Yesterday was a horrific day for the people of Uvalde, Texas, as an 18 year-old high school student killed his grandmother, stole a car, and then went on a rampage at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 children and two teachers, and wounding several school security and local police officers before being killed himself. I cannot imagine the grief that these families and friends are feeling right now in the face of such senseless violence, but I am praying that the LORD will somehow reach through their pain and suffering, draw them to Himself, and in some incomprehensible way, cause some good to happen from this cruel tragedy.

Already, the political lines have formed and are busy lobbing attacks against one another: “What are we waiting for? Outlaw guns!” “No—we need to arm every teacher and school worker to take down any attackers!” “If we just eliminated poverty, this wouldn’t happen!” “You people just need to get jobs and raise your kids right!” and on and on it goes.

I hadn’t heard about the attack until this morning as I was driving to work; I flipped on the local news/talk radio station to hear the weather, and they were interviewing a woman whose son was on campus the day that UNCC experienced a similar horror (April 30, 2019). At first, I thought they were talking about the race-motivated shooting just eleven days ago in Buffalo (May 14, 2022); but then I realized, to my shock and dismay, that it was a new massacre. The morning host was remarking about how it’s impossible to know what to do in the face of such evil, and the interviewee replied, “I’m a person who believes there’s more good in this world than evil; but I don’t understand why people just don’t spend their energy loving one another and being good to one another!”

It sounds like a simple, easy, no-brainer kind of answer, doesn’t it? Why can’t we just simply put our best foot forward and look out for the benefit of others? Life would be so much better…put a little bit of love in your heart, and the world will be a better place, the song says. But there’s a problem: human nature. The Bible teaches that the human heart is “…deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9-10) And Jesus said in Mark 7:21-23 that out of the heart of a man “…come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” John Calvin taught that human nature is totally depraved—that they can’t help themselves from doing what is evil.

So, what makes the mother interviewed on today’s morning show believe that there’s more good in the world than evil? I’ve heard an almost continuous stream of non-religious people reply, “Well, I can be good without believing in God.” Of course you can be good…in fact, most of us believe that we are always good according to our own standards! And that’s the point.

See, when Adam and Eve made the choice to sin in the Garden of Eden, they were making the decision that they would become the arbiters of good and evil. What happened as a result is that we set ourselves at the center, and judge the rest of the world based on that. Instead of submitting to God and His definition of what good and evil are, the human race rejected our Creator’s instructions and decided that each person would set their own boundaries. And we all have different criteria for what those boundaries of right and wrong are. So Calvin was slightly mistaken: it’s not so much that humans are bent toward evil, it’s that we’re bent toward the self—and it’s this self-worship that separates us from God. Despite the fact that we’ve been given a conscience by God that gives us general moral sensibilities, we are often willing to justify what is evil based upon own personal circumstances. I’ll bet that the 18 year-old teenager felt perfectly justified in what he was doing.

The solution is to come under the government of God—first in our own hearts, and then cumulatively in our society. From the beginning of our nation’s history, we were blessed that our legal system was mostly based on God’s Torah, because the people who created it had a Judeo-Christian ethical framework, and because more people in our society were truly worshipers of YHWH. People’s personal judgments are held back by any opposition from the state’s laws and law enforcement, especially when the majority of its citizens have allowed themselves to be directed internally by God. But increasingly, especially since the 1960’s, we’ve abandoned God’s system. We’ve taught people that they should ‘be true to themselves’, to take care of themselves first, to do what feels good, to do what you think is right—’you do you’; we’ve taught them that God’s standards are archaic, obsolete, hateful, and judgmental; and we’ve taught people that there is no meaning in life, there are no absolutes—no right or wrong, that we’re just products of a blind, cold, evolutionary system. And then we wonder why people believe it’s ok to shoot up an elementary school.

If we are to save our nation and Western society, we’ve got to repent and return to God, yielding to His government in our lives. Yes, it is accepting the covenant through Yeshua/Jesus the Messiah that makes one acceptable to God, but it is the willingness to worship Him and live under His government that is the pretext for that covenant. We have to be willing to obey God’s Word.

If we don’t, we’ll be destroyed—not because God is hateful toward His enemies, but because self-worship is ultimately self-consuming. Just as in the case of the 18 year-old high school dropout that perpetrated this tragedy, self-worship in our lives will eventually destroy us if we don’t repent and yield to the government of God; and the Bible teaches that we will suffer that destruction eternally.

If you’re reading this and you haven’t said “Yes” to God, you’re not without hope. Do it today.