10/08 - Where Is This Coming From?

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Where Is This Coming From?

Mark 7:14-23

• And yet again this past week, we've dealt with horrible news...
  • The Shooter (I will not use his name)
  • Two Questions:
    • HOW can we prevent it?
    • WHY did it happen?
      • Some would say because we haven't prevented the HOW
      • But the reason...?
    • The topic of Evil is once again in our minds...
      
  • The Ever-Present WHY
    • Woke "coincidentally" this morning to the song The Hurt & The Healer by MercyMe which starts off, "Why? The question that is never far away..."
    • Basically why do bad things happen to the good?
      • We've seen disasters and asked: why did God allow it?
      • The Bible has answered, because sin has entered the world and broken it
      • Others have answered that we encourage people to take risks through regulatory incentives, but the truth is that we believe that people have a right to be foolish if they want, and if the consequences are theirs alone. "Foolish" for me and for you might be different...
      • But that has to do with disasters and tragedies; Las Vegas was a perpetration of violence, and so we ask...
    • Why did he do it? How could he have done such a thing? 
      • We wish to make it comprehensible, we then feel safer
      • We hope he had a mental break, for that would mitigate his responsibility
        • (and we can convince ourselves that we would seek medical help if we find ourselves at risk)
      • We alternatively hope he was a hidden monster, for that would make him other than us
    • We want, maybe without admitting it to ourselves, reassurance that we would never become like this, perpetrators of evil
    • That is why studying Nazi Germany, or Communist Russia is such a challenge:
      • We cannot lie to ourselves that they are not people like us
        
    • 4 Kinds of Evil (one of MANY models)
      • The Ends Justify the Means
        • An Example: Romans 3:7-8
        • To lie, cheat, steal, use others all for yourself
        • An Antidote: "Love your neighbor as yourself..."
      • Blind Idealism
        • Two Examples: 1 John 4:1; Matthew 7:15-18a
        • Noncombatants killed: 12 million by Nazi Germany, 9 million by Stalin's Russia, 30+ million by Mao's China... all in service to their "ideals"
        • Leonard Lyons in “The Washington Post:” "In the days when Stalin was Commissar of Munitions, a meeting was held... One official arose and made a speech about ... the tragedy of millions of people dying of hunger.… Stalin interrupted him to say: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”"
        • THE Antidote: The Gospel, wherein God asks us to come and "reason together" with Him
      • Vengeance
        • An Example: Romans 12:19-20
        • A response to being threatened or harmed, physically or otherwise
        • But are we content with "an eye for an eye?"
        • An Antidote: Romans 12:19-20
      • Sadism
        • The true monsters: Those who were born without connection to others, or who have followed the above paths, to the extent that harming others becomes "fun."
        • The Antidote: Don't start down these paths...
          
      • Leaving the "Why" in God's hands
        • We may never know why, in this case (and in others)
        • At some point we have to trust God, and move forward, and not get "stuck" in the moments of darkness that mar our lives
        • At some point we say, "As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice."
          – Psalm 55:16-17