Five days ago, Nikolas Cruz, a mentally-disturbed 19-year old walked onto the campus of his former high school–Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, South Florida–and shot and killed 17 students with a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. After being apprehended by authorities, he soon was crying miserably about what he had done.
It seems like almost every month in the United States of American–which has been the leader of the free world and greatest nation on earth for centuries–it has one of these mass shootings by a deranged person using some type of gun or guns. It is not a radical extremist calling himself a Muslim, as in other parts of the world. These shooting are by our own homegrown. Oftentimes, it happens at high schools.
The U.S. has such lax laws about hand guns and even rifles. It is due largely to the Second Amendment of our Constitution. It is partly because our nation was founded in the new world and that our forefathers revolted from Great Britain’s unjust rule, so that our citizens were most concerned about being able to protect themselves.
But I think there is going to come a time when Americans have to admit that our forefathers could not have foreseen the technological advancement of weapons that can do so much damage. I believe that, in light of what American has been going through about these mass shootings, if men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin lived today, they would either call for a revision of our Second Amendment or some other interpretation of it.
Almost all other civilized nations in the world do not have such a problem with mass shootings like we do. In fact, our homicide rate with guns is one of the highest in the world. Many people throughout the world think the U.S. is a very violent society and that it is gun-crazy.
President Trump responded to this shooting incident by tweeting only about mental illness and nothing about the need for stricter gun laws. That’s partly because the National Rifle Association is one of the strongest lobby organizations in America; it is opposed to stricter gun legislation; and it is a big supporter of the Republican Party. The NRA is even against outlawing semi-automatic weapons. I think this prolonged NRA stance against more restrictive gun legislation makes it an evil organization.
I’ve watched and listened on TV to some of these students at that Parkland high school. They are articulate and inspired with emotion. I think President Donald Trump sounds like a bloomin’ idiot about this tragedy compared to those students. In just days, these kids are trying to start a movement of stricter gun control in America. It’s way overdue. They are blaming members of Congress. They are going to stage a demonstration at the capitol in Washington D.C. They are calling for demonstrations all over the country.
Women are supporting them. The Women’s March organization is calling for students to organize and demonstrate against alleged Congressional inaction on gun violence. They are calling for school students all over the country to walk out of their schools on March 14, one month after the Parkland, South Florida, high school shooting. They are calling for a similar thing to happen weeks later, on April 20.
I think such a movement eventually will grow and get things done. But it’s going to involve more than stronger gun control. I believe that Bible prophecy indicates that someday there will be no more guns in the world. Wars will be fought only with primitive weapons, such as swords, spears, bows and arrows, and clubs. Moreover, I think these biblical texts require that our world is going to disarm itself of all modern weaponry. And I’m talking about before the end of world, thus before Jesus returns. Read my post, “Someday, No More Guns.” Yes, it will take a while.
Many Christians, especially many Evangelicals and all Dispensationalists, who specialize in biblical prophecy, do not believe that these biblical texts I cite in this post are supposed to be understood literally due to their eschatological misunderstandings. Consequently, many such people are opposed to stricter gun legislation. Read the following post about this: “‘The Doctrine of Imminence’ Prevents Abolishing Guns.”
Here are some of these Bible verses in the NRSV which pertain to those latter days:
“Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war, stir up the warriors, let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior'” (Joel 3.9-10).
“Thus says the Lord God: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal … I will lead you out with all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, all of them with shield and buckler, wielding swords. Persia, Ethiopia, and Put are with them, all of them with buckler and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remotest parts of the north with all its troops–many peoples are with you” (Ezekiel 38.3-6).
“Thus says the Lord God: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal! … I will strike your bow from your lefthand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand. You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples that are with you: I will give you to birds of prey of every kind and to the wild animals to be devoured…. Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the weapons and burn them–bucklers and shields, bows and arrows, handspikes and spears–and they will make fires of them for seven years” (Ezekiel 39.1, 3-4, 9).
I believe this person who goes by the title “Gog” will be the Antichrist. This prophecy by Ezekiel describes the Antichrist leading the nations militaries to attack Israel in what has been wrongly called Armageddon. Then Jesus will return, deliver Israel from near annihilation, and establish his worldwide kingdom of peace on earth. Then,
“they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2.4; Micah 4.3).
Read about all of this in detail in my book Warrior from Heaven.
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