Only God can stop murder and terrorism

The mass murder of 50 people at a club in Orlando in the early hours of June 12 was immediately followed by politicians and pundits pointing fingers in every direction hoping to rile and rally their supporters. Missing from most of the ranting and posturing was any thoughtful, honest examination of the heart of the murderer. Why would anyone do such a thing?

It is interesting to me that the news outlets are talking to "experts" in an effort to determine what was in the mind of the murderer/terrorist. What was he thinking? I believe we need to look deeper to understand how he could do such a thing.

It is a matter of the heart: that unique part of our humanity from which our values, connectedness emotions, passion and purpose come. Our thinking and, subsequently, our actions have their genesis in our hearts. Our actions are a window into our hearts.

Mine is, admittedly, a Biblical worldview. I have that perspective because I have found time and again that it is accurate in revealing and explaining the world in which we live. It tells me about the hearts of people, including my own, from God's perfect vantage point, with His perfect clarity.

Genesis tells us God created man and woman and gave them unique hearts capable of relationships, love, mercy, kindness and sacrifice. But He also created hearts to be free to choose how they would respond to Him and others. And with those choices come consequences.

Early on, the hearts of some of those He created revealed themselves to be selfish, sinful and rebellious. Their hearts were exposed by their actions. Lucifer, created by God to be a mighty angelic servant of His Kingdom, had self-pride, self-idolatry and rebellion in his heart and was expelled from Heaven along with a third of the angels who followed him.

The rebellion and self-serving hearts of Adam and Eve were in plain sight when they willfully sinned against God in a move to gain what was not theirs to have. Their son, Cain, with hatred and jealousy in his heart, murdered his brother, Abel, because of the unselfish, God-honoring offerings he gave from his heart that pleased God.

As time went on, the hearts of people, sadly, became increasingly corrupt and Godless. Ignoring every prophet and word from God to turn their hearts to Him, God brought the judgment on them they had earned. Noah and his family, along with a male and female of each "kind" of living creature, were spared to repopulate the earth.

However, throughout the Old and New Testaments, we hear the cries of those who don't want their hearts to lead them into sin and its consequences, who see that their actions come from a heart that needs to be changed.

David, shepherd boy and king, asked God to "create in me a pure heart..." (Psalm 51:10). And the Apostle Paul, whose heart was redeemed and transformed by the power of God, declares "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them" (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).

Though there will be no end to murder and terrorism until God comes to totally judge creation one last time before His promised a new Heaven and earth (see Revelation 21:1), we pray for every person to have a change of heart. We know, from personal experience, that it can only come by the power and grace of God, which is at work in every person who cries out to Him in humility, confession and faith.

Repentance and righteousness are a window into that heart. That new heart reveals it belongs to the Spirit God as it bears the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (see Galatians 5:16-23).

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Mark Voll is pastor of the Village Bible Evangelical Free Church. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Religion on 06/22/2016