Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash In the news this morning, James and Jennifer Crumbly are being sentenced to 10-15 years for the deadly school shooting their son committed back in November 2021, killing four students and seriously injuring seven others. This, of course, is a historic case, as this is the first time parents have been held responsible for the actions of their child. The Crumbly’s are accused of ignoring serious signs of desperation from their son. The prosecution claims that their son’s deadly actions could have been prevented had James and Jennifer paid attention to the warning signs and gotten their son the help he needed. They were a pro-gun family who were known for taking their son to the shooting range and buying him a 9mm handgun as a Christmas gift, yet at the same time the parents had been made aware that their son had been writing disturbing notes to himself, saying things like, “Help me,” “Blood everywhere,” “My life is useless.” Here was a boy who was clearly lonely, sad, and depressed. These notes were discovered by school officials and made known to Crumbly’s, which they ignored. Then, in a separate story this morning, a lawyer and his wife were shot dead in Las Vegas during a custody battle with the child’s father, Joe Houston, who is also an attorney. Houston was the one who shot and killed Dennis and Ashley Prince, who have a six-month old baby, and then turned the gun on himself. What these two stories have in common and what they both cry out is that there are a lot of people out there who have no mechanism with which to deal with life’s disappointments. But none of this should really surprise us, considering that we live in a nation and under a government who for decades has pressed in our public schools and universities the ideas of evolution and atheism. If there is no God, if this life is all there is, if there is nothing after death, if we are all nothing more than a collection of cells without any rhyme or reason to our existence, then why does it matter how we treat people? Why does it matter how we live? If there is no God, then there are no such things as right and wrong, there are only differences of opinions. If there is no God, then one cannot argue that what Ethan Crumbly did was wrong or that what his parents did was wrong or that what Joe Houston did was wrong. One can only say that that’s just not what we would do. It’s not how we would prefer people to behave.
But God does exist, and so does heaven, and so does hell. There is future judgment for all human beings, and life does have meaning and purpose. What many fail to realize is that when we remove God from society, from the public square, and from public education, we are removing the only common denominator that holds everything else in place, the only common denominator that gives meaning and purpose to all of life. This is not a plead for deism, but rather a plead for the world to know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [He has] sent” (Jn. 17:3). No amount of political conservatism, mental health programs, behavioral drugs, or social therapy can truly equip people to deal with the sufferings and disappointments of living life in a fallen and broken world. What people need most is to know that their life has meaning and purpose, that there is a reason for them being here, and there is life after death. This cannot be found in any worldview outside of historic orthodox Christianity. The Bible tells us that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). God offers to the world the opportunity to experience the greatest joy, the greatest delight, the greatest pleasure that can be experienced by human beings in any place, anytime, anywhere, and yet so often we would rather have the things of this world which are fleeting and passing. Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28-29). Those who are tired from living life in this world, those who are tired from all the heartache and disappointments this life has to offer, those who find themselves drained of energy, barely able to get out of bed in the morning, who see no reason for going on, who see no purpose in life, and certainly see no purpose in treating others with kindness and decency, can find true and lasting contentment and satisfaction and joy in Christ. Humans were created to know God and enjoy him forever, to enjoy the greatest joy and delight imaginable. Thus, when we don’t live out the purpose for which we were created, then truly our lives have no purpose, no meaning. It comes from nowhere and is going nowhere. That is depressing. Without God, apart from the knowledge of the one true God of creation, politics, therapy, drugs, social programs, cannot give you this meaning and purpose in life that all humans long for. And no other world religion can do this either. This is because, at root, every other belief system in the world is ultimately self-serving. ‘Be good to people so you can get to heaven or be reincarnated as something better.’ Biblical Christianity teaches: Seek to find your greatest delight in Christ, and being good to others will be the natural byproduct. The person who finds their greatest delight and joy in Christ is wholly equipped to deal with the sufferings and disappointments of life because we understand that if all we have in this life is Christ, we are far richer than we could ever possibly imagine and we have more than we could every possibly deserve. We also recognize that this life is just a blip on the radar screen in comparison to eternity. We recognize that someday when this life is over, no matter how difficult it may be, we will spend thousands upon thousands of millennia worshipping at the feet of Christ and enjoying more pleasure than we ever thought possible. Seek to know Christ, to find your greatest delight in Christ, and the pleasures and disappointments of this life will simply fade into the background.
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September 2024
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