In the world of accident investigation, the professional investigator is
always looking for a “root cause;” what one thing ultimately led to the chain
of events resulting in the incident.
It sometimes makes us “feel better” if, and when, we address some of the
cursory causes involved in an incident.
Fire the driver, lock up the criminal, write a new law, but if we don’t
address the root cause, then we set ourselves up for repeated failure. Just like the name indicates, if you only
pull the tops off of the weeds in your garden, guess what? Yep, the weeds will grow back again. Put another way, sometimes if we look only at
the surface, we miss an even greater threat that lies beneath. Consider the ice berg. While we may see a small chunk of ice
floating on the surface, what lies beneath could easily have hidden, titanic
dangers
Tragedy. The very word causes the
hairs on the backs of our necks to stand up.
Causes our stomachs to turn and we move about in our seat with
uneasiness. Pain and sorrow cry out for
answers and those left with a void, beckon for action to prevent others from
experiencing their agony and loss.
Columbine, Waco, the World
Trade Center,
Penn State
abuses, Aurora movie theater, Gabrielle
Giffords, mall shootings, Sandy Hook…what can
be done? Immediately the calls go out
for gun control, security, military action, mental healthcare improvements,
prisons, new laws and constitutional amendments.
But is there a root cause to our pain and sufferings? An answer to our why’s? I suggest there is. And it is found among the pages of scripture. For in our secular world we look only to our
senses and human rationale for our explanations.
In brazen acts of defiance, we have ignored God’s commands, His tenets
and His will for our lives. Like the
very Israelites that had escaped their bondage in Egypt, how quickly we forget
God’s miracles and His way, to seek our own. Over and over again, we, like Eve
in the garden, ask ourselves…”Did God really say?”
We have removed the Bible and prayer from the schoolhouse, while teenage
pregnancy, drug use, suicide, and violence have filled the void.
In the name of freedom of speech, we have removed decency and morality
from our TV programs, movies, radio stations, and now internet, and have
flooded the screens, airwaves, broadband, and satellite signals with increasing
levels of pornography, violence, filthy language and self-gratification.
Our children have lost
their social skills, opting to text rather than call, all the while spending
hours on end playing violent video games and being drawn into a virtual reality
in their sleep deprived state of addiction.
Where once homosexuality was deemed a perversion, it is now heralded as
the new civil right and those that believe that it remains the sin that was
attached to the pride and selfish acts that God judged Sodom and Gomorrah for,
are considered haters, bigots and out of touch.
No longer are two parents of opposite sex needed in our in-vitro baby
mills where the "Modern Family," consists of two moms or two dads.
Each day, crosses are taken down, nativity displays prohibited, teachers,
politicians and actors mocked and chastised for their beliefs. Christmas trees have become holiday trees and
military chaplains have been told, not only that they must perform gay marriage
ceremonies, but that they may not pray in the name of Jesus as the Bible
dictates.
In the wake of collapsing towers we have shaken angry fists and have
vowed to rebuild, bigger and better than the tower of Babel.
Finally, we wail at the untimely death of our family members and young
while thousands of voiceless and innocent victims are slaughtered each year in
the holocaust of "choice".
So if we remove the guns, will all the violence stop? Will new synthetic pharmaceuticals be the
answer to our insanity and violence? How
about prenatal testing and designer abortions to empower us, like Hitler, to
only allow those "healthy" and "perfect" babies to be born?
It is interesting to
note that the Bible says: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." But, we as a modern society, look only at the
natural and discard the supernatural. As
horrific acts of face eating and growling make the news in Miami Beach, we
quickly attribute the behavior to illicit drugs; even after a coroner's drug
toxicology report finds no such traces.
And even if these chemical agents, acting cunningly on our brains are
present, suppressing the individual's awareness of their hideous behavior, what
is the evil force behind their actions?
The Bible again tells us that if we continue to deny the true God and,
instead, choose the aforementioned lifestyles and behaviors that He will give
us over to "reprobate minds".
Dictionary.com defines this word "reprobate" as depraved,
unprincipled or wicked.
It is likewise
interesting to note that while the Bible speaks of demons from Deuteronomy to
Revelation, there is scarcely a pulpit that spends any great deal of time
speaking of this supernatural influence in our world and daily lives. While our great adversary, Satan, is
certainly given much credit, these legions of evil, disembodied spirits,
present in this form since the flood of Noah, are so often discounted in the
natural, with explanations ranging from the aforementioned "bad trip"
to mental illness and insanity. Jesus
even attributed many health infirmities in the natural, from blindness,
paralysis to full epileptic seizures to demonic "possession" calling
for us to pray and fast and thus beckoning the mighty hand of God against these
forces. Think teen cutting is a new
phenomenon? Think again, as the demon possessed man in the Gospel of Mark would
howl and cut himself with sharp stones.
These dark forces are not limited to just adults as both boys and girls
were described as being overtaken by demons.
Even Mary Magdalene was described as having been healed of seven demons.
No, but we would rather
define our behaviors in the name of science and medicine wielding diagnoses
from the bible of psychiatry known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or
DSM. From multiple personalities, schizophrenia, bipolar extremes, and the
voices in our heads, it gives us comfort to know that we can "treat"
these illnesses and afflictions with high powered antidepressants, narcotics
and other mind and mood altering chemicals.
As we treat the
symptoms of our fallen and sin-filled world, with medicine, governmental
controls, prison and excuses, we have overlooked the very remedy that will
reach past the surface, beyond the visible weeds, and actually attack the root
of evil, and the source of our sorrows and pain. And what is that remedy? It comes from the Bible, the second book of
Chronicles, the seventh chapter and the fourteenth verse: "if My people who are called by My
name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their
wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal
their land."
We have lost our Father's protection. And as we thumb our nose at God and justify
our sins, passing laws to make them legal, we hear the faithless demand:
"where is your God?" or
"How could a loving deity allow this?".
It is our choice. The proverbial definition of craziness is
doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results. Listen to the counsel this God gave to Cain before
he murdered his brother Abel: "And
the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed
and dejected? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do
well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.
And Cain said to his brother, Let us go out to the field. And when they were in
the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”
Jesus, himself,
observed the heart and intent of man, and said: "You hypocrites! Isaiah
was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’”
Do we truly want to end
the craziness? Then let's get on our
knees like the Prophet Daniel, humble ourselves, and pray that God will
dispatch His angels to fight the spiritual battles we cannot see or
understand. Then...just maybe...He will
hear from heaven, forgive us our sin, and heal our land.
