Ten people, including a police officer, were killed Monday after a gunman opened fire in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
The mass fatal shooting at the King Soopers store comes less than a week after shooting attacks at three spas in the Atlanta area left eight people dead.
For clarity’s sake, the FBI defines mass murder as “four or more murders occurring in the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders. These events typically involve a single location, where the killer murdered a number of victims in an ongoing incident.”
Mass shootings seem to be more frequent in the 21st century. On July 5, 2020, 10 people were shot in Greenville, South Carolina, at a nightclub. On Feb. 15, 2019, a man opened fire at an Illinois factory, leaving five workers dead. On Aug. 3, 2019, a man shot and killed 22 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. And the list goes on and on.
The Earthly, Demonic Root
What’s going on here? Why are mass murders really rising? Can we blame mental illness? Lack of gun control? Media hype? There may be many contributing factors to the rise of mass murder, but the root is earthly and demonic—it’s the condition of man’s heart. Jeremiah 17:9 reveals this reality: “The heart is deceitful than all things and desperately wicked; who can understand it?”
And Jesus confirmed the issue: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immorality, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19).
This has always been true, but just as we see the rapid rise of sexual immorality, we’re seeing the rapid rise of other last days signs like false Christs, false prophets, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines and Christian persecution (Matt. 24). Saints, we’re in the last days.
Paul explained, “Know this: In the last days perilous times will come. Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, slanderers, unrestrained, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power. Turn away from such people” (2 Tim. 3:1-5).
Do you see this evidence all around you? Consider the atheist agenda and secular humanists that mock God, failing to realize that He will soon return and longs for them to accept His Son and enter His kingdom. Peter prophesied about such mockers and slanderers: “Know this first, that there shall come scoffers in the last days who walk after their own lusts, and say, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were since the beginning of the creation'” (2 Pet. 3:3-4). And the book of Revelation makes it clear that in the last days, unrepentant mankind will be guilty of four major sins: murder, sexual immorality, thievery and sorceries, which is drug use and experimentation with the occult (Rev. 9:21).
What’s the Answer?
So, we can blame the rise of mass murders on mental illness. We can blame the rise of mass murders on a lack of gun control. We can blame the media for coverage of the mass murders that puts the idea in the next troubled person’s head. But, ultimately, we have to remember this: Satan was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44) and inspires these acts in the hearts of those who are slaves to sin.
For more on how believers must ready themselves for the last days, click here to read the rest of this article. {eoa}
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