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The Massacre in Connecticut


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Rachel Weeping for Her Children — The Massacre in Connecticut

Friday, December 14, 2012

 

rachelweeps5-300x262.jpgThus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”[Jeremiah 31:15]

 

It has happened again. This time tragedy came to Connecticut, where a lone gunman entered two classrooms at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and opened fire, killing at least twenty children and six adults, before turning his weapons of death upon himself. The young victims, still to be officially identified, ranged in age from five to ten years. The murderer was himself young, reported to be twenty years old. According to press reports, he murdered his mother, a teacher at Sandy Hook, in her home before the rampage at the school.

 

Apparently, matricide preceded mass murder. Some of the children were in kindergarten, not even able to tie their own shoes. The word kindergarten comes from the German, meaning a garden for children. Sandy Hook Elementary School was no garden today. It was a place of murder, mayhem, and undisguised evil.

 

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The calculated and premeditated nature of this crime, combined with the horror of at least twenty murdered children, makes the news almost unspeakable and unbearable. The grief of parents and loved ones in Newtown is beyond words. Yet, even in the face of such a tragedy, Christians must speak. We will have to speak in public about this evil, and we will have to speak in private about this horrible crime. How should Christians think and pray in the aftermath of such a colossal crime?

 

We Affirm the Sinfulness of Sin, and the Full Reality of Human Evil

 

First, we must recognize that this tragedy is just as evil, horrible, and ugly as it appears. Christianity does not deny the reality and power of evil, but instead calls evil by its necessary names — murder, massacre, killing, homicide, slaughter. The closer we look at this tragedy, the more it will appear unfathomable and more grotesque than the human imagination can take in.

 

What else can we say about the murder of children and their teachers? How can we understand the evil of killing little children one by one, forcing them to watch their little friends die and realizing that they were to be next? How can we bear this?

 

Resisting our instinct toward a coping mechanism, we cannot accept the inevitable claims that this young murderer is to be understood as merely sick. His heinous acts will be dismissed and minimized by some as the result of psychiatric or psychological causation, or mitigated by cultural, economic, political, or emotional factors. His crimes were sick beyond words, and he was undoubtedly unbalanced, but he pulled off a cold, calculated, and premeditated crime, monstrous in its design and accomplishment.

 

Christians know that this is the result of sin and the horrifying effects of The Fall. Every answer for this evil must affirm the reality and power of sin. The sinfulness of sin is never more clearly revealed than when we look into the heart of a crime like this and see the hatred toward God that precedes the murderous hatred he poured out on his little victims.

 

The twentieth century forced us to see the ovens of the Nazi death camps, the killing fields of Cambodia, the inhumanity of the Soviet gulags, and the failure of the world to stop such atrocities before they happened. We cannot talk of our times without reference to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, Pol Pot and Charles Manson, Idi Amin and Ted Bundy. More recently, we see evil in the impassive faces of Osama bin Laden and Anders Behring Brevik. We will now add yet another name to the roll call of mass murderers. His will not be the last.

 

The prophet Jeremiah knew the wickedness and deceit of the sinful human heart and asked the right question — who can understand it?

 

Beyond this, the Christian must affirm the grace of moral restraint, knowing that the real question is not why some isolated persons commit such crimes, but why such massacres are not more common. We must be thankful for the restraint of the law, operating on the human conscience. Such a crime serves to warn us that putting a curve in the law will inevitably produce a curve in the conscience. We must be thankful for the restraining grace of God that limits human evil and, rightly understood, keeps us all from killing each other.

 

Christians call evil what it is, never deny its horror and power, and remain ever thankful that evil will not have its full sway, or the last word.

 

We Affirm the Cross of Christ as the Only Adequate Remedy for Evil

 

There is one and only one reason that evil does not have the last word, and that is the fact that evil, sin, death, and the devil were defeated at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. There they were defeated conclusively, comprehensively, and publicly.

 

On the cross, Christ bore our sins, dying in our place, offering himself freely as the perfect sacrifice for sin. The devil delighted in Christ’s agony and death on the cross, realizing too late that Christ’s substitutionary atonement spelled the devil’s own defeat and utter destruction.

 

Christ’s victory over sin, evil, and death was declared by the Father in raising Jesus from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is the ground of our hope and the assurance of the final and total victory of Christ over all powers, principalities, and perpetrators.

 

A tragedy like this cannot be answered with superficial and sentimental Christian emotivism, nor with glib dismissals of the enormity and transience of this crime. Such a tragedy calls for the most Gospel-centered Christian thinking, for the substance of biblical theology, and the solace that only the full wealth of Christian conviction can provide.

 

In the face of such horror, we are driven again and again to the cross and resurrection of Christ, knowing that the reconciling power of God in Christ is the only adequate answer to such a depraved and diabolical power.

 

We Acknowledge the Necessity of Justice, Knowing that Perfect Justice Awaits the Day of the Lord

 

Charles Manson sits in a California prison, even now — decades after his murderous crimes were committed. Ted Bundy was executed by the State of Florida for multiple murders, but escaped both conviction and punishment for others he is suspected of having committed. Anders Behring Brevik shot and killed scores of young people in Norway, but he was sentenced to less than thirty years in prison. Adolf Hitler took his own life, robbing human courts of their justice, and Vladimir Lenin died of natural causes.

 

The young murderer in Connecticut took his own life after murdering almost thirty people, most of them children. He will never face a human court, never have to face a human accuser, never stand convicted of his crimes, and never know the justice of a human sentence.

 

But, even as human society was robbed of the satisfaction of that justice, it would never be enough. Even if executed for his crimes, he could die only once. Even if sentenced to scores of life sentences to prison, he could forfeit only one human lifespan.

 

Human justice is necessary, but it is woefully incomplete. No human court can hand down an adequate sentence for such a crime, and no human judge can restore life to those who were murdered.

 

Crimes such as these remind us that we just yearn for the total satisfaction that will come only on the Day of the Lord, when all flesh will be judged by the only Judge who will rule with perfect righteousness and justice. On that day, the only escape will be refuge in Christ, for those who knew and confessed him as Savior and Lord. On that day, those who are in Christ will know the promise that full justice and restoration will mean that every eye is dry and tears are nevermore.

 

We Grieve with Those Who Grieve

 

For now, even as we yearn for the Day of the Lord, we grieve with those who grieve. We sit with them and pray for them and acknowledge that their loss is truly unspeakable and that their tears are unspeakably true. We pray and look for openings for grace and the hope of the gospel. We do our best to speak words of truth, love, grace, and comfort.

 

What of the eternal destiny of these sweet children? There is no specific text of Scripture that gives us a clear and direct answer. We must affirm with the Bible that we are conceived in sin and, as sons and daughters of Adam, will face eternal damnation unless we are found in Christ. So many of these little victims died before reaching any real knowledge of their own sinfulness and need for Christ. They, like those who die in infancy and those who suffer severe mental incapacitation, never really have the opportunity to know their need as sinners and the provision of Christ as Savior.

 

They are in a categorically different position than that of the person of adult consciousness who never responds in faith to the message of the Gospel. In the book of Deuteronomy, God tells the adults among the Children of Israel that, due to their sin and rebellion, they would not enter the land of promise. But the Lord then said this: “And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.” [Deuteronomy 1:39]

 

Many, if not all, of the little children who died in Newtown were so young that they certainly would be included among those who, like the little Israelites, “have no knowledge of good or evil.” God is sovereign, and he was not surprised that these little ones died so soon. There is biblical precedent for believing that the Lord made provision for them in the atonement accomplished by Christ, and that they are safe with Jesus.

 

Rachel Weeping for Her Children

 

The prophet Jeremiah’s reference to Rachel and her lost children is heart-breaking. “Thus says the LORD: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.’” Like Rachel, many parents, grandparents, and loved ones are weeping inconsolably even now, refusing to be comforted for their children, because they are no more.

 

This tragedy is compounded in emotional force by the fact that it comes in such close proximity to Christmas, but let us never forget that there was the mass murder of children in the Christmas story as well. King Herod’s murderous decree that all baby boys under two years of age should be killed prompted Matthew to cite this very verse from Jeremiah. Rachel again was weeping for her children.

 

But this is not where either Jeremiah or Matthew leaves us. By God’s mercy, there is hope and the promise of full restoration in Christ.

 

The Lord continued to speak through Jeremiah:

 

Thus says the LORD: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country.”

[Jeremiah 31:16-17]

 

God, not the murderer, has the last word. For those in Christ, there is the promise of full restoration. Even in the face of such unmitigated horror, there is hope.“There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to your own country.”

 

 

 

I discuss these issues more fully in a special edition of The Briefing, posted earlier this evening. LISTEN HERE. http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/12/14/the-briefing-special-edition-connecticut-shooting/

 

Several years ago, Dr. Danny Akin and I wrote an article addressing the question of the destiny of those who die in infancy or as little children. “The Salvation of the Little Ones: Do Infants Who Die Go to Heaven” is available READ HERE.

 

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at [email protected]. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/albertmohler

 

Art: “The Massacre of the Innocents,” by Francois-Joseph Navez, 1824.

 

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If kids automatically go to heaven them why is abortion wrong? Instead we want them to be 5-10 yrs old staring down a ar15.

 

Yeah that makes sense?

 

Isaiah 55: 7 - 8

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

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Isaiah 55: 7 - 8

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 

 

I don't believe in Jewish fairy tales. For someone that knows the constitution so well I would have thought you were smarter than that.

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Because it's murder

 

What sin has a baby committed?

 

 

But it is also murder that GOD sent the shooter into the schools since he isn't getting his way in schools is it not? So you would rather not have a baby go straight from a mom to heaven after a abortion OR would you rather have Jesus send in a shooter and kill them while staring down a ar15 barrel?

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But it is also murder that GOD sent the shooter into the schools since he isn't getting his way in schools is it not? So you would rather not have a baby go straight from a mom to heaven after a abortion OR would you rather have Jesus send in a shooter and kill them while staring down a ar15 barrel?

 

God did not send the shooter into the schools anymore than he sent Cain into the fields to slay his brother. While we may have been foreordained to accomplish things, we are all given free will to commit sin and rebel against God. Since you do not believe in God, then I suggest that you not tell Christians what you think they believe. In my opinion the mother that aborts her child except for a few reasons is just as evil as the mentally ill young adult killing children.

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But it is also murder that GOD sent the shooter into the schools since he isn't getting his way in schools is it not? So you would rather not have a baby go straight from a mom to heaven after a abortion OR would you rather have Jesus send in a shooter and kill them while staring down a ar15 barrel?

 

So how does Human Secularism (or whatever your worldview) answer this horrific event?

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God did not send the shooter into the schools anymore than he sent Cain into the fields to slay his brother. While we may have been foreordained to accomplish things, we are all given free will to commit sin and rebel against God. Since you do not believe in God, then I suggest that you not tell Christians what you think they believe. In my opinion the mother that aborts her child except for a few reasons is just as evil as the mentally ill young adult killing children.

 

 

I'm just using this since some users have said that god sent the shooter in because schools no longer teach his teachings. That is why I say what I do.

 

So how does Human Secularism (or whatever your worldview) answer this horrific event?

 

 

Off the top I would say parenting and nothing more.

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So how does Human Secularism (or whatever your worldview) answer this horrific event?

 

 

There is no SIMPLE answer. Humans are complicated organisms who have evolved a wide variety of possible behaviors. Mental illness and the abundance of guns are the proximate cause.

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-solution-to-gun-violence-is-clear/2012/12/19/110a6f82-4a15-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_story.html?tid=wp_ipad

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If kids automatically go to heaven them why is abortion wrong? Instead we want them to be 5-10 yrs old staring down a ar15.

 

Yeah that makes sense?

 

 

What is sad is you do not see the evil in 50 million babys being ripped apart (aborted) in the mothers womb as wrong, but you blame God for the actions that your worldview helps to foster. So my friend be careful when you blame God for evil in one breath when you fail to see that not only did God give that breath but is showing you mercy in not giving you exactly what you deserve, for even the evil thoughts you think offend God, Jesus said, " You have heard it said long ago: 'Do not murder'. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment." [Matthew 5: 21. ]So the real question is why did God allow any of us to live as long as we do when we are all full of the the sin that God hates?

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There is no SIMPLE answer. Humans are complicated organisms who have evolved a wide variety of possible behaviors. Mental illness and the abundance of guns are the proximate cause.

 

 

http://www.washingto...tml?tid=wp_ipad

 

So how does nothing create complicated organisms? Human Secuarlism falls on its face by rejecting the, logic, the reason and the truth they claim to seek and know.

 

 

 

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

C. S. Lewis

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What is sad is you do not see the evil in 50 million babys being ripped apart (aborted) in the mothers womb as wrong, but you blame God for the actions that your worldview helps to foster. So my friend be careful when you blame God for evil in one breath when you fail to see that not only did God give that breath but is showing you mercy in not giving you exactly what you deserve, for even the evil thoughts you think offend God, Jesus said, " You have heard it said long ago: 'Do not murder'. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment." [Matthew 5: 21. ]So the real question is why did God allow any of us to live as long as we do when we are all full of the the sin that God hates?

 

I'm saying what "Christians" on Smoaky have said that's why it happened. There are also millions of people living in proberty etc. What about the millions in Africa that are dying every day from food? Where's your god at? If he is so "special" and the whole world is his that he created where is he? If that's your god than I want nothing to do with him. BYW what gave me breath was science. Maybe you should have paid attention in school in science class. Then again most christains don't believe in science so that may be pointless on your part.

 

 

Also btw you do know several other religions have the same fairy tales as the bible right? Hmmm. Maybe that should be the real question instead of why "god" allowed us to live.

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I don't believe in Jewish fairy tales. For someone that knows the constitution so well I would have thought you were smarter than that.

 

you will find out just how smart you are in rejecting your Creator eventually......hopefully you will have accepted His Word before that time.....

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I'm saying what "Christians" on Smoaky have said that's why it happened. There are also millions of people living in proberty etc. What about the millions in Africa that are dying every day from food? Where's your god at? If he is so "special" and the whole world is his that he created where is he? If that's your god than I want nothing to do with him. BYW what gave me breath was science. Maybe you should have paid attention in school in science class. Then again most christains don't believe in science so that may be pointless on your part.

 

 

Also btw you do know several other religions have the same fairy tales as the bible right? Hmmm. Maybe that should be the real question instead of why "god" allowed us to live.

 

It happened because God was not allowed in the school and as C.S.Lewis said Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. and as Corrie ten Boom said about her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp “There is no pit so deep, that God's love is not deeper still.” The problem is not God but our rejection of God. And to answer your question of suffering it is answered with a Biblical Worldview but the truth does not give an easy answers. The truth is the world is full of sin and men are sinners and sin leads to, poverty, drug addictions, bad philosophy, broken marriages, theft, lies, pride, self-righteousness and eventually death and some men would rather walk in the darkness with their sins then follow the light of Christ.

And I paid attention to science class, and bad science says that nothing created everything out of nothing, that it took billions of years for the Grand Canyon to be formed, but a mini- grand canyon formed after Mount St. Helan exploded in the northwest, bad science says that man and dinosaurs did not live at the same time but in Glen Rose texas they have discovered men and dinosaur footprints side by side. Bad science taught me that arctic ice rings acted like tree rings and that proved the earth to be billions of years old, but then I found out that arctic ice rings are formed from the freezing, melting and re-freezing of said arctic ice. Bad science taught me that the developmental stages of a baby in the womb was proof for evolution. True science I believe but the bad science that is taught to promote the creation story of Human Secularism I find hard to believe.

 

Hmm have you ever thought that greatest form of flattery is to imitate the truth, and that with study one can see the fallacy of the fairy tale arguments. A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. So my friend I challenge you to go and read the Gospel of Luke.

Take care and may you and yours have a Merry Christmas

 

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I don't believe in Jewish fairy tales. For someone that knows the constitution so well I would have thought you were smarter than that.

 

 

I don't believe in fairy tales either. I see more truth in the Bible than I do in Science. I teach Science. We just got finished with the Solar System. Funny how Science can only make "theories" on its origin. Few facts, more theories. Sounds like Science is the fairy tale.

 

 

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I'm saying what "Christians" on Smoaky have said that's why it happened. There are also millions of people living in proberty etc. What about the millions in Africa that are dying every day from food? Where's your god at? If he is so "special" and the whole world is his that he created where is he? If that's your god than I want nothing to do with him. BYW what gave me breath was science. Maybe you should have paid attention in school in science class. Then again most christains don't believe in science so that may be pointless on your part.

 

 

Also btw you do know several other religions have the same fairy tales as the bible right? Hmmm. Maybe that should be the real question instead of why "god" allowed us to live.

 

 

That's the problem, you expect God to give man the life of Riley. Evidently you don't understand why we're even here on earth to begin with. If life were easy it would be boring, it would be mundane, it would be tedious then human beings would have nothing to strive for, to obtain, or to be better. It is a shame that many travesties happen throughout the world, but God wants to see what we will do. He wants us to prove that we are worthy of a higher calling.

 

It doesn't even ring a bell in your head, that many of these stories are recorded in almost every part of the globe ? I think that it makes manifest that God does exist, and that the scriptures aren't "fairy tales". I'm glad that I've seen many of what you see as fairy tales, actually happen, because my faith has turned into a testimony because of them.

 

Again, evil does happen in the world, and that is not a part of God's plan, it is a part of God's plan that those that follow Him will act to prevent these evils that do happen.

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I don't believe in fairy tales either. I see more truth in the Bible than I do in Science. I teach Science. We just got finished with the Solar System. Funny how Science can only make "theories" on its origin. Few facts, more theories. Sounds like Science is the fairy tale.

 

As I've said in other threads regarding Christianity and Science, the main problem is many secularists accept the theories as facts, when the theory has yet to be proven. The same applies to our medicinal field, many physicians get wined and dined, given grants, and other incentives to prescribe their drugs. This is one of the reasons that we see many lawsuits being brought against pharmaceutical companies. Some people swear by science and medicine, but they still haven't solved many issues with the world. Somehow, they expect science to provide all of the solutions, but it never will. The only way for the evils of the world to be solved is for all men to keep the new commandment given by Jesus Christ in John 13:34-35.

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I'm saying what "Christians" on Smoaky have said that's why it happened. There are also millions of people living in proberty etc. What about the millions in Africa that are dying every day from food? Where's your god at? If he is so "special" and the whole world is his that he created where is he? If that's your god than I want nothing to do with him. BYW what gave me breath was science. Maybe you should have paid attention in school in science class. Then again most christains don't believe in science so that may be pointless on your part.

 

 

Also btw you do know several other religions have the same fairy tales as the bible right? Hmmm. Maybe that should be the real question instead of why "god" allowed us to live.

I've been young and now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread- King David. Yes a lot of it has has to do with the fact that our government and us as parents and American citizens have denied the one true God and his Son our lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Dave said it best God didn't send that man there to kill those kids but Satan.

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I've been young and now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread- King David. Yes a lot of it has has to do with the fact that our government and us as parents and American citizens have denied the one true God and his Son our lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Dave said it best God didn't send that man there to kill those kids but Satan.

 

I believe that God is removing His protection over our country. In other words He is saying "Wake Up America, Return to ME". I also believe that as our country tries to fix these problems or make sure they don't happen again, we are setting ourselves up for greater destruction. We are ignoring the real problem, that being where we have allowed ourselves to go as a nation. We are becoming what our founding fathers warned us of.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

I'm saying what "Christians" on Smoaky have said that's why it happened. There are also millions of people living in proberty etc. What about the millions in Africa that are dying every day from food? Where's your god at? If he is so "special" and the whole world is his that he created where is he? If that's your god than I want nothing to do with him. BYW what gave me breath was science. Maybe you should have paid attention in school in science class. Then again most christains don't believe in science so that may be pointless on your part.

 

 

Also btw you do know several other religions have the same fairy tales as the bible right? Hmmm. Maybe that should be the real question instead of why "god" allowed us to live.

You my friend are more likely to be called to work for God than anyone else. Just as God did with the apostle Paul, those who are farther away from Him he will convict to do His work. Since you have been where you are a greater understanding you will have for answering these kind of questions after you are converted and transformed with a renewed mind. Do some research on the apostle Paul and find out what he was before God called him and what he did working for God.

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