(WARNING: This blog will tick some people off. If you don't like being ticked off...or if you don't like being confronted with common sense, please don't read.)
Last Sunday, I taught the 4-6 grade Sunday school class at our church. My wife usually teaches it, but she suggested that I come and talk to them because they had tons of questions about things in the Bible they wanted to ask me. One of the questions asked involved persecution. Would we have to face persecution, or would we be “raptured” out of it? I briefly gave the differing viewpoints on the rapture, then I concluded by telling the kids that they should live their lives expecting to be persecuted…rather than expecting to be removed from persecution. I told them that right now, in many countries Christians are killed everyday…and that someday that might be the case in America as well. And if it is, we must stand strong for Christ.
Ironically, as I was talking to the kids, “persecution” was going on just a few hundred miles east of us. As everyone now knows, a crazed gunmen walked into the First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois while Pastor Fred Winters was giving his sermon. The man walked up to the pulpit, pulled out a pistol and began to fire. Winters was killed and the gunmen then pulled a knife and began stabbing himself and two brave church members who had tried to constrain him, as a horrified congregation watched.
Obviously, this story hits pretty close to home for me…since I’m a Pastor. I also graduated from the same seminary Winters did. In fact, he was the President of our Alumni Association. It seems that Midwestern Baptist Seminary graduates get gunned down with more frequency than most. A few years ago, two of our former students were shot and killed on the mission field. Is this a tragedy? Absolutely. Should we be surprised? Absolutely not.
For most places…and in most times…Christian persecution has been the norm, rather than the exception. Jesus promised the disciples they would be killed (Matthew 24). And Jesus assured us that in this world we would have tribulation (John 16:33). The New Testament church lived their lives expecting to be killed for their faith. So the freedom and comfort we enjoy in America, is very, very rare when you compare it to how most Christians have lived through the centuries. I don’t want to be murdered, nor does anyone else. But we must prepare our hearts and minds for the time in which we will face persecution, and even death for our faith….Now, I’m going to move from “persecution” to “politics.”
Anytime there is a tragedy involving guns, many people begin to clamor once more for stricter gun control laws. I believe this is foolhardy, and I’ll tell you why. Gun control laws have a tendency to do ONE THING….they hinder law abiding citizens from buying guns. LAW BREAKERS could care less how many gun laws are passed, since they don’t abide by them anyway. The man who shot Fred Winters did not have a conceal and carry permit. Obviously, this violation of the law didn’t bother him too much, as the subsequent events proved. Let me offer another scenario, as to how this tragedy might have gone down.
According to reports, the first shot fired hit Winters Bible and shredded it like confetti. It was the SECOND, THIRD, or FOURTH shot that killed Winters. Perhaps a better ending to the story would have been, if after the FIRST shot was fired, a good, godly church member pulled out a pistol…shot the assailant…and ended the carnage. Would it still be a tragedy? Of course it would. But a murderer would be dead, instead of a Pastor, and perhaps two church members. Is it a sin to protect people from acts of evil? I assure you of this, if a gun-toting lunatic showed up at your church and pointed the gun at your wife, your son, or your daughter….and right before he blows them away…someone blows HIM away, I would bet you would be grateful to say the least.
Guns are not sinful. People are. There is a faulty view of firearms, that is seeping more frequently into the thoughts of normal Americans. They have had the liberal, non-sensical idea that “guns are bad” crammed down their throat for SO LONG…they’re starting to believe it. I feel, that perhaps the spoiled brat mind set of American pacifists be corrected…and they be reminded that we have the ability to live and worship in freedom today…because of guns. How so, you ask? We won our freedom from Britain many years ago. Our forefathers were tired of being told how they could worship and they sought religious freedom in a “new world.” Eventually, they sought independence from the “mother country” so that we could live how we chose to. And when our forefathers fought for independence….they used GUNS.
When Adolph Hitler and the Axis powers of World War II sought to overtake the world and enforce their tyranny on all…they were defeated by our brave forefathers. And our forefathers used GUNS. GUNS…are a glorious invention. (Incidentally, so are BOMBS…but that’s another story.)
Does this make me a blood-thirsty lunatic? Far from it. I don’t wish to see anyone killed, but I live in the real world and I know that evil exists. And at times, it can only be reined in by the use of force. And one of the greatest tools of force we have is GUNS. So, I implore you, when you hear the bantering going on in the coming days about the tragedy of what happened in Illinois…take part in the conversation. Remind people that this IS a tragedy, and our hearts should break for this church and this Pastor’s family. We should keep them in our prayers. Remind them also…that as Christians we are taught to expect such persecution in this world. And remind them that it wasn’t a gun that killed this Pastor….it was a crazed lunatic with a gun that killed this Pastor. The problem was not that there was a gun at church. The problem was that there was a gun…in the hands of the WRONG PERSON at church. Sadly, the righteous, law-abiding citizens of America have been brow beaten for so long into thinking that guns are bad and that they have no right to defend themselves. If liberals such as Barack Obama and his ilk have their way….your guns will be gone…or at the least, your right to bear them will be hindered. And when that happens, watch out! For only the criminals will have guns…and mass carnage will ensue.
In closing, let me say that I do not carry a gun to church, nor do I encourage anyone else to. If it is God’s will for me to die in the pulpit, I will die in the pulpit. I cannot thwart God’s will, nor do I wish to. But let me also say that I’m a Pastor…..that believes in the justice….of shooting back. I don’t carry a gun, but I do own them and I’ve shot them since I was old enough to do it responsibly. I was not taught to fear guns…I was taught to revere them. I was taught that you always treat a gun as though it were loaded and you never point it at someone…unless you mean to use it. And there is no sin in using it to protect those you love.
If, heaven forbid, an assailant enters my home and threatens my family…they will not be met by a pacifist who will offer them tea and crumpets. By God’s grace….if I’m able to reach it in time….they will be met by a .22 in their face. Would I feel bad about shooting an intruder? I’m SURE that I would. But I would feel much worse…to look around my home and see my wife and kids slaughtered by a thug…because I was too “nice” to use force in their protection. Guns are not evil. People are. I wish Fred Winters was still alive….and his assassin were dead. For the sake of his church. For the sake of his wife. For the sake of his daughters. And for the sake of justice. The wrong man died last Sunday because the wrong man had a gun. Here’s to hoping the pacifists of the world can see and understand that before its too late.
"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” -- Acts 2:22-23 (NASB)