The Las Vegas shooter continues to baffle the experts and the media because, as of this writing, still there is not an apparent motive for his actions. Why did he do it?
Why are they baffled?
Satan’s grip on our culture—especially apparent in media, academia, and many halls of government—manifests itself in death. It seems we can’t get enough of it. In a nation and world that desperately needs unity, it seems the only unifier that truly works right now, is this final reality we all face someday.
We can all unite on “whodunnit” television and allow our kids to play getting-much-more-realistic-by-the-day video games that feature automatic weaponry and blood—a lot of blood. We can wink at “50 Shades”-type debauchery movies, privately view cable television and videos on-line that leave relationships and families destroyed. Our public university professors belittle and degrade those who speak of God and absolute truths. And, at the risk of hitting too close to home, the death culture shows up in the fact that approximately one in three women, sometime during their lives, will have decided to end the lives of their own babies in the womb.
Journalists, over ninety percent of whom self-identify as liberal, reported that when the English Princess was pregnant, the baby she carried would be heir to the throne. Why do they confer personhood on that child, and yet ignore that same status on a pre-born child of “ordinary” parents? In a world that liberals hope to make all-equal, what’s the difference between these two innocent people? *
If we can all agree that death unifies us, and if we can all agree that some of us have hope beyond the grave, then why aren’t more of us checking out that hope?
That hope is not found in the inevitably failing human condition. If that person who cut you off on the highway displays a fish symbol on his tailgate, if that person who told you to move out of “his” pew in a church, if that person, dear reader, has hurt you and turned you away from your search for hope, you are particularly careless in your research protocols. You won’t find it in the human condition. I will disappoint you someday, because I know I am incredibly human, prone to error, and often given over to that propensity.
But, there is a perfect person. His name is Jesus Christ. Notice I use the present tense. In Him, I find hope beyond the grave. There is not a more level “playing field” than the human condition known well and laid bare by our Almighty God. To find Him, you need to search for that which you cannot see. There is a way, but it will be unlike any research you have ever conducted.
Dismiss these constructs if you must, and return to the realities of our culture of death that celebrates the life of Hugh Hefner, sympathizes with the plight of terrorists, gives wall-to-wall news coverage to mass murderers, and yet, still can’t get a grip on why it remains fascinated with its own finality. Good gosh.
We know he was a high-stakes gambler, had money, had time, and led a fairly innocuous life. His motive? He was immersed in our culture of death. You and I are in the same world as he was. We are told to be “in” the world, but not “of” it. Satan had a grip on him as surely as he grips the culture of death that surrounds us both, dear reader.
And if his shackles enslave you, when will you seek freedom from Satan? And when the masses start to do this, and seek out a culture of hope and life instead, through Jesus Christ, and turn away from the repugnancy of the old way, we will also discover the reality of the great unifier of the universe. Only in that is our hope.
Don’t know where to begin to find Him? You could click here to enroll in our basic course.
*With special thanks to David Platt, Counter Culture, Tyndale House, 2015.