We have all these past few days been caught up in a wave of
emotions and grief over the terrorist activities in Boston. Certainly we are
concerned with all the victims and their families and should be praying for
God’s comfort and healing for them.
That said, there is one other point to be made. Several
times I have heard persons – newsmen and even a major political figure – say
something like, “what kind of people would do something like this?”
What a naïve question. Haven’t we all lived through many
years now of terrorist attacks in the US and other countries, attacks by people
who clearly do not care about human life, who are following some tortured
belief in other purposes and causes they value more? The original World Trade
Center bombing in the early 1990’s, the US Cole attack, the huge 9/11 attack in
New York City, the attack on the rail system in Spain, the attacks on US
embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the recent killing of the US ambassador and
others in Libya, and on and on. In certain areas of the world the terrorist
attacks are steady and ongoing – especially parts of the Middle East. So how
can anyone who has been alive and lived ask such a naïve question?
Now turn to people who are true Christians, who know and
believe in Jesus, who have been born of water and the spirit. Not only do such
people have faith in Jesus and know the Bible is true; they also know the devil
is real. They know that evil is real. They know that evil people are out there.
Not a few evil people. More than that.
We are living in the last of the last days. The Bible points
out how people will fall away from God as we near the return of Jesus (II
Thessalonians 2:3). It also points out something very clear: There will be
terrible times in the last days. 2 Timothy 3 goes on to expound on this. We can
readily identify with this right now. And don’t forget how Jesus warned of wars
and rumors of wars. We are in the midst of a war – not just the war in
Afghanistan or Iraq, but a bigger war. Not just a war of radical Islam extremists
against others, but a bigger war. We are in the midst of the playing out of the
war of good versus evil. It has been going on for thousands of years, and it is
moving steadily to a conclusion.
You and I live in this difficult age and place. While certainly
there will still be persons coming to know the Lord in various parts of the
world, there will also be all sorts of terrible things going on at the same
time. We are told all this will happen. And hopefully all of us will be here to
be called by the Lord when he soon comes in the clouds.
We - if we are true believers of Jesus – have no right to be
ignorant of what is happening. We certainly can be horrified and saddened, but
we have no right to be surprised by the overall direction of world society. We
are living in the end of this age. The Lord has given us much to protect
ourselves, and we should always pray for protection for our families and
friends, for ourselves. We can put on God’s armor every day as Paul describes
in Ephesians 6, and we can in Jesus‘ name take authority over evil and over
situations. In Jesus’ name we can order demons away from us and from our
households.
But we cannot be naïve. And in the end, we do have to
realize that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. These are
difficult times in which we live. The wheat and the tares grow together.
Lastly, the Bible points out how the devil has blinded the
minds of unbelievers. So we can understand how unbelievers cannot see what is
happening.
But you can. And you should.
In all things,
(April 2013)
Copyright © 2013 by John
Newlin
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