In the aftermath of tragedy, we must be about the Father’s business

Elizabeth Prata of The End Time responds to Thursday’s massacre during a “Black Lives Matter” protest in Dallas where twelve people were shot by a lone sniper.  Five police officers died and seven others were wounded.  Prata writes:

No, we are not good.

We awaken to this today:

How can this happen, people wonder. It happens because of sin. Man is born a sinner, and it is only God’s common grace that retrains a man from murdering every day. However, God’s restraining grace is lifted as He abandons a nation. I wrote about that yesterday.

So, man turns to false religion to help him restrain the evil in him. But this does not work, either. The harder man tries, the more he fails.

“False religion cannot restrain sin in the heart, although it can mask it with self-righteousness.” Principles of God’s Judgment

Abandoned churchWhen an individual or a nation resists the Law, the conscience, and common grace in creation long enough, God gives them over to the lusts of their heart.

“God will abandon sinners to their own choices and the consequences of those choices. And just what is this abandoning act on God’s part, it is the removal of restraining grace. It is when God lets go and turns a society over to its own sinful freedoms and the results of those freedoms. No Scripture more directly confronts this abandonment and its consequences than Romans 1 does.” When God Abandons a Nation

In Romans 1:18-32,

Three times you have the statement, “God gave them over.” This term paradidomiin the Greek can have a judicial sense. It can be used of a judgment made on a criminal who was then handed over for punishment. Each of these phrases expresses the fact that the wrath of God has acted judicially to sentence sinners. It is God officially giving them over. It is God letting them go to the uninterrupted cause and effect their sinful choices produce. When this judgment falls, there is a depriving of restraining grace and sin runs rampant through a society. When God Abandons a Nation

And false religion includes the atheist and agnostic, the ‘no-choice’ person, because those are just religion of self. This is why we need Jesus, all people do. The sin of man is inherent in his heart and only Him from above who is without stain can resolve our sin problem. All men need the Gospel.

The Gospel is not “having purpose in your life”. It is not “accepting Jesus” or praying a prayer. The Gospel which everyone needs is good news, as Ligonier explains:

“The gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it–or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.”

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

The sad truth is, that as we awaken to news of a cold-blooded massacre in Dallas where snipers shot 11 police officers, some at point blank range, man is not good. This is not an anomaly. The man who shot the elementary students at Sandy Hook, the man who shot the movie-goers in the theater in Colorado, the who shot the homosexual club-goers in Orlando … THIS is man.

This verse from Genesis 6:5 is not for just Noah’s time but for all time:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Jesus would not entrust Himself to them because He knew all men. (John 2:24) He knew what was in a man, through and through.

Holy thoughts are alien to the natural man. Righteousness is foreign to the creature. Holiness is an acid, thrown on the sinful skin of man, who runs and flees from purity. And yet what man runs from is exactly what he needs. Continue reading

, , , ,

4 Responses to In the aftermath of tragedy, we must be about the Father’s business

  1. Dave July 9, 2016 at 11:16 pm #

    And false religion includes the atheist and agnostic, NIV, NASB, ESV, NKJV, HOLMAN, RSV, all these are false religions. The reason America is in the mess it is in is because America has abandon the Truth in the King James Bible.
    (Jeremiah 7:27-28) Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee. {28} But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
    And btw the phrase “God gave them over” is found only once (Rom 1:28) the other two times “God gave them up” (vs 24, 26).
    When you change God’s word to man’s word you reap the results.
    If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the land, anarchy & misrule, degradation & misery, corruption & darkness will reign without mitigation or end. (Sec of State, Daniel Webster 1782 – 1852)

    • Susan July 10, 2016 at 2:09 am #

      I do not know you Dave, but please be careful in how you write towards other believers and their choice of Bible translation.

      I have every respect for people who choose to use the KJV or any other version you have mentioned. I use yet another not in your list. They are ALL translations as is the KJV. And they all have a certain bias to them in places and each have verses where they could have translated better. But I know that all the translators would have been in awe at the responsibility of translating God’s word in to another language and would have spent time deliberating on their choices of words and phrases. They are not the original.

      What you are doing in your comment is raising the translation above the original. If you would take a short time to check, (and it took me a minute) you would see that in your last few lines you are not correct. God ‘gave them over’ and God ‘gave them up’ are both reasonable translations of two greek words – paradidomi and autos. I looked up the Strongs on E-sword and then compared a few. The ESV, HCSB, NASB, NIV, NLT and Darby versions have all translated those three instances consistently in the way chosen to go. The KJV has it translated in two different ways as you quoted (although in my opinion meaning the same thing) within the three very closely related verses. This is actually not correct if one follows proper and right bible translation methods.

      Thanks for considering.

  2. Manny1962 July 10, 2016 at 6:54 pm #

    The reason this country is in judgement, like the rest of the world, is because it abandoned God, not a bible translation. Because man would rather worship the creation instead of The Creator. And God wrote how history will culminate so His people will know the times………..

  3. Manny1962 July 10, 2016 at 7:05 pm #

    Oh and this world? It’s splintering, this massacre will not be the last one coming down the pike, it is my opinion, out of chaos the man of sin will rise, any sort of trigger can set this off, economic meltdown, anarchy, nuclear attack, terror, the list goes on. All I can say to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is simple, pray always unceasingly! Perhaps God in His mercy will give us respite in the coming persecution.

Leave a Reply