Texas Church Shooting and Our
Time to Go
Troy Edwards
We should have known that it
would happen. It was not too long after the church mass murder of over 20
people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas on November 5, 2017 that a
Hollywood celebrity decided to politicize this tragedy by blaming the
Republicans. I am sure that this will help to continue their fight for “gun
control”.
While those who use these
types of tragedies to further their political agenda disturb me, I am more
horrified by “Christians” who use it to promote an idea about Go that, in the
long run, gives a monstrous depiction of him. While discussing this tragedy on
a Christian forum one individual wrote, “This really grabs my heart for these
people. We do not understand, but we must be ready at all times if it is our
time to go be with Jesus.”
Time to go to be with Jesus? I do not question the heart-felt sympathy of the
individual who wrote this. I do not doubt that the person meant well. I only
question the statement as it is written since such statements coming from the
Christian community has led those outside of it to believe that god plans and
orchestrates such tragic events. Whether the person who said this intended it
or not, the wording appears to say that Jesus sends crazed murderers to shoot
people whose “so-called time to go to be with Him” has arrived.
Again, it is not my intention to target a particular
individual but to address a whole ideology that is within the church. Rest
assured that sincere (though sincerely wrong)
ministers in a number of pulpits around the world will attempt to “comfort”
their parishioners by reminding them that “God is sovereign, He is in control,
and that He had a reason for this tragedy.” They will tell them “we may not
understand God’s purposes for this tragedy in this lifetime but we can take
comfort that He is in control of all that happens.”
Teachings of this nature are the seedbeds of atheism. The
problem that I have found with many believers is that they give little
attention to the fact that there is a war going on in the heavenlies (Daniel
10:10-21; Ephesians 6:10-18; Rev. 12:7-12). So many of the things that are
blamed on God’s sovereignty can be better understood in the light of this
truth. God has an enemy who is opposed to all that is good. Tragic shootings
such as the one that occurred in Sutherland
Springs, Texas was not orchestrated by God in any sense. This was the
work of the enemy of God and man, the one known as Satan. Scripture says:
The thief
[Satan] cometh not, but for to steal, and
to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. (1 John 3:12)
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. (1 John 3:12)
Jesus is not sitting in Heaven with a Calendar scheduling people’s day of death. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that everyone in that church knew Jesus, which means their death definitely went against His will (Eze. 18:32; 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). Such people were at this church but never came to know Christ certainly are not with Him.
When I confronted one of the “God’s timing” believers
with some of these Biblical truths, the following question was posed to me:
I’m
not sure I understand your reasoning. Are you saying God has absolutely nothing
to do with the timing of death for any person? The time and means of your
future death is not in God’s hands?
Those who hold such positions simply are ignorant of the
Biblical truth that God is not directly responsible for anyone’s death – timing
or otherwise. Scripture says, “The last
ENEMY that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). Death is an enemy
of God and a product of satanic origin (Heb. 2:14-15). Death came into this
world as the result of sin and not because of a pre-planned timing of
God (Rom. 5:12). For one to even claim that deaths are the result of God’s
pre-planned timing makes Him responsible for the tragedies of the Sutherland
Springs murders no matter how one may choose to spin it. One may as well blame
God for suicides and abortions with this logic (and sadly, many actually do.
See my book, “Untying God’s ‘Nots’”
for proof and refutation of this).
Therefore, the tragic murder and deaths that come as the
result of such tragic events as the Sutherland Springs, Texas shooting must
never be attributed to God. Satan is the ruler over the evil and darkness in
this world and not our Heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus, or the precious Holy
Spirit (Acts 26:18; Eph. 6:10-12; Col. 1:12-14).
God is just as hurt over this tragedy as anyone else. He
has a plan to end all of this evil one day but until that day comes, we must be
vigilant in prayer and stand on His Word while exercising our authority over
the satanic forces attacking God’s people.
Teaching coming from Christian circles that makes God the
responsible party for tragedies such as the one in Sutherland Springs, Texas
has a tendency to produce atheists, haters of God, and fatalistic, fearful
“Christians”. None of these are good products. They do not represent the truth
about our loving, kind, and benevolent God who desires the salvation of every
single human soul.
==========================================
For a deeper understanding concerning issues of death,
God’s timing, and where His responsibility lies concerning these issues, we
highly recommend our book, “Does God Send
Sickness?”
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I agree with this completely. More people have been turned off to God, angry and disillusioned with Him over this idea than almost any other lie, along of course with rampant hypocrisy. My question though is this....if one righteous man had stood up against this evil head on in God's authority, much as David did against Goliath, and other such accounts in scripture of people taking a stand for God.....would God have honored that courage and commitment to Him and miraculously intervened? Of course we can't say for sure, because we don't know God's sovereign Will in this very particular circumstance, which is why it is harmful to speculate. But the reason I ask it this way....is because it is the inverse of the first assumption, that God willed people to die. Does not the accounts of the miraculous and God's intervention throughout scripture also not turn people from God out of complete horror at the thought that God may not be there when we call upon Him in situations like this? Even though His Word promises He will?
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