This week we are reminded once again of the evil loosed in our land as twenty innocent children and several heroic teachers were massacred at their school.
Many were quick to make guns the issue, either their availability to the killer or their non-availability to those who could have defended the children at school. But weaponry discussions miss the point. Children have been attacked with knives in China, bombs in Afghanistan, acid in Pakistan, and illegal guns in Norway. The real issue is protecting our children.
The search for answers may begin with another massacre of innocents long, long ago. One that would have been forgotten in history but for the fact that the target of the massacre was baby Jesus. While the immediate cause of the attack was a paranoid King Herod, the spirit motivating Herod was trying to steal the gift of Jesus from the world, kill Him before he could become a threat, and destroy His destiny. That same Satanic spirit wants to murder all children to steal their gift, kill them before they are a threat, and destroy their destiny (see John 10:10).
Fifty years ago we began removing the hedge of protection around our children by banning school prayer and driving Godly values out of our schools. That generation of students started the sexual revolution and the drug culture, producing a crop of fatherless, neglected, and, often, abused children. Then, about forty years ago it became legal to kill unwanted babies and the massacre of innocents began in earnest. We’ve allowed generations to be stolen, killed and destroyed.
We should mourn with those who mourn, but we are not “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12 b). The innocents are in heaven with God and He keeps sending us children with their gifts, their lives, and their destinies. There is still hope for the future.
Let us thank God for the gift of children and pray that our society will once again value its children. Our schools are desperately in need of prayer, as so many are failing on a spiritual, social, and academic level. Pray that the parents will rise up in prayer and deed to bring God back to our children.
Fifty years ago we told God He wasn’t needed in our public schools. Now we know better.
Let us invite God back into our schools and ask Him to build a hedge of protection around our children.