Expect more Sandy Hooks, not fewer

As American politics and culture turn further away from God, they also run to and fro looking for answers to rising crime, violence, mayhem, rape and sexual immorality of all kinds in all the wrong places.

Predictably, this is happening once again as the nation's media and political elite react in horror, as they should, to the massacre in Newtown, Conn., at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

They focus with laser-like futility and counter-productiveness on inanimate objects as the source of the evil.

If only we could pass new, tougher, more restrictive laws to obtain firearms – or ban them altogether – surely there would be no more Sandy Hooks, they say.

Little do they realize the evil is not to be found in the guns. It's to be found in their own hearts of darkness.

In fact, one well-placed firearm at Sandy Hook, in the hands of a trained teacher, administrator or security guard could have prevented the entire slaughter – just as they have averted countless other murders and mass murders in the past.

But, of course, that's just a Band-Aid on a culture mortally wounded by its abandonment of God and His righteous laws.

And that's why we all need to expect more Sandy Hooks, not fewer.

What should we expect when we not only prohibit weapons of self-defense in our schools, but when we banish the Creator from them?

Next year will mark the 50^th anniversary of the Supreme Court decisions that removed prayer from the public schools of America. Just look what has happened since. It's not that God is exacting punishment on America as a result. He is giving America over to the desires of its wicked heart.

We are reaping the seeds of the whirlwind we ourselves planted.

It's not that America's highest court chose neutrality with respect to religion, as Justice Potter Stewart, the lone dissent on one of those key cases wrote. It's that the court chose "the establishment of a religion of secularism."

Secularism is indeed a religion. It places its faith in the hearts of men, rather than in the heart of a loving God who wrote the highest laws, those that guide the universe and offer the only path to salvation and eternal life as well as blessings in this one.

No amount of gun control can save us from ourselves. In fact, it can only quicken the judgment that is already upon us.

Think of the societies and governments that have chosen this path before us – Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China. Were those societies better off as a result? Or were their judgments quickened? Did the bloodshed cease? Or did it increase beyond the imagination of anyone except the tyrants who imposed it?

I don't fear guns. But I do fear the wrath of a God who turns His back on a nation like America has turned its back on Him.

How many more Sandy Hooks do we need to see before we realize something has gone very wrong in America?

It's not that there are too many guns in our hands. It's that there is not enough repentance in our hearts.

It's not that there are too many guns in our hands. It's that we've got too many children in government schools that are not only gun-free zones, but God-free zones.

It's not that there are too many guns in our hands. It's that we have placed our faith in ourselves.

But there is some good news in the disaster we have created, if only the remnant of Americans who still have faith in God consider the simple escape mechanism He has promised us in times like this. It's found in II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Notice the wording of that promise.

God doesn't say He'll hear from heaven, forgive our sins and heal our land if the entire nation repents.

All that He requires to act is that His people, who are called by His name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways.

Are you one of His people?

Do you know what to do?

That's our only hope for revival. That's our only hope for healing our land. That's our only hope for national redemption.

Will you join me today in following that simple prescription?

Will you help spread the word to the rest of His people throughout this once-great country?