I seldom write about the “news” because I can’t really do anything about it but pray mercy on those hurt by it. But, if I can help prevent such things as terrorism by using the word of God, then I will do it.
I have just read Proverbs 1:8-19 and wish terrorist Jabar had been taught God’s truth. After spending yesterday with our family and hearing Mary and Paul correct our grandchildren, I rejoice that they are raising them in the “fear and admonition of the Lord,” and that they are reminding the girls to be kind, to make good choices, to consider others’ needs, and to respect others’ ideas and things.
So, I let God do the writing today in hopes that perhaps someone will read it and someone intent on stealing, enticing others to sin, and those who randomly kill others will be deterred and we won’t read about another incident like the one in New Orleans on New Years’ Day, or the intention to harm others by detonating a Tesla truck in Las Vegas.
In Genesis 6 we learn that God’s patience with wickedness of man ran out before He decided to destroy his creation with the great flood. Chapter 6:5-8 says: “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved Him to His heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man, and animals and creeping tings and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.'”
Because He found favor with Noah, we survive today, but we also read that evil will again be punished in the Last Days. We who know Jesus and His love for those He seeks to save, we know God is sovereign, and we believe His covenant promise, but we also know there is evil in our world which Noah’s time could not even predict. Therefore, hear the word of Proverbs I read this morning:
“Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, do not censent. If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without reason like Sheol, let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit, we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder, throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse.’ My don, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood. For in vail is a net spread in the sight of a bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.”
Would that Jabar and the others of his ilk, setting their sights on terrorism and death, had listened to God’s instruction, families in New Orleans would not be wracked with grief this morning at the beginning of a new year that many hope will be a time of peace among men and thanksgiving for another year’s time to achieve great things. We pray for families ripped apart, for law enforcement officers once again forced to see sights which will remain in their minds’ eyes, and for those who must untangle the webs of insanity which prompted this man’s actions. We pray blessings on them all, and stand with parents who are instructing their youth in the ways of Proverbs’ wisdom.
Read the rest of Proverbs 1 and see what destruction awaits those who do not follow God’s instruction. Then, with my family and those who follow God’s laws, rejoice in the final verse: “For the simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools destroys them, but whoever listens to Me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster.” This says the Lord and godly parents who teach their children right from wrong and the fear of the Lord’s justice provided with merciful forgiveness when we too make foolish decisions. In the next chapter, God tells us: “Wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.” And finally, the Lord says: “So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”
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