Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-26-18

Even since last week the “gun debate” in America has intensified, taken on a new tone. What’s next?

“We need to change hearts, not laws.” Cliches generally become cliches because they are true. Laws are useful; often necessary, but raise false hopes and can be cruel tricks if people believe they will bring Heaven on earth. And the extreme of firearm confiscation or severe restrictions will only remove hardware… not hate.

I can write a book, or deliver an hour-long sermon, but my counsel for ending gun violence and similar social maladies can be summarized simply. Not Washington; not Congress; not the President; not laws; not armed guards. Simple… but not easy:

America, stop glorifying violence. Hollywood, stop making movies that preach violence – and guns – as the tools of justice (and stop the hypocrisy of those same actors rallying against the violence that makes them rich). Christians, stop letting your kids go to such movies, and play such video games. Choose.

America, stop destroying your families. Girls, stop having babies and start having weddings; men, start respecting yourselves and your girlfriends – wait until they are wives. Churches, teach your children standards. Black Church, why are 75 per cent of your teenage moms single? White church, why are your divorce rates as high, or higher, than in the general population? Choose!

America, get off drugs, get off drink, get off the cell phones, start eating together. Guys, pull up your pants and wear your baseball caps straight, and not inside the house. Teenage girls, stop trying to look like women your moms’ age when you go to the mall. And moms, stop trying to dress like teenage girls. CHOOSE!

America, stop the secularization. Re-institute prayer in public places; return Bible readings to classrooms. I am not ancient, but I remember opening each day with Bible readings in the public school. Did it “save” anyone? Maybe not, but it implied “values” to all. The Jewish kids read from the Old Testament, and one Hindu girl read from her holy book; two kids from atheist families were allowed to read or stay silent or however they felt comfortable. Choices.

A nation that is raised – as ours now is, make no mistake – not on DIFFERENT values than previously, but taught that there ARE no values; that nation is doomed to die. And worse than die, its children are consigned to respect no rules but their own. When they do not respect themselves, they cannot respect others – which I believe is why there are so many PC Thought-Police today: at our core, we all still desire rules and standards, so secular nonsense is imposed by elites. “Do as they say…”

A generation ago, “stiff-necked bigots,” as we were called, predicted that if we disconnected God from our nation’s formal workings, our nation would fall apart at the seams. “Hurting the feelings” of minorities, atheists, etc., became more important than affirming our own standards. We predicted that if heritage and tradition became loathsome values… that we risked raising a generation of self-indulgent, morally loose, selfish kids who largely were more interested in pleasure, even drugs and alcohol and sex, than the earlier generations of kids who made American great, and sustained that America. Silly predictions?

The answer is easy. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19). Easy… but not simple. Holy behavior, often empty, is not the true way to Jesus, but Jesus truly is the way to holiness.

Do-able? America just has to decide between a return to morality and Biblical values; repenting of personal and social sins; giving up immorality and self-indulgence, leading to a safer, happier, more just society – or deciding for more of what America has become. Arguments, hate, lack of trust and respect. More shooting, more guns. If fewer guns, then more knifings. If fewer knives, then other forms of ugliness, pick ‘em. Hatred can be very inventive, as we see.

The answer is sincere changes of hearts. Brother Billy Graham, who recently died, was represented on TV by clips of his quotation of the simple Bible truth: “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life” (Matthew 7: 13,14).

Without making such a simple choice, America’s fate is to endure more rot in society, more anguish, more mothers’ tears and fathers’ grief; more bitter fights within families. Worse Thanksgiving dinners and family picnics… more, and worse, school shootings.

These are the bitter fruits of the seeds we choose to sow.

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Click: Hide Thou Me

2-19-18

Another week, another school shooting. Or so it seems; the news media and politicians recently cited 18 deaths by firearms on American school properties in the first six weeks of this year.

Well, it turns out that most of those were parking-lot encounters after dark, between adults; or accidental discharges barely near schools, and so forth. Four angry, and ugly, assaults – but I am not saying “only four,” Any is too many.

The gun issue is one of many in contemporary America where hyperbole has overtaken rationality. Everyone – I think on both, or all, sides – readily adopts exaggerations and logical extensions and, lately, personal invective, to press their points.

What once was abstract is individual, and we see it in the “gun debate” as much as in any other area, and even among people who never encountered danger or grief. We can of course be passionate about issues without being touched personally. But I know the real root cause of our heated debates these days in America – that are more heat than debate.

It is the Slippery Slope. The term in logic indicates the danger of granting one point, in fear of losing the entire argument. To open the door a crack threatens to destroy the entire house, given time.

The Slippery Slope is more than a debating term. When it is used today, even when not called by name, people in effect indicate distrust of the opponent. In the gun debate, for instance, many defenders of the Second Amendment believe that any compromise will be seized upon, leading to… seizure of all firearms. “Give an inch; they’ll take a mile,” and it did not help rational debate when a Democrat officeholder a few years ago admitted that, yes, she would not stop at each restriction.

We can avoid slippery slopes by not even going near the slopes.

For instance, the solution to the “gun problem” in America is simple.

Not “easy,” but simple. Questions and answers:
For two centuries we have had virtually unrestricted access to firearms, and virtually no mass slayings and “senseless” attacks. Why?

Is it because guns are more sophisticated and deadly? Nonsense. Everything exists in the context of its time. Daggers are more convenient than dueling swords, yet there were not mass stabbings when they were readily available.

Speaking of knives, if the automatic reaction of many people – ban all guns – were a solution, should we look at the growing numbers of mass killings around the world by weaponized cars and trucks, and, yes again, random stabbings, and… ban cars and trucks and knives?

Such scenarios depend on slippery slopes, to propose and dispose… and will never lead to solutions.

It is self-swindling delusion to look to Washington for the answer to these problems, and almost everything, these days. “Why doesn’t the president act?” “Why doesn’t Congress DO something?”

Let’s explain something to America: Shut up. Washington is not the answer to everything… cannot be the answer to everything… and, as often as not, is the answer to nothing; unable to have the answers. Washington is not our savior.

We already have a Savior. And now we are face to face with our solution. Remember, I said “easy,” but not simple; not simple to make happen. Not in America, 2018.

Guns don’t make kids shoot. Hate makes them shoot. Listen to people shouting about laws and calling for more guards and more psychologists and more counselors. Where is Jesus in the middle of it all? Can you hear anyone calling for Him? For more God?

Some of the “simple” solutions in next week’s message.

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Click: Hard Times, Come Again No More