Feb 18
Mass Murder: Once Again, Once Again
There has been another mass murder incident on American soil. Last Thursday, a gunman
opened fire on a geology class at Northern Illinois University. The perpetrator was identified
as 27-year-old former student Steven Kazmierczak.
Armed with three handguns and a pump-action shotgun, Kazmierczak stepped from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on the class. He killed five students before committing suicide.
A total of 22 people were shot. Four people, including the gunman, died at the scene; two others died later at area hospitals. Sheila Cosgrove was taking notes in the fifth row when the gunman opened fire. This is how she described the tragedy:
"I just heard shots, boom, boom, boom, and then I just kept going, I kept going. I saw blood dripping on the aisle and I just got up towards when I got to the end of the
chairs because I couldn't crawl anymore. I was right by the door. I stood up and looked behind me and he was still shooting; he was shooting towards the other side of the aisle and I kind of felt his glare kind of looking at me and I just turned around
really fast and kept going."
Investigators have no clear motive for the shooting. There are signs that Kazmierczak
had a troubled past. He was discharged from the Army after only a few months when he
could not adapt to military life. He had a short-lived career as a corrections officer at the
Rockville County Correctional Facility. He lost that job when, as one supervisor said, "He
just did not come back to work."
In my update for December 10 of last year, I wrote, "Once again, tragedy has come to our
nation in the form of mass murder. Robert A. Hawkins opened fire with a rifle at the
Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people before taking his
own life." I knew when I wrote the article that it would only be a matter of time before I would be addressing another high-profile mass murder event. I would have never guessed that the time span would only be a couple months.
The reason I knew this tragedy would soon come our way is because of the acceleration factor Bible prophecy predicts. Jesus said the tribulation hour would be preceded by birth pangs, and we are certainly seeing them.
God is slowly lifting His hand of protection from this world. As the process continues,
the forces of darkness will be allowed to inspire more horrific acts of violence.
It hasn't even been a year since the Virginia Tech massacre. In that event, Gunman Seung
-Hui Cho opened fire at the Virginia university, killing 33 before committing suicide.
Of course, that event was the largest shooting incident of its type in US history.
Gun violence has become so common, the level of shock required to capture national attention has been steadily rising. Just this past month, two other shootings have only received brief coverage by the major news media. Last week, a nursing student shot and killed two women and then herself in a classroom at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. On February 2, five women were shot to death inside a suburban Chicago clothing store in what appears to be an armed robbery turned deadly.
The secular world is at a total loss to explain why mass murder is on the rise.
We've always had people with emotional troubles, but they've never committed acts of this magnitude.
Mankind could avoid this heartache by realizing that these events are driven by a rejection of God. I’m afraid we will only see worse things to come. Unless the Lord comes to yank me away from my keyboard, I expect to post future reports on the mass murder on a whole new level. One only needs to look at Iraq to see where the mass murder trend is headed.
In Matthew 24, verse 37, Jesus prophesied that "as it was in the days of Noah, so
shall it be in the days just before He returns." Well, how were things in the days of
Noah?
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Earth also was
corrupt before God, and the Earth was filled with violence" (Gen. 6:5,11).
-- Todd
Dealing in Darkness
There is a sense that deals are being made in the dark, back-channel recesses of the Middle East. It is a foreboding feeling, like the times when one has the impression that there’s something lurking about somewhere that threatens--a looming calamity.
News from that region of end-times prophecy, sketchy as it is, does little to dissipate that ominous cerebral cloud. The following includes ever-so-slight bits of illumination to allow the probing into things one senses is afoot in the city that is the center of the world, from God’s holy perspective.
"The issue of Jerusalem will not be postponed until the end of negotiations," Ahmed Qurei, head of the Palestinian negotiating team was quoted by Israel Radio as saying Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quick to deny any deal had been discussed that would include putting Jerusalem on the table first in negotiations toward establishment of a Palestinian state. Olmert said: "With all due respect, [Qurei] doesn't decide the agenda for the talks. We established a rule that Jerusalem would be discussed last and that's clear to both sides" (Qurei: J'lem talks won't be postponed , Jerusalem Post, February 15, 2008).
Seems pretty cut and dried, doesn’t it? And, haven't members of the Arab leadership over the years proven that they consider a lie the truth, no matter the lie, if it advances the purpose they desire? Shouldn’t we just attribute this to another such attempt to tell the Israelis and the rest of us what they think we will swallow hook, line, and sinker?
The Israeli prime minister is telling the truth; the Arab negotiator is lying, right?
Not so fast. These days we have had so many things leaking out in secret, so many outside international community-types feeding us bits and pieces from so many angles, that the truth is as often as not lost in the dark clouds of diplomatic obfuscation.
If Mr. Olmert is so up-front with his fellow countrymen and with us, his various associates telling us that Jerusalem is definitely not on the negotiating table at all regarding the matter of concocting a Palestinian state, then why is he speaking out of the other side of his mouth in the following?
He said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that even Israel's "good friends" see the country's future based on the pre-Six Day War 1967 borders, including a divided Jerusalem; but he added that he did not envisage a permanent accord along the precise '67 lines, describing Ma'aleh Adumim, for example, as an "indivisible" part of Jerusalem and Israel.
It is true that Olmert did not outright say he was for the division of the City of David. But his politician-smooth circumventing language clearly blows away some of that smoke, if one looks and listens closely.
Seems it’s not only the Arab leadership that uses sleight-of-tongue to accomplish their desired goals--in this case, peace in the region at all costs, a peace that God has forewarned will never stand.
And the American diplomatic contingent, along with all other international players in the deceptive secrecy surrounding the “road map to peace” at any price stands guilty before the Lord, who forbids the dividing of His land. The surreptitious actions will bring on Armageddon –God-guaranteed (read Joel 3:2).
The entire process of trying to twist Israel’s arm into accepting a further division of the land God gave them and to divide Jerusalem has been done in the dark, secret places where unrighteousness dwells. The Word of God says about dealing in this darkness:
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret” (Eph. 5:11-12).
Jesus condemned the sinful acts that transpire in the spiritually darkened recesses of this fallen world.
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (Jn. 3:19).
God must consider no deed of greater darkness than dealing treacherously with the city down into which He reached to tear the veil in the Holy of Holies when His Son died for the sins of man. To His own, which include the people of Israel, the land of Israel, and the city of Jerusalem, God says:
“For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his
eye” (Zech. 2:8).
--Terry
