Murder in the Church
Posted on December 11, 2007
Filed Under Personal, Worldview |
“You have heard that the ancients were told, YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Matthew 5:21-24
This last Sunday was going to be a busy day for us. We had a lot of things on our schedule, including dinner for a church group that meets in our home and the annual family Christmas tree trimming event, where we “officially” begin the Christmas season at the Tackett house. While Amy Grant’s “Home for Christmas” CD plays in the background, we open the boxes filled with a myriad of ornaments, collected over the years, and begin the process of turning a bare tree into a Christmas tree, pausing only long enough to enjoy a treat from the tray of cookies, brownies and special sweets that my wife traditionally prepares for this special family moment.
So, our daily visit with my Dad had to take place earlier than normal. We went to the early church service and then I drove over to his place, hoping to get as much time with him as possible before rushing home to greet our guests. After kissing him good-bye, I headed home, taking the normal shortcut along the north side of New Life Church. I was totally unaware that in a few minutes, the parking lot I was driving next to would turn into a murder scene. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t thinking about murder in the church, though, because I was listening to the radio account of what had happened several hours earlier at Faith Chapel. Two people had been murdered, several wounded, and the gunman was still at large. Little did I know that he was within a stone’s throw of me at that moment…preparing to end the life of possibly a hundred more Christians.
Thankfully he was stopped before he fulfilled his desire; but tragically it wasn’t before he murdered two precious sisters, Rachael and Stephanie Works, sixteen and eighteen years old. Their father is still in the hospital, suffering from more than his two gunshot wounds. He and his wife have lost two of their daughters…murdered at church. They will no longer be a part of the Works family Christmas traditions. Their hopes and dreams and plans for their daughters are gone.
Hatred destroys more than just lives.
These tragedies should also cause us to look inside…to recognize that God calls us to say “no” to the desires of the sinful nature when it prompts within us anger or hatred or bitterness or jealousy or any of the other desires that are contrary to the desires of the spirit:
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. Galatians 5:16-17
There is a stark statement in 1 John 3:15 that leaves us with an uncomfortable feeling:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
From this perspective, it would not be wrong to say, unfortunately, that murder occurs frequently in our churches. Not just in the physical sense, as our community is now suffering from here in Colorado, but in the spiritual and social sense that we are called to love one another and to put aside all hatred and bitterness, which this passage equates to murder. When we find ourselves in a situation where a brother has something against us, Jesus said that we should interrupt our “religious duties” and go and pursue reconciliation first.
It would be easy to respond to these horrible tragedies with our own hatred and bitterness…anger towards a culture that seems to increasingly seethe in its hatred toward Christians. The young man who lies now dead after murdering four people wrote that he wanted to kill and injure as many Christians as he could. Richard Dawkins and others are increasingly open in their hostility toward believers. But a few verses before 1 John 3:15, we read this: “Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.” Jesus said “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” and the world hates Jesus because, as He said: “…it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.”
Pray for the Works family, for the families of the two young people murdered in Arvada, for those who have been injured, and for the family of this young man. They are believers who are, no doubt, in deep anguish today. And pray for the body of Christ, that our lives will be lived blamelessly before God and before men, even in the midst of rising hostility.
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8 Responses to “Murder in the Church”
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Dr. Del Tackett is president of the Focus on the Family Institute and Senior Vice President to Focus on the Family. He is also the architect and chief spokesperson for Focus on the Family's The Truth Project--a nationwide initiative designed to bring the Christian worldview to the body of Christ.
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Del, I have replayed Sunday’s events over and over in my mind because it could have been my family that day. We usually park where this family parked at New Life Sunday. By the grace of God, it wasn’t us. All I can think about is how precious the gift of life is that we’ve been given. We have one chance to make a difference in this world and I want to make it count.
I think about all the trials you have personally gone through since the first stages of The Truth Project until now and what New Life has gone through over the past year. The devil just doesn’t get it! We are overcomers! Our foundation isn’t built on circumstances, emotions or passing fads. It’s built on a relationship that was born from a sacrifice he can’t relate to. As he patted himself for the lives he took and the pain he caused, the Gospel has been spread once again, around the world, via radio and television on every network possible. As these young people walk today in Heaven with our Savior, many more here on earth are clothing themselves with a new life in Christ Jesus from hearing their unspoken testimony. They are trading in fear for peace, sorrow for joy, brokeness for wholeness.
Trials and temptations may shake us, but we will not be broken. We have been forewarned to “not think it strange” when these come, so we embrace them because in our weakness He is made strong. From our brokenness, His glory shines.
Every single day the headlines really say:
“The killer didn’t like himself, didn’t like the world, and wanted everyone alive to hurt like he hurts or die with him in his misery!”
2 Timothy 3
1 You should also know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times.
2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred.
3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control; they will be cruel and have no interest in what is good.
4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.
5 They will act as if they are religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. You must stay away from people like that.
Titus 1:15 Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are defiled.
My Sentiment,
Difficult times are here, life really hurts today, the word is true, and these evil things that take place simply bear testimony that all the glorious prophesies will also come about, in which I place all my hope. PRAISE HIM, he was simply telling the truth, anyone denying it is looking to jump ship, eager to wager that they will simply retract into nothingness, where there is no hurt, no responsibility, and nobody has anything that they want as they remain not willing to work and change for it.
God Bless,
Sincerely,
Tom S
Del,
When I first heard about the shootings, I heard about it as exactly that: a shooting. Honestly, I am used to hearing about people getting shot up on a normal basis that anymore it doesn’t affect me much. I’m from the Miami area and worked there with Emergency Management services as a EMT, and people getting shot was a regular occasion.
Then something else happened: I got into the details. I heard that this was a church shooting. Hearing that it was a church shooting, and some of the members of the family of Christianity had been slain by the work of sin, really opened my eyes and actually instilled some fear into my heart. Not only fear, but a feeling unfamiliar to me anymore: the feeling of mourning. In the years I worked in Miami as an EMT, I never really mourned another person’s death, but saw it as their time to go. This time, it made me mourn a little.
However, these young Christians who were brought to an early demise were doing what God wanted them to do: exalting His name, and praising and giving thanks to his son for “taking the fall” and dying for our sins. Therefore, even though these four good Christians are now gone from life on earth, they have, through Jesus Christ, everlasting life in God’s kingdom.
That, above everything, is all that matters in this world. We live in a sinful society, but all that matters, to me at least, is being granted, by God and Christ, the privilege of living amongst their kingdom in eternal life.
What a terrible thing to happen! Let’s pray for those who harbor hatred of the church and show them that they have nothing to fear but the evil one, showing them the love Jesus showed us.
Please don’t bring popular media figures into it. Let the events speak for themselves without speculation.
Del,
God Bless you and your community.
The holidays bring the special stress of expectations and favoratism. These things breed bitterness for myself and my family. We wish to not be bitter, or breed bitterness in others.
How am I to deal with my family? How shall I confront them (believing that they will deny their own behaviour)? To what end does the conflict serve a purpose?
This might lead to the “my brother’s keeper” concept also.
Del,
I live in Alabama, and you wouldn’t think that something that far away would affect us here, but it did in a big way.
We have had several young adults go through that YWAM base in Colorado. They have been hit hard by this having just gone through the worship school and touring with the group last year. Our church had a long time of prayer for Arvada Sunday morning, unaware of what was going to happen in Colorado Springs.
Our pastor reminded us that we can never get comfortable here on earth, that this is not our home. And I am reminded of what Jesus said:John 15:18-19
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
NAS
Matt 24:8-10
9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name.
NAS
That is a hard thing to remember, but it is a fact. We will not be accepted by all, but we must be wise and discerning, loving and accepting and live as Jesus said. As it has been seen in the week following this tragedy, Christs love through forgivness.
God bless the families who have had loss through this. We must turn to His teachings to get strength and to persevere.
Thank you for your ministry.
My heart breaks for what’s happened to our body. Matt, I would dare to say that the reason you mourn is because we are all a part of the same body of Christ and when part of it is severed, it hurts. Praise God those four are in a place where they can never be hurt again. My prayers and broken heart are with their loved ones.
I would like to encourage New Life church. You must be making a huge impact in this world for Christ. With two such horrible blows this past year I know you are being sifted by the enemy. God must have such big plans for you! Just as Job and Peter were tested and found to be pure, I encourage you to stand firm and continue to overcome! God WILL get you through this tragedy.
May God strengthen your leadership and may each individual lean on the church’s foundation and cornerstone of Christ. I pray that others will see you and wonder at your perserverance and strength and that you’d have the boldness to proclaim the power of God to the world. Onward Christian soldiers!
The blood of these innocents will do much to further the Kingdom of Heaven in America. The loss is tragic, but their deaths will not be a waste. God will answer from heaven, and this will hopefully unite Christians closer to another as we are reminded that we are in the middle of an ancient war.