Like many of you, I'm sure, I
have been numb for the last three days trying to get my mind around
the horrific massacre at Newtown, Connecticut, Friday morning.
A 20-year-old man, Adam Lanza, murdered his mother, stole three
guns from her home in her car, drove a car to Sandy Hook School
and there slaughtered 20 children and 6 adults. What a horrific,
senseless, cruel, inhuman act. How I wish I could reach out
to each of those mothers and fathers who lost their darling
babies, those husbands whose wives will never again warm their
laps, those brothers and sisters who've suffered such terrible,
shocking loss, weep with them, hug them strongly to my chest
and point them each to God, our savior. My subject this morning
is the Newton or Newtown Massacre. I can't tell you how difficult
it's been for me to prepare this message. But I knew early Friday
evening I had to deal with this this morning. The difficulty
has been this. I have great, great fear of saying
anything that might in any way add to the pain of those families
who suffered such great loss should any of them hear this
message. How do I deal with such a thing, something so horrific
in a beneficial way. And I want very much to help
you, you who hear my voice, to understand something of God's
ways even in this, to comfort you, you who know God, to point
you to Him, to warn you who are yet without Christ of wrath,
the sure wrath and judgment of God Almighty. Now, let's begin
in 2 Timothy chapter 3. May God the Holy Spirit be our
teacher. 2 Timothy chapter 3. This know also that in the last
days perilous times shall come. What a strong word. perilous
times. For men shall be lovers of their
own selves. Those are perilous times. Men
shall be lovers of their own selves. That makes them covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, casting
aside every decent thing the parents ever taught them. unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection, without natural affection, that
affection that comes between a mother and her child, the love
of a mother for her baby, love of a child for his mother is
dead, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers,
incontinent, That is never satisfied. Fierce. Fierce. How can I relate to you what
Paul is describing? You folks who have children today,
you watch them every minute. Take them to the shopping center
and don't let them out of your sight. You fence in your yards
with privacy fence so nobody driving by can see them playing
in their backyard. because we live in a society
full of lovers of themselves who are fierce. You live constantly
aware, constantly aware that you and your sons and daughters,
except for the care of God Almighty, are in constant danger, in constant
danger. When you who are my age and older,
you can remember these days, boy get up and leave home by
daylight and try his best to stay away until after dark so
he didn't have to do any work. And nobody was concerned. Nobody
was concerned. When I was six years old, I'd
walk five miles across town, in a good-sized town, by myself,
at daylight to go to the boys' club and come home after dark.
And nobody was concerned except me when I'd get someplace I knew
off to be. Nobody. Not now. It was a perilous time. We live amongst fierce people,
despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded,
lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, love to do just
what they like and still having a form of godliness but denying
the power thereof. From such, turn away. We're witnessing
strange, alarming things in our society. We live in a generation
that has changed the truth of God into a lie, a generation
that worships and serves the creature rather than the creator. I have to say this, this whole
green movement, this whole Mother Earth movement, this whole environmentally
conscious sense of this age is the worship of the creature more
than the creator. Pay no attention. You young people,
don't let this foolishness influence your thinking. Mama and daddy,
don't let it influence your thinking. God did not make you for the
earth. He made the earth for you. Why
is that so hard for folks to get through their head? And people
want to hug trees and kiss frogs and save turtles. We're reaping
the whirlwind of God's wrath in the church, in society, and
in our homes for such foolishness. Judgment rightly began at the
house of God. That is, began where men and
women professed to worship God and has now spread through the
rest of society. Those who will not hear the alarms
God is sounding are fools. Today, we, our culture, our society,
the whole of the Western world defend. We defend. We defend. Y'all still in school? School
still going on? You're out for Christmas. I don't
have one in school anymore. I don't remember. If you go to
school tomorrow, kids, you're going to hear these things defended.
Sometime tomorrow, I promise you, before you get out of class
at three o'clock, you'll hear these things defended. Will worship
in the name of divine worship. Everybody has his will, and we
dare not violate that. Sexual promiscuity in the name
of moral enlightenment. We defend abortion. That's a real pretty word for
the murder of unborn babies in the name of moral freedom. We
defend sodomy in the name of morality. Rape, brutality, and
murder are common things. They're common things. They're
even becoming common to children, even preteen children. The sociologists
tell us that many simply cannot discern right from wrong. They tell us that all deviant
behavior must be explained by declaring everybody else guilty.
We're told that we all bear responsibility for these things because we've
allowed so many to fall through the cracks, whatever that means. Every few months, we read or
hear about some horrific inhuman act of barbarism. Acts that you
can't even imagine a pack of rabid wolves committing. But
these are acts of intelligent, often brilliant adults. Very
few of you are aware of this. Three years ago, one of my nieces
tried to murder her parents, my youngest sister and her husband,
while they slept. Just a few months ago, she hung
herself in a jail cell. 1989, Eric and Lyle Menendez brutally
murdered their parents just to get their money early. 1994,
you'll remember Susan Smith strapped her two babies in the backseat
of her car and shoved it off into a lake in Union, South Carolina
and watched those boys drown. 1996, a 43-year-old man walked
into a, the Dunblane Primary School in
Dunblane, Scotland, and murdered 16 children. In 1999, we're all frequently
reminded that two high school seniors murdered 12 of their
classmates and a teacher in Columbine, Colorado. 2006, a 32-year-old man went
into a small Amish school, a one-room school, and shot 10 girls, 6
to 13, murdering five of them. 2007, there was a 23-year-old
student down in Blacksburg, Virginia at Virginia Tech who murdered
32 people and wounded 17 others. And now, we've got this horrible
slaughter of 20 innocent children. Kindergarten and first grade
boys and girls and teachers. And we all want
answers. I do, don't you? We want to know
how can these things happen? What kind of person does this?
How can anyone account for these barbaric, inhuman acts of cold-blooded
brutality? Only one answer can be found
that will explain deeds so evil, so horrifying. I suggest you
write this down. They are deeds, acts of evil
performed by people who've been given up by God in divine judgment
to the vile affections of their own reprobate minds and depraved
hearts. They're the acts of people who
have been given up by God in divine judgment to their own
depraved minds and reprobate hearts. A people described by
Timothy, or by Paul rather, in 2 Timothy 3, 3, as being without
natural affection. The things that naturally induce
us to kindness they don't have. The things that naturally induce
a child to love his mama, his daddy. that naturally induce
children to love brothers and sisters, just natural affection.
They're without natural affection, incontinent, fierce, despises
of God and all that's good. These acts of beastly barbarism
are performed by people God the Holy Ghost declares to be without
understanding, without natural affection, unmerciful. Really, such acts of cruelty,
as we've seen this past weekend, should not be as shocking to
us as they are. In fact, I'm shocked that we
don't see more atrocities of this kind. If our society teaches,
as it does, that it's okay for women to murder over a million
of their unborn babies every year by abortion. That's what
we do, Oscar, by law in this country. We're raising taxes
so we can do more of it. Our society, by law, murders
over a million babies every year while they're still in the womb.
And we wonder how could somebody do such an atrocious thing as
kill a few kindergarten and first grade children? We live in a
society given over to vile affections without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful. And yet, this massacre at Newtown
is alarming and should be. This horrific evil is an exact
fulfillment of the prophecy we read in 2 Timothy 3, is it not? Any question? This is exactly
what Paul said would come to pass. While this event then is
fresh in your mind and mine, I want us before we become hardened
to it, and we will, I want us to learn from it. The only way
we can do so is to go to the Word of God and see what God
has to say about such things as these. What does God have
to say? What are we to learn? I listened
Friday evening for a little while to some of the news and I was
just sick of hearing it. Listened just a little bit yesterday,
sick of hearing it, sick of hearing all that people had to say about
it, all the explanations that are
given. There's only one place where you're going to find any
explanation with any authority that can be trusted. It's in
this book. If we would understand the events
of time, we must interpret those events by the word of God, never
the other way around. Don't ever interpret this book
by the events you see brought to pass. Interpret events by
the word of God. So I want us to look into the
book of God for answers to this question. What should we learn
from the Newtown Massacre? I'll not keep you long, but I
want to strike while the iron's hot, and I've got a quiver full
of barbed arrows. With each one, I'm taking aim
at your heart, and I pray that God the Holy Spirit will cause
each arrow to hit its mark. Number one. The cold-blooded
massacre of those little children at Newtown displays with glaring
clarity the utter depravity of the human heart. And Eric, when
I talk about human heart, I'm talking about yours and mine.
They display the utter depravity of the human heart. I began the
day Friday. giving thanks to God for his
goodness and grace in Christ, asking him to keep me from the
evil that's in my heart. I begin every day that way. Praying
that he would keep our grandchildren from the evil that's around them
and especially from the evil that's in them. I ask that frequently
through the day. Thank God. for that restraining
grace by which he keeps me, me, from all that I know is in me. Adam Lanza, this young man, this
young beast, this young monster, Adam Lanza, was cut from the
same bolt of cloth as Larry Brown and Don Fortner. He was made
of the same stuff we're made of. The fact is there's not a
person in this room, I've chosen my words deliberately, there
is not a person in this room who is not capable of doing the
same thing he did Friday morning, not one. And yet skip my very
first reaction, my very first reaction, how could anybody do
that? Because I'm a proud, self-righteous
man just like you. The fact is, there is not a person
in this room, are you listening to me? You too. Not a person
in this room who's not capable of doing exactly what that young
man did Friday morning. Don't ever imagine otherwise.
The heart is deceitful above all things. Who could know it? This is what God says about your
imagination. Are you prepared to listen to
what God says about your imaginations? They're always evil. They're always evil. Aren't you
glad I can't read your mind? Aren't you glad your wife can't
read your mind? Aren't you glad your husband can't read your
mind? Aren't you glad your children can't read your mind? The imaginations
of your heart are always evil. That's all that's in man. We
read in 2 Timothy 2, 26, that the wicked with these imaginations
that are always evil from their youth, they're taken captive
by Satan at his will. Fraudness is in the heart. It devises evil continually.
When God saved us by his grace, this is the condition in which
he found us, lost ruined, spiritually dead, and totally depraved. Turn to Ephesians chapter 1, chapter 2. Listen to the counsel of God's
prophet. Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye
that seek the Lord. Look unto the rock which you're
hewn, and to the hole of the pit which you're digged. What
rock did God do you out of? What pit did God dig me out of? Ephesians 2 verse 1. And you
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein
in time past you walked according to the course of this world,
according to the spirit prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. among
whom also we all had our conversation. That is to say, this is how we
were living. This is the way we lived in this
world. In time past, in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, just like everybody else.
We, like everybody else, live with a conscious awareness of
God's wrath and God's judgment, and yet we live according to
the lust of our flesh, doing what we wanted to do to please
ourselves. That's where God found us. But
God, oh, what good words, but God, but God, who is rich in
mercy, for his great grace, wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved. Though we are now saved by God's
grace, washed in the blood of his darling Son, redeemed by
Christ, Born again by his spirit, sanctified, made righteous, forgiven. All our sins washed away, made
holy, made partakers of the divine nature. Yet still, the old nature
of flesh is unchanged. We're sinners still. Fred Tuttle,
I can, one second. Have my mind and my heart fixed
on the things of God, eternity, Christ and glory, rejoicing in
Him. And the next second, those evil
imaginations, planning wickedness, plotting evil, devising iniquity,
consume your thoughts. Because the believer yet has
in him that old man Adam called flesh. and is just as wicked
as ever, and it never gets better, warring against the Spirit, but
always there. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. And if God Almighty should lift
His restraining hand for a moment, there's not one soul in this
building right now who's not capable of doing what Adam Lanza
did Friday morning. Not one. Not one. You see, anything
you're capable of thinking, you're capable of doing. Anything you're
capable of thinking, you're capable of doing. Not me. I hope it won't
take too much for God to teach you better. Number two, how thankful
we ought to be for the blessed restraint of God's holy law. of such horrifying things as
we've seen these past few days, I give thanks to God for the
restraint of His law upon the consciences of wicked men. Now
understand what I'm telling you. We are free from the law in Christ. Believers are not under the law,
not ruled by law, not constrained by law, not motivated by law,
nowhere in the New Testament, nowhere. Dead to the law by the
body of Christ. We're free from the law. We live
by grace. We live by the grace of God in
Christ Jesus the Lord. And Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone who believes. That does not mean
the law has no use. Oh, no. The law is very useful. We must simply learn to use the
law lawfully. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 1.
Let me give you very quickly four Plainly revealed uses of
the law. Number one, it identifies sin. The law identifies sin. The reason
the tribesman in New Guinea knows it's wrong to steal his neighbor's
wife is because God wrote his law in his heart by nature. The
law identifies sin. Paul said, I had not known sin,
but by the law. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. Number two, the law of God condemns men. condemns many women
for sin in their own consciences by exposing our guilt. Now, you
want to know what sin is? You read God's law. Churches invent all kinds of
things. Religious folks invent all kinds of things. People say,
well, do you think that's a sin? It don't matter a hill of beans
what you think's a sin. It don't matter. I'm not even
interested in what you think's a sin because what you think's
wrong. God's law identifies sin, nothing else. And God's law condemns
sin in the conscience of the sinner. We know that what things
whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law
that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become
guilty before God. A simple illustration. A little
boy sticks his hand in the cookie jar and he'd go, looks around. Well, who told me it was wrong?
It was written on his heart. My mama said, don't do it. And
he disobeyed. It was written on his heart. He knows it. So
it is with everything else. The law condemns sin in us. And then thirdly, the law points
guilty sinners to Christ. Thank God for that. The law constantly
tells you and constantly tells me we must have a substitute,
someone to obey God for us, someone to satisfy God's justice on our
behalf. The law was our schoolmaster
unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. And then
we're told here in first Timothy chapter one that the law of God
is useful by the threat of judgment stamped upon the conscience.
to restrain lawless rebels from committing all the evil that's
in them. First Timothy one verse eight. We know that the law is
good if a man use it lawfully. And this is the only lawful use
of the law. Knowing this, that the law is
not made for a righteous man. That is, it is not made for one
who trusts Christ, but for the lawless and disobedient, for
the ungodly and for sinners. for unholy and profane, for murderers
of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers,
for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers,
for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing
that's contrary to sound doctrine. The law is made to restrain men
from evil. Can you imagine what it would
be like to live in this world if men and women were not restrained
from doing all that's in their hearts. Oh. What would it be like if God
gave everybody up to a reprobate mind? What would it be like to
live in this world if God didn't restrain wicked men from the
evil that's in them by the mere fact of his law written on their
conscience? Third, The massacre of those
innocents at Newtown, according to what we read in Romans 1 and
2 Timothy 3, are direct results of divine judgment, direct results
of God's judgment upon this generation. I'm sometimes asked by people
who don't know me very well, do you think we're headed for
judgment? And my response is we've been there for a while.
We've been there for a while. We live in a generation under
the judgment of God. And rightly so, because we live
in a generation that lives with its fist shoved in God's face. These things are forerunners
of wrath to come, which ought to remind us of the absolute
certainty of divine judgment. When many women are given up
by God to their own reprobate minds to do what they, what we
are capable of doing, words have not yet been coined. to describe
the evil that might be done. Read this book, then read your
newspapers and understand these things. There is a judgment that
falls upon obstinate sinners that precedes death. Turn to
Proverbs Chapter 1. We haven't read this in a while.
It needs reading real often. Come here week after week, Sunday
morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night, and hear the gospel of
God's grace and stick your fingers in your ears and say to God,
shut up, I don't want to hear you. Say, God, get out of my
way. God just may get out of your
way. There is a judgment that shuts men up in reprobation that
precedes death. Proverbs chapter 1 verse 23,
turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit
unto you. I will make known my words unto
you because I have called and you refused. I stretched out
my hand and no man regarded, but you've said it not all my
counsel and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at
your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh.
When your fear cometh as a desolation, when your destruction cometh
as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you,
then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall
seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated
knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would
none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof.
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be
filled with their own devices in Chapter 29 the wise man says
he that being often reproved Harden at his neck Shall suddenly
be destroyed and that without remedy There is a judgment called
Reprobation that shuts men up for hell as sure as if they were
there that precedes death And there is an appointed day of
judgment yet to come. God hath appointed a day in which
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men. You're going to
meet God in judgment. You're going to meet God in judgment. Prepare to meet your God. Will
you do something for me? Everybody here, young and old,
do something for me. Do this. That's how far you are from meeting
God in judgment. Just a breath. Just a breath. And God demands complete righteousness
and complete satisfaction. What do you have to offer him?
God demands perfect obedience and complete satisfaction, atonement
for all sin. And it's to be found nowhere
except in Christ Jesus. He is the refuge for guilty sinners. Behold a king shall reign in
righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment and a man shall
be as in hiding place from the wind and to cover it from the
tempest as Rivers of water in a dry place as the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land those cities of refuge Six of
them through the land that God gave the children of Israel.
I places of refuge where a man might flee from the avenger of
blood and be kept in safety. That's Christ the Lord. Flee
away to the Savior and find refuge in him. Number four, perhaps
above all else, this horrible act of beastly brutality, violence
and cold blooded murder teaches and reinforces and causes me
to give thanks to our great God the God of all grace for the
blessedness of his sovereign, free, distinguishing grace. There is no hope for your soul
but God's distinguishing grace. No hope for you but that God
do for you what you will not do for yourself, what you cannot
do for yourself. No hope for you, but that God
cut you out from the rest of the race and give you life and
faith in Christ Jesus. The fact is, there's no possibility of you
ever knowing my God or His grace, except God Almighty break down
the door of your heart and force His way in by the holy violence
of His grace. compelling you, making you, causing
you to come to Christ in faith. You mean preacher? God forces
people to be saved? That's the only way anybody ever
gets saved. Well, I just can't imagine that. That's because you hadn't found
out anything about it yet. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest
and causes to approach unto thee. This much I know. The only difference
there is between regenerate sinners and reprobate sinners. The only
difference there is between you and me and Adam Lanza is the
difference and distinction made by God's grace. Who maketh thee
to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? God chose
us. Christ redeemed us. The spirit
of God has called us. Grace preserves us. And that's
the only distinction there is. That's the only distinction there
is, none other. One last thing, thinking about
the murders of those little children, 20 babies, kindergartners, first
grade. I've been caused to think and
meditate a little more upon the glory of the world to come. I
have no hesitancy at all in saying this and no fear of being repudiated. Father, the murder of those children
was an act of horrendous evil on the part of Adam Lanza. It
was an act of great mercy on the part of God, their Heavenly
Father. For it was by this means that the Lord God was pleased
to call 20 more of his elect home to glory. Turn to Isaiah
57. Isaiah 57. The righteous perisheth
and nobody pays any attention. No man layeth it to heart. And
merciful men are taken away. Last Monday, we bid farewell
to our dear brother and friend, P.J. Nevels, a man made righteous
by the grace of God and made merciful, taken away. None considering
that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. Brother
Bob Ponce called my attention to this text on Tuesday night. His first thing came to his mind.
He shall enter into peace. They shall rest in their beds,
each one walking in his uprightness. And then Friday morning, these
20 slaughtered. Isn't it wonderful that PJ didn't
have to view that thing the way we're viewing it? He didn't have
to see that thing the way we saw it. He didn't have to lose
any sleep over it. And I'll tell you something even
more wonderful than that. These 20 babies have been taken
away from evil to come, not to sin, not to sin. Brother Don, can you be sure
of that? Oh, yes. David said concerning
his son, he shall not come to me, but I shall go to him. And
the law of God states plainly that no man shall ever be sent
to hell for Adam's sin. But the soul that sinneth, it
shall die. Babies are born sinners. They
go astray from the womb, speaking lies. But they haven't sinned
at the similitude of Adam's transgression, with a conscious awareness of
rebellion against God. And they dying in infancy, and
all who die as imbeciles, are redeemed by the blood of Christ,
chosen by God, born again by His Spirit, and carried into
glory, every one of them. Every one of them. So while I weep in the pain of society
and weep with those parents, I weep with joy in God's goodness.
His infinite wisdom, goodness, and grace. How good. If I could take that 20 set of parents
and wrap my arms around them, if I could take them, Celeste,
these were your babies, I'd wrap my arms around you and David
and I'd say, what a privilege God's given you. A privilege
few people on this earth have. You got one child in glory. You
got one with Christ. dead, sure, certain. These are
with the Redeemer. Few have such privilege. They've
entered the world of bliss and glory. And one day, our God,
our gracious God, will take these slaughtered babies and show them
to wandering worlds as monuments of His mercy, trophies of His
grace, jewels of His crown, and shining lights of His love. And
if they could speak to you, they would say, my, my, my, look how
the Lord loved me. Look how the Lord loved me. Oh, how much we owe to God our
Savior for His great grace. Amen.