Why did the gunman shoot those people?
I don’t have to keep watching the news to guess the hypotheses that will be drawn. “Experts” will pipe in with their educated guess on what happened to cause the psychological break of this individual. Or political hopefuls with hidden agendas will feign empathy as they elevate their particular platform cause as the instigation behind such tragedy. They’ll all be wrong. Sure, some issues may aggravate the situation, but there’s no need to try and weigh nurture versus nature if you refuse to look at the real root cause for the Virginia Beach shooting.
It’s not gun laws or how long one has to wait for a handgun. It’s not poverty or socioeconomic constraints. It’s not mental health access problems coupled [with] lack of insurance issues. It’s not a failing judicial system or problems with a building’s security. That’s not the cause. Sure, these are problems, and many of these can be improved upon. But it’s the issue we ignore that’s at the base of tragedies like today.
See, it’s not just yesterday’s shooting. As I was reading an article about the Virginia Beach shooting one sad fact stuck out to me. The article stated this to be “the United States’ worse mass shooting since November.” It wasn’t that it was the worst (although that’s horrible), but rather that it was the worst (only) since November. Meaning that a similar tragedy had occurred just half a year prior. That’s sad.
Have you noticed that mass shootings seem more common? Have you noticed school shootings on the rise in the past [15] years? What about human trafficking, for that matter? Abuse, violence, even child abduction? It seems to me that things I must worry with about my children’s safety weren’t as much a concern for my parents. Times have changed, people say, and it certainly seems true. You could argue that we know more now than we did [50] years ago. With social media, cable news channels, and the internet we have a heightened awareness of the world at large. I suppose that is certainly true, but I tend to believe that the root problem has multiplied. I mean, the Bible has warned us for years it would.
Today, as I prayed about how I should write on this topic, I felt the Lord impress some wisdom into my heart. Wisdom that needs to be shared.
I felt like God said, “you have to stop denying the existence of evil among you.”
Have you ever read the Old Testament?! Talk about evil! They frequently threw their kids into the fire as a sacrifice to Molech. I mean, can you say crazy?! But are we any better now? We can easily look back at [b]iblical child sacrifice and proclaim, “that’s evil!” That’s demonic, for sure! Am I right? Yet since 1973 well over 54 million babies have been sacrificed legally. Evil exists today, but we call it things like progress or human rights. Now, that’s not to say I’m implying that people who have an abortion are evil. I’m not! But I do believe it is the powers of darkness that tell us murder isn’t murder or sin isn’t sin. See, evil nowadays has become more tricky. It disguises itself as something else. We don’t even think about words like evil or the devil.
First, realize that I’m not giving Satan power by blaming him for tragedy among us. Rather, I am recognizing the battle we face in this world. We aren’t fighting terrorists, human traffickers, shooters, or child molesters. I mean, we do battle those particular outlets of evil in the flesh, but we must also recognize the spiritual significance of the problems we come against. It’s not guns or an unwanted pregnancy that causes death and destruction any more than it was a flame that caused the sacrificial burning of children by the Canaanites. Yes, fire killed the kids, but Satan was the real principality behind the bull statue/idol. Yes, a gun ripped through the victims in VA Beach, and it was a man who fired the weapon, but who do you think influenced his actions? You could blame his parents, I suppose, but where did the chain of abuse begin? What is it we’re really fighting? What is the root cause of tragedy and death?
Is it a chemical imbalance that causes a man to rape an [18]-month-old child? Maybe it’s a tough upbringing. No, it’s pure evil. What else can make people do some of the heinous things they do if not demonic influence?
