Another school massacre has once again exposed how vulnerable our children are. It is time we learned some lessons and applied biblical principles to protect our children.
The first lesson we should have learned is that the social norms which sheltered our children 50 years ago have been shattered. The sexual revolution of the 1960’s produced a hedonistic lifestyle where children became an unwanted side effect. We have murdered 60 million babies and millions of others are abused, neglected, and angry. Half of our children come from fatherless homes, and the manly values of chivalry and protectiveness formerly instilled by fathers and scoffed at. And, after prayer and religion were removed from schools, values are not taught there either. Those wounded, angry, valueless children and grandchildren of the 1960’s will continue to act out in unpredictable and sometimes deadly ways. Society is reaping what it has sown.
The second lesson we should have learned is that government cannot protect us from these random killers. We have seen how laws intended to keep felons and the mentally ill from obtaining guns are not enforced and are even undermined by government agencies. Federal and local law enforcement failed to follow up on obvious warning signals in the Florida shooting. And local deputies failed to enter the school while the unarmed security guard in the school became a martyr by using the only means at his disposal, his body, to protect the students. With 98% of mass killings occurring in “Gun Free” zones, it turns out that “Gun Free” actually means “Killers Welcome”.
It is perhaps coincidental that today marks the Hebrew festival of Purim, where the deliverance of the Jews through Queen Esther and Mordecai is celebrated. What is instructive to us is how the deliverance was accomplished. Mordecai did not ask that the weapons of their enemies be confiscated, nor did he ask for government protection. Instead, he asked that the Jews be given that right to protect themselves and their families (Esther 8:11). Purim shows that God expects us to defend ourselves and our families, and leads directly to America’s Second Amendment rights. As it relates to schools, teachers, also have Second Amendment rights and those called to arm themselves to protect our children should be encouraged to do so.
Arming the people, however, is not enough, because we must strengthen their defenses. In biblical times it was the city wall that kept out the lawless and the enemies of the people, and we have the Book of Nehemiah to show us how important it was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Under Nehemiah the workers armed themselves to complete rebuilding their defenses (Nehemiah 4:16-18). In our time we must recognize that our schools are surrounded by enemies like Jerusalem was, and take steps to increase their defenses by creating a “Wall” of armed guards and controlled access like the wall provided for Jerusalem.
It has been said that those who attack the unprotected are cowards, and the Bible bears this out. Once the Jews were given the right of self-defense under Queen Esther fear overtook the other peoples and the enemies of the Jews were overcome (Esther 9:1-3). Those who had threatened Nehemiah and the Jews never attacked them, and their enemies lost their confidence when the wall was finished (Nehemiah 6:15-16). If we protect our children at school, we can expect that many of these hate filled cowards threatening our children will never attack them.
As we move to protect our children let us also not forget that there are lost generations of young people who are crying out by acting out. Remember The Cross and the Switchblade? We must do more to find them, heal them, and bring them into the love of Christ and the Church. This means more free day care, more foster parents, more adoptions, more mentoring, more evangelism, and yes, more money.
Protecting our children by saving the lost children is the best investment we can make.
Let us pray for wisdom to protect our children, but let us also pray for the compassion to reach out to the lost generations.