When there are no words or response.
After a tragedy like the school shooting yesterday, words seem so inadequate. What do you say to the grieving parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents? When your words and response to this tragedy seem without weight, we feel useless, looking for answers. One of the first things people like to do is blame God. If he is a merciful God, why did he let this happen? “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Evil is what occurred yesterday, planted in the mind of that young man by the master of darkness. This is the time when Satan rules this earth, waiting the day of judgement, and condemning every person he can to take with him into the lake of fire. The Bible says we will be given all the answers when we get to heaven, why things like this were allowed to happen at all. Until that time, we must prepare, and prepare our loved ones, for any evil that may come our way. I know we don’t want to be told how we have to live or act. We feel oppressed and confined by any moral standards that our parents lived by. We want to go to a church that is a feel good, do good, and not be convicted by any preaching of the Bible from the pulpit. Most of you know I love music and use songs to illustrate my thoughts when words fail me. This song by the Rochesters, ties it up and puts a bow on it as far as I am concerned.
HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
by The Rochesters
The old preacher man stood there in the pulpit,
The church house was empty almost;
His eyes filled with tears, his mind filled with memories,
Of not so long ago.
When the church house was full, not one pew was empty,
The altar was stained with Saints’ tears;
As he stands there this morning and sounds out the warning;
Once again letting them know.
There’s a Heaven to gain, and a Hell to shun;
The way is still straight, there’s a race to be run.
You can live as you please, but you must pay the cost;
And the highway to Heaven still goes by the cross.
Some of the members thought he was “old fashion”,
Unwilling to change with the times.
So they found a new church with more modern-day preachers,
Who were willing to let things go by.
But the old preacher stood for what he believed in,
And what he had preached forty years;
As he stands there this morning in a near empty church house,
His opening remarks are these words:
There’s a Heaven to gain, and a Hell to shun;
The way is still straight, there’s a race to be run.
You can live as you please, but you must pay the cost;
And the highway to Heaven still goes by the cross.
Now the old preacher man stands there in that city;
The city he’s preached of so long.
Oh, but he’s never seen such a great congregation
All gathered to welcome him home
And he’s never heard more beautiful singing,
That is coming from that heavenly band.
He’s preached his sermon,
He’s carried his last burden.
He’s a rest in that heavenly land.
But He’d still wants you to know.
There’s a Heaven to gain, and a Hell to shun;
The way is still straight, there’s a race to be run.
You can live as you please, but you must pay the cost;
And the highway to Heaven still goes by the cross.
That about sums it up, you must go by the cross, under the blood to go to heaven. All the good you do in this world does not qualify your admittance to heaven, only redemption by the blood. Have you traveled the highway that led you by the cross? What is blocking your road, pride, selfishness, greed, and want of fame? There is only one road, and only one way that leads to heaven. All other roads lead to eternal separation from God.
As parents it is our moral obligation to give our family what they need to stand against evil. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” We know what we are up against; why would we leave our children unprotected? Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
We as authors have been known to glorify sick people like the gunman yesterday. It depends on your own moral compass, and your hunger for fame and notoriety, that leads you into that gray area. It doesn’t make you much different than the gunman does it? I would rather take the high road and be invisible in the literary world, than have that on my conscious.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
I John 1:7
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:14
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Ephesians 1:7
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
Revelations 5:9