Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. - Luke 12: 6-7 (ESV)
The Bible warns us that as the end times continue to approach and develop, the love of most will grow cold. We continue to see horrific acts of senseless violence acted out on the national stage. From Columbine to Virginia Tech. From Sandy Hook Elementary School to Charleston South Carolina. We continue to see talking heads and pundits fumble around trying to strike the politically correct range of outrage and sadness while trying to dress up the problem with their cause du jour. I have written before when such tragedies occur about the fact that when you strip everything away. The manufactured spin and politician talking points, all we are left with is evil. There is good and there is evil. There is right and wrong. There are no shades of grey the devil likes to sell us on so frequently. Dylann Roof is a product of the world system which is run by Satan.
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. - 2Corinthians 4: 4 (NLT)
So instead of fumbling around looking for a political fight it is time we were at least a bit honest with ourselves. Are these stories about guns? Absolutely. The stretches you have to go to in order to pretend otherwise is ludicrous. But is that the whole story? Of course not. Are these stories about the decades long march to pump our kids full of dangerous psychotic inducing Satanic mediations? Absolutely. All of these national shooters were already on psychotropic medications at the time of their horrific acts. Drugs that alter the brain chemistry randomly and with results that cannot be measured. The devil loves the fact that he has convinced the world there are "chemical imbalances" in people. No one can measure these. No one can prove these. But here is a pill that you can take even though we have zero idea what effect it will have on you. If you have a placebo effect and feel better, we can chalk up another victory and if you go out and kill a bunch of people we can always say that you were mentally unbalanced to begin with. It is genius in its evil design. But are psychotropic medications the whole problem? Of course not. The problem is there is evil in the hearts of men continually. You, me, Dylann Roof. Not all of us rise to the levels of depravity that Mr. Roof did but evil is evil nonetheless.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17: 9 (ESV)
When you mix the evil intent of the human heart with the proliferation of easy access to weapons, and drugs that alter our brain chemicals you have created a dangerous cocktail that could explode at any time. But we miss the final element. The final straw to stir this drink and that is the continued erosion for the value of human life. We have red-shirted the value of a human life. What does that mean preacher? Most people in this country remember the original Star Trek television series. On this show there was a predictable outcome for any character wearing a red shirt that was joining the regular cast for a landing party. He was going to die. That was his role. This way the writers could keep the element of danger real without killing off any of the vital cast members. It almost got to comical proportions. I am not sure if anyone wearing a red shirt survived the five year mission that lasted three seasons. It just became acceptable. To give proper credit, while I had always made this red shirt observation, I did not make the connection to South Carolina until I read an article today by Gary F. Zeolla, who has written some great reviews of the heretical miniseries AD. In reviewing the latest AD episode, Zeolla writes:
"Meanwhile, Joanna is still in prison. Claudia for some unexplained reason feels compassion on her and takes steps to have her released by Pilate. When that fails, she tries to break her out of prison, but she is caught by Cornelius, and he takes both of them to Pilate. Pilate is outraged that his wife would betray him and takes it out on Joanna by ordering her to be immediately executed. He gives his wife the choice of having her crucified or strangled. Claudia cannot make the choice, so a much weakened Joanna steps forward and chooses to be strangled. Pilate then orders Cornelius to carry out the execution. There just happens to be a chair in the room that is apparently built just for this purpose. Then in very graphic fashion, Joanna is strangled to death. The scene was so gruesome that I had to turn my head away, and it left me feeling very disquieted, as AD was back to its portrayal of graphic senseless violence."
I share the disquieted feelings of Mr. Zeolla when it comes to AD. This was by far not the first unnecessary violent scene. Throughout the series Pilate is portrayed as a virtually insane individual, who routinely kills many red shirted characters. People who simply do not matter to the plot. This may be a worldly television program because of its carnality and complete indifference to biblical accuracy but it is heralded by the church. It is propped up by the church. It was marketed and bought throughout the church. It was endorsed by the Assemblies of God! But here is the problem with red shirting human lives. It carries over into the evil hearts and medicated brains of people like Dylann Roof.
Think about it beloved. How many movies do we watch where people do not matter are killed for virtually no good reason? Violence for the sake of violence. Today, that devaluing of human life has grown to a level where is it any wonder that people like Dylann Roof are produced by a society that ensures by the age of 18 he has seen 16,000 simulated murders and over 200,000 acts of violence? How many of them were wearing red shirts? What I mean by that is how many of them simply were not needed for the plot? That is how Dylan Roof looked upon the nine people he killed last week. They simply did not matter. They were no longer needed for his plot. They may as well been all wearing red shirts. Clearly, he chose them because they were black. In his world, that was who did not have value. That's who wears the red shirts. No reason to think about the fact that they matter to some else's plot. That they have a family who loves them and will miss them.
We must get back to the point where we realize the inherent value of every human life. As the key verses today teach, God numbers the very hairs upon our head. We were of such value to God that He sacrificed His only Son to die for our sins. For our hate. For our evil. Everyone matters to God. Even the people we hate. No one is dispensable to the Lord. No one is wearing the red shirt we so casually put on people that we carry no value for. I pray we can start to look upon people the way the families of the South Carolina victims looked upon Dylann Roof. With the same forgiveness and mercy God has shown upon us. In Jesus name.
Rev. Anthony.
