UNLEASHED --
MONSTERS SERIES, PART 8

Jeremiah 17:9, Ephesians 4:17-24 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
8 October 2006
All Rights Reserved

This past week a 32 year-old man walked into an Amish schoolhouse in a little town named Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, carrying guns, a great deal of ammunition, bolts, zip ties, and tape, among other things. He dismissed all of the adults and the boys. He took ten girls hostage, tied them up, and then proceeded to barricade the doors. The teacher ran to a nearby farmhouse to call the police since the Amish, in keeping with their custom, did not have a telephone.

The man had spent days assembling his gear and planning his attack on the most defenseless of people. He had written suicide notes to his wife and children. After getting the barricade built he called his wife from a cell phone to make idiotic remarks about why he was doing this. The police arrived much sooner than he apparently thought, and once the jig was up he quickly shot all ten children and himself. At the time of this writing, five of the girls are dead, four are in critical condition, and one was upgraded to serious condition.

One would think this was an isolated incident, but another man took hostages earlier this week at a school in Bailey, Colorado, where he managed to sexually molest one girl before shooting her and himself to death. And if that were not enough a school principal in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, was shot to death this week by a fifteen year-old student who was angry about a reprimand. I cannot confirm this statistic, but I heard on the radio that there were 25 such incidents among the 119,000 public schools in America during the first month of the fall semester.

Crimes like these are disturbing to all of us. We hear reports of them from around the world, yet it seems that Western society has fostered an environment which produces people willing to commit crimes which make no sense. We are clearly leading the pack in serial and mass murderers. But what do you gain when you end up dead at the end of your molesting and killing spree? What form of moral equivalence makes detention, suspension, or peer ridicule a motive for murder? The man who killed the Amish girls had no issue with the Amish. A variety of his statements hurriedly collected for broadcast offered ridiculous reasons for his actions. We are desperate to hear that there is some understandable motive for such heinous crimes, yet we know in our hearts that there cannot be. And the only thing worse than murder for an understandable reason is senseless murder.

The people of the world are horrified to see how effectively Islamic extremists take even little children and teach them to hate Jews and Christians. Impressionable minds are programmed with a view that Allah grants salvation and eternal blessing to all those who commit acts of mass murder suicide. They hear it in school, they hear it at home, they hear it at their mosque, and their society not only tolerates it but venerates those who murder in the name of jihad. Portraits of so-called martyrs are painted on buildings where candles are lit and flowers are placed. It is a most painful fact to learn that entire cultures have been shaped not only to send a few such murderers into town squares and buses, but to generate them almost endlessly.

But at least we understand where they come from. Islamic extremists have perfected what amounts to a jihadist factory system which manufactures them and then pays the parents when the child dies. The burning question is how Western society, particularly America, generated about twenty-five successful or would-be schoolhouse murderers just in the month of September 2006, but for no reason that makes any sense. Who is programming our people and how are they doing it? Where is the factory?

1. NO MONSTER FACTORY NEEDED

The Bible gives an answer to this question that we do not want to hear, namely, that no factory for monsters is needed. Jeremiah 17:9 contains the bad news: "The heart is more deceitful than all else /And is desperately sick; /Who can understand it?" The heart is a reference to the center of the person, and in particular, to the core of soul or spirit. We immediately learn two things about the core of all fallen people, first that we have an overweening capacity for deceit of others and ourselves, and we have a core that is fatally sick and wicked.

The self-deceit can be seen in the Amish schoolgirl killer's irrational assertions about his motivations. There is nothing he could ever say to justify his actions, yet he believed that his actions were justified. He was deceived, but he also participated in deceiving himself. The sick wickedness of heart is seen by his intent to molest and his successful mass murder of innocent girls.

Now comes the part that is hard to swallow. The word of God does not say that we are all as bad as that murderer, but it says that we share the same deceitful, sick, wicked heart. In other words, no monster needs to be manufactured. Sin already dwells at the core of every person. All that is necessary to see the handiwork of sin is to remove the restraints. Once unleashed no depth of evil behavior is impossible for us.

Whether they understand this or not, that is how the Islamic extremists generate suicide killers. They have managed to create an almost vacuum-sealed environment where they have removed every normal control from the hatred resident in every heart and directed it at Jews and Christians. Inside this bubble no shred of truth can overcome the blackness of deception. If we point out that hundreds of practicing Muslims were killed in the attacks of 9/11 they just scream back: "Martyrs for the cause of holy jihad! Allu'ah akbar!" I am certain that these so-called martyrs were not consulted to see if they would agree to be martyred.

Islamic extremism has established heads of state who enforce no controls on hatred but rather foment it. Their schools use textbooks which teach hatred of Christians and Jews. The sermons in their mosques explicitly use Hitler-like propaganda techniques to dehumanize the enemy, Israel and the Great Satan, as America is called. And then the family either allows its members to practice terrorist jihad or actively promotes it. Mothers have been quoted voicing their sense of honor that one of their own children should complete a mass murder suicide mission against non-combatants. The monster of sin needs no factory, and the terrorists have successfully removed every shred of control over the aspect of murderous hatred. We should expect to see many such acts in the near future.

But what coordinated plan has removed the restraints from the sinful hearts of Westerners? Let us simply review some recent developments in our culture to see the nearly total removal of restraint. We have taught our children that they don't even have to spell in order to write through the so-called whole language curriculum. We've taught them that they do not need to complete their school work in order to pass to the next grade through the so-called social pass system. It is possible to receive a high school diploma and be functionally illiterate. We have said that you do not need to be married anymore to have sex. We have said that you do not have to care for any child which may be born of your sexual activity since you can just abort it.

We have written into law that you do not need to stay married to the person with whom you have made a marriage covenant through so-called no-fault divorce. We are currently writing into law that your marriage partner does not need to be of the opposite sex. We have structured our government so that you do not have to work in order to have food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. In spite of immigration laws on the books we have allowed millions of people who are in the country illegally to live here, work here, and receive many government benefits. Recent attempts have been made to provide illegals with driver's licenses and voting rights. Every form of degeneracy has found its way into our entertainment. In general, we have told our citizens that they are not expected to follow any universal standards of morality.

Western society has deliberately unleashed the monster which dwells in all of our hearts. Our deception is so complete that we are surprised when the monster kills Amish girls or school principals. We should expect to see an ever-increasing flood of heinous acts perpetrated by people who have lost all sense of restraint. I advise you to plan on it.

2. THE ANATOMY OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS

The Apostle Paul described the anatomy of spiritual darkness as he encouraged believers in Christ to walk in the light: "So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness" (Ephesians 4:17-19).

Darkness begins with an absence of truth and then reshapes the life. Without Christ we walk--meaning that we live--in the "futility of [our] minds." The word futility also translates as vanity or emptiness. We may have heads full of facts but we are utterly empty of spiritual truth and wisdom and our behavior will surely reveal it. That this feature of society was on the increase was noticed by many great writers of the twentieth century. T.S. Eliot wrote a famous poem entitled Hollow Men. C.S. Lewis wrote an essay entitled Men without Chests. G. K. Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy that sin was one of the only theological truths which could be learned simply by observation. But he noted that the knowledge of sin is so lacking at this time in the West that any apologetic for Christ would now have to start with something else.

Paul wrote that this willful ignorance excludes or alienates us from the life of God, the only real source of life. It produces hardness of heart and blindness. We become callous so that our senses do not react to obvious truths. Why did not the Amish murderer arrive in the schoolhouse, look the children in the face, and immediately think: "These are just kids! They have nothing to do with my problems. I need to walk out of here."? Because the removal of the restraints from the monster of sin made his mind dark and his heart lacking in any feeling of right or wrong.

It gets worse. Spiritual darkness also causes every person to have active desires for sensuality, lewdness, and every form of impurity. Dr. James Dobson participated in a president's task force on pornography and he commented after looking at what was available for purchase that no form of obscenity was lacking. Men who start by lusting after women quickly move to homosexuality, sado-masochism, bestiality, and child porn. In fact, Paul writes that those in spiritual darkness actually become "greedy" for such expressions of perversity. Their desires pass all bounds. And women have their own ways of expressing the total lack of restraint as they drive up credit card debt, soft-core porn sales, and abortion statistics.

The monsters in our hearts are being let out today like never before. If God has told us that our hearts are like this, we should not be surprised by anything we will see in the times to come. We should not be surprised at any temptation which comes upon us, and we should be ready for whatever comes.

3. RESTRAINING THE MONSTER

No human plan has ever been able to restrain the monster. I heard another statistic recently which I cannot confirm that the Alcoholics Anonymous program has a success rate of upwards of 90 percent when the person trusts the real Christ as his or her "higher power" and that the success rate drops near fifteen percent when some other higher power is used. The simple fact is that we need Christ to slay the beast in our hearts and then grant us the wisdom and strength we need to restrain the remaining tendencies of sin within us. So Paul wrote in the continuation of our passage in Ephesians: "But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth" (Ephesians 4:20-24).

You will notice immediately that Paul bases the path to restraint of the monster on truth, specifically the truth of Christ. There is an assumption in this passage that Paul is speaking to those who have already repented of their sins and believed in Christ. Then in contrasting believers with unrestrained people he writes: "But you did not learn Christ in this way..." Western culture has worked to discard and blot out the knowledge of God, and it seems clear that it is not only humans who are behind the decline of our civilization. Curiously, even the Islamic extremists must blot out the residual knowledge of God in their own culture to generate murderous hatred. Non-extremist Moslems argue that their faith condemns the murder of innocents.

So the first thing we must do to respond to the reality of having a monster living in our hearts is to gain a knowledge of the truth of Christ Jesus, and that simply cannot be done without receiving Christ as Lord and Savior. The illumination of the Holy Spirit is necessary for learning Christ. The restoration of the knowledge of God must begin with us. We need to soak ourselves in the truth of the word of God and pray it into our lives, then we must trumpet God's truth to a culture which is sliding into deep darkness.

The second challenge that Paul gives is that as we renew our minds in Christ we deliberately learn to walk in the truths we are learning. We must "...lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that [we] be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." This is an enduring decision to humbly place ourselves under the restraints of God's truth. God is giving the wholesome controls we need if we will only accept them. This is the greatest affront to the spirit of throwing off every restraint, and it is the only hope for joy in this life and redemption in the next.

Thirdly, we must become willing to fight for the supports which God gives to bring good even in a fallen world. God gives government to establish good and punish evil: "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God" (Romans 13:1). But governments do not automatically do good, they must be caused to do so by the people in them. We have a responsibility not to drop out of the process of governing, and to speak truth to the powers that be.

The school structures which train jihadists among Islamic extremists and serial killers in the West are supposed to be transmitting not only knowledge but basic values. Jesus said: "A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). You will find almost nothing about schools for children in the Bible other than that the education of every child is the prime responsibility of the parents. Any method other than direct instruction must be done in loco parentis, that is, on the wishes and authority of the parents because so much is at stake.

Governments and schools provide restraints, but the family is where the greatest restraints function: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart" (Colossians 3:18-21). Read these verses carefully! If the assertion and acceptance of holy restraint is not learned in the family it is unlikely to be learned elsewhere.

Finally, churches are supposed to be the fountain of truth for living God's way, as Paul wrote to Timothy: "...Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:2-4). People are going to turn away from the truth of Christ in vast numbers in order to fulfill their desire to cast off restraint, but we must not let this stop us from trumpeting the truth of God's word. We should never try to incorporate those who refuse sound doctrine into Christ's church just to get people in the doors.

The monster of sin is real. As Chesterton wrote, just look about you. The truth and power of Christ provide the only way to slay the beast and restrain the tendencies. If you have not received Christ you must start there. If you are a believer, check your own willingness to accept the restraints Christ imposes for your good. They are described in his word, and nowhere else. Perhaps the revelations of evil we are seeing in our society will help us take God seriously.