the Bible and it’s moral code – the Ten Commandments – out of its classrooms, what else will a troubled youth look to?

To attribute this tragedy to evil is to attribute this murderer’s act to his rebellion against the Law of God. His evil acts were sin, which is condemned by God’s Law. What transpired was an expression of the depravity of man. The taking of innocent life is the most heinous of all crimes of violence. Secular humanism, the foundational philosophy of American education, will continue to produce individuals who have no real grasp on reality. They will be guilty sinners in a culture that has turned its back on God.

The future of this nation rests in the hands of God. Without a return to the Christian Religion, this country has no hope of escaping the ravages of evil men. Without men with conviction to speak like this, we have no hope of survival as a civilized people:

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” (Patrick Henry)

I urge you to pray for a revival of the true Christian Religion in the hearts and minds of ministers who appear too weak and insipid to proclaim the whole counsel of the Word of God. And I would encourage you to consistently pray for your Christian friends who struggle to rear their children in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).