A frank look at the real problem behind the tragedy in Connecticut

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I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity--the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time. And I have been chosen as a preacher and apostle to teach the Gentiles this message about faith and truth. I'm not exaggerating--just telling the truth. -- 1Timothy 2: 1-7 (NLT)

As the nation continues to grieve the loss of life in Connecticut we see politicians, pundits and ordinary people all scramble to try and find something they can "fix" to avoid such tragedy in the future. We see the usual calls for gun control as if evil cares what the laws of the land are. We see the debates over psychiatry heat up again as if evil cares what box we try to stick Adam Lanza into. We see all the conversations except the one that truly matters. Good versus evil. God versus Satan. Black and white versus shades of grey. Until we stop allowing the devil to distract us from the real conversation all we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. -- Isaiah 5: 20 (NIV)

The truth is our society has devolved not evolved. For all of our scientific evolution we have equally devolved morals. You have to realize that God designed this world based upon His absolutes. His Word is absolutely true. His law is morally absolute. There are no "thou may" verses. There are thou shall and thou shall not verses. Period - end of story. Our culture however has devolved into a state of perpetual moral relativism. This says that morals cannot be defined absolutely. As such, it is wrong to say that someone is morally wrong because they may have a differing opinion. God does not care about our opinion -- He cares about our obedience.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. -- Proverbs 14: 12 (NIV)

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. -- Proverbs 16: 25 (NIV)

It appears that God wanted to make sure we did not miss this point since He repeats it word for word in two different sets of Proverbs! There is a way that seems right to man but in the end it leads to death because it does not obey what God has taught. We see moral relativism everywhere in our culture. It is repackaged and relabeled to make us feel better about our disobedience but it is abounding. Terminating life in the womb is repackaged as "reproductive rights" or even worse -- health care. Homosexuality is relabeled "alternative lifestyles" or even worse -- civil rights. But these are just the easy ones to talk about; the low lying fruit. The reason the church has no moral weight behind their arguments is that the world sees our hypocrisy. With divorce rates equal to those in the world we see moral relativism infect the church as well. Arguments such as "God wants me to be happy" are equally hollow in light of the teachings of Jesus Himself. One day the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by asking Him about divorce. Jesus answered with the black and white design of God. The Pharisees then asked why it was that Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away. Here was Jesus destroying their moral relativism:

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery--unless his wife has been unfaithful."-- Matthew 19: 8-9 (NLT)

God did not intend for man to design his own level of morality. Why? Because we will always make exceptions for our own sin. The Israelites got to the point where they wanted divorces for virtually no good reason. Jesus cuts past the symptom and addresses the disease. The certificate of divorce is irrelevant in light of the sin of adultery. Yet even today these words from Jesus are used by divorcing church members as an excuse. The hypocrisy is not lost on the world.

If everything is morally relative than anything can become morally acceptable. Maybe not on an individual basis but the damage moral relativism does is that it removes the right to say something is wrong. I know this personally. Someone close to me remains agnostic and fancies himself "more reasonable" because he refuses to take a stand on what is right and what is wrong outside of what society says. If that Christian thing works for you, great! If that Muslim thing works for someone else, great! If that Atheist thing works for someone else, fantastic! What is the problem with that line of reasoning? Someone in the end will be right and the rest will be woefully wrong. I do not understand how someone can believe in God but seemingly not care what He might want. The hard truth is that standing for nothing does not make you more reasonable. There is no reasonableness in hell.

I feel bad for the world sometimes because Christians often muddy the waters when it comes to matter such as these. One of the laments heard most after the Connecticut shooting was the notion that God had been kicked out of the schools, so what did you expect? This misses the mark on so many levels. Just the notion that God is pacing around outside a school building because He has been "removed" is ludicrous. God has never been removed from anywhere, let alone the school system. What was removed was mandatory prayer. The idea that thousands of unbelieving children praying is somehow relevant is equally silly. Adam Lanza still would have existed if kids were still praying in school or not. The problem is not that kids are not allowed to pray anymore. It is the systematic removal of God from society. It is the purposeful blurring of the lines between right and wrong. It is the belief that what God has made black and white man can turn into shades of grey. We do this because within the shades of grey we can feel better about our sin. We can apply moral relativism to make us feel better about what deep down we know we should not be doing.

There is a morality chasm in this country that grows larger every single day. The crimes that exist today you simply never heard of 50 years ago. We have an entertainment complex that over-glorifies death, violence and sex. Think I am kidding? Take a good look at the games your kid is playing. Take a good look at what shows they are watching. Take a good look at their internet activity. Adam Lanza did not just appear one day. He was systematically desensitized by society. He was broken down morally by a culture that has filed for moral bankruptcy. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. There are no shades of grey. The Bible warns us:

Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. -- Colossians 2: 8 (NLT)

Our society is indeed held captive right now by empty philosophies that say "if it feels good, just do it." We are held captive by arguments such as allowing moral "whateverism" to be perceived as reasonableness. It all comes from human thinking that sets itself up against God. It comes from the spiritual powers of this world. That is the problem with all of the well intended pundits and experts. They are trying to provide a carnal solution to a spiritual problem. There are spiritual powers in this world that are constantly trying to lead people away from God. The Bible says that Satan is the god of this world and here is the description of him being cast out of heaven:

"How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. For you said to yourself, "I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God's stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.' -- Isaiah 14: 12-14 (NLT)

Satan's sin, which caused God to expel him, was to try and be God. His scheme here on earth is to try and get us to do the same. We need to realize when we practice moral relativism we are essentially recreating God in our own image. We see this all the time where people use salad bar theology to pick out the pieces of Scripture they like and discard those that make them uncomfortable in their sin. Only someone as deceptive as Satan can convince so many that their sin is not an elective choice. That God somehow created them in direct opposition to His own law. I understand that moral absolutism rubs people the wrong way because we prefer to be our own god. We prefer to make the rules rather than have to follow them. Last week Adam Lanza made his own rules about what was right and wrong in a civilized society and while we all can agree that he was wrong, he is merely a product of a fallen society overrun by the evil spiritual powers of Satan. Because while we lose sight of our own sin within the shades of grey the world creates so does Adam Lanza. So did Cain when he murdered his brother. So will the next Cain or the next Adam Lanza. Yes, there will be another we can be assured. It doesn't matter if we banned all gun sales and tripled the dosages for all people being treated for psychiatric problems. Because sin will always be sin and evil will always be evil. Until we stop dancing around the issues to avoid having to look at how far our society has drifted morally, we can never start to push back against it. You cannot fight an enemy you refuse to acknowledge exists.

This brings us to the key verses which contain some truths for us to realize this day as the children in Connecticut are buried. First of all, it our responsibility as believers in Jesus Christ to pray for all people. Not just pray but intercede for them -- asking God to help them. Until they realize their reasonableness is leading them to hell they will always view the Adam Lanza's of the world as the aberration instead of the microcosm that he is. We pray first however for all leaders and those in authority. Not for their political platform as neither party cares for the cause of Jesus Christ. No, we pray that they too can see through the haze of moral relativism long enough to lead by the precepts God has set forth. So that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.

Lives where the peace and quiet are not interrupted by the sound of gunfire in a crowded elementary school. Lives where the peace and quiet extends to going out to the movies in Colorado, or attending high school, or walking on the campus of Virginia Tech. That type of life has to be marked somehow beloved. When it is marked with godliness and dignity we can be assured that peaceful and quiet lives will follow. When it is marked with moral relativism and shades of grey we can be assured that everyone will decide for themselves what is moral and what is not. Now for the most part we all agree on the big ticket items. The problem is the "most part" because there will always be the Adam Lanza's of the world who will take the shades of grey and blur them even more.

God does not want anyone to perish. He wants all to be saved and to understand the truth. The truth is that He gets to make the rules and that in the end; they are what are best for us living our lives in peace and quiet. The truth is that while we hide ourselves in moral relativism and disguise our sin as reasonableness the end result is that we fail to see the need for a Savior. We fail to care about reconciling ourselves to God. We drown in our own agnosticism and reasonableness. We drown while God stretches out a hand to save us...but we turn away.

His life purchased our freedom. Our freedom from sin. Our freedom from the schemes of the devil. Our freedom from this world. The salesmen of the shades of grey disdain the notion of black and white because they claim it is not enlightened. The reality is only the devil can convince a blind man he is enlightened. There is only bondage within the grey. This is not my message -- I only believe what God has told me. He has told me the message about faith and truth. He has chosen me to be a preacher to teach people about this message. This message of hope that breaks the back of the evil in Newtown Connecticut. That there is good and evil. That there is right and wrong. That there is a devil to shun and a God to worship. I am not exaggerating -- just telling the truth.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- December 17, 2012

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.