FENCING GOD OUT

He was an angry man with mental health issues who pushed hard against fences.

*Social fences called him an outsider, and he dated a 13-year-old when he was 18.

*The Air Force fenced him out, discharging him with "bad conduct" after he served a year in confinement for domestic violence (hitting his wife and causing her toddler to have a fractured skull).

*He bumped into the law's fence when he repeatedly hit his puppy in the head, staked it out in the hot Texas sun without water, and then was charged with cruelty to animals.

*By the age of 26, his behavior had fenced out two wives and also his second wife's parents.

*In the end, he decided to fence God out, declaring himself an atheist and destroying what God had made and loved.

What an unhappy soul who caused unhappiness for so many others!  Surely as he exhibited all those signs for all those years, it was God's people who were the ones ministering to him and reaching out to him with God's love.  Now we can trust God to know how to handle this troubled, wayward soul.

Know that line from Martin Luther's hymn A MIGHTY FORTRESS?  It goes "and though this life with devils filled should threaten to undo us...we will not fear for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us".  It was not God's truth that triumphed through the Texas shooter, but the personification of the devil's hate.

God's truth is proclaimed in the beautiful response of the congregation of First Baptist Sutherland Springs (especially the pastor's statement "I don't understand, but I know my God does")...and in the Southern Baptist Convention's response to offer to pay for all the funerals...and in the countless acts of love and support.

Luther's hymn says that our ancient foe seeks to work us woe.  In our modernity, we scoff at talk about the devil or hell.  Instead, we immerse ourselves in the "God is love" mentality.  We do that at our peril.

Of course God is all-loving, but He also is all-just...all-powerful...all-merciful etc. in equal measures.  In His justice, would He give us eternity with killers?  If there ever was a time to read God's love letter and consider His whole counsel...it is now.

This sad young man may have thought he bought a ticket that would extinguish his unhappy consciousness.  But he is never more alive than he is today.  There is no such thing as annihilation.  People will spend eternity in full consciousness...either with the Lord or in the Lake of Fire.  Jesus said "then they (the unsaved) will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life".

Sin bears an eternal consequence because it is committed against an eternal God.  But God is rich in mercy and made a way for sinners...when He took His wrath against sin out on His own Son.  Rejecting the Son leaves God's wrath to fall on whoever owes sin's debt.  We all are sinners; either Jesus pays or we pay.

Look at these happy, precious faces.  These people are the Holcombe family, just one family affected by the church shooting (plus a family friend, bottom right).  How does any one family sustain such grief?

They all died except the girl in the middle of top row who was shot, but survived.  The lady in the middle of bottom row was pregnant.

In all, twenty-six dear souls went into Jesus' presence Sunday.  Perhaps they all had already surrendered to Jesus as Savior and Lord.  You can bet when they went to church that morning, they had NO IDEA that their time allotment would soon be up.

Now their friends and family are left to grieve for them, as well as distressed strangers from all over our country.  But would any of the twenty-six want a return ticket after what they've seen?

#this world is a staging ground for the next
#hell is real
#getintheboatwithJesus
#prayforGod'schurch