DAILY ARTICLE - 5/8/07
by Todd Strandberg
Once again, the world has seen record incidents of mass killings. Unless you've been trapped in a coal mine the past week, you probably know that Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 Virginia Tech students and teachers before turning the gun on himself. Between shootings, Cho mailed a package to NBC News containing "disturbing" videos explaining why he committed his heinous crime against humanity. With all the nonsense on the cable channels, you might not have heard that his shooting was the single worst case of gunman homicide in our nation's history.
Two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, Iraq suffered its deadliest day of carnage since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In Baghdad, a series of car bombs and various other terrorist attacks left more than 230 people dead. One car bomb alone in the mainly Shi'ite Sadriya neighborhood set a record by killing 140 people, the most ever in single bomb attack.
If there were any doubt that the world is going mad, one only needs to look at the historic record for various categories of mass murder in the U.S. and Iraq to see an alarming trend:
Other Mass Shootings in America:
October 16, 1991: George Hennard entered a Luby's Cafeteria, where he shot and killed 23 people and wounded 20. Though Hennard was shot several times by police, only when he ran out of victims did he walk to the rear of the seating area and take his own life with a gunshot to the head.
July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an unemployed security guard, walked into a McDonald's in San Ysidro, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, and began shooting. Armed with three guns, he killed 21 people, including five children and six teenagers, and wounded 19 before he was shot and killed by a police sniper.
July 31, 1966: Charles Whitman began his day of mass murder by killing his mother and his wife. He then barricaded himself in the University of Texas clock tower and began picking off students. After 90 minutes, Charlie had killed 16 people and wounded 30 others.
The Iraqi blood bath from just the past couple months:
March 27, 2007: At least 198 people were reported killed or found dead. Truck bombs hit markets in the northwestern city of Tal Afar, killing at least 152 people, while another 46 Iraqis were also killed or found dead.
March 6, 2007: Officials reported 194 deaths, including 120 by two suicide bombers in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Hillah, south of Baghdad.
March 2, 2004: Coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives strike Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing at least 181 people.
February 3, 2007: Officials report 167 deaths, including 137 by a suicide truck bomber at a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad.
Terrorism in the U.S.:
September 11, 2001: Islamic extremists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. Two planes targeted the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed. A total of 2,973 people were killed that day.
April 19, 1995: Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 when they blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
May 18, 1927: Andrew Kehoe, the first mad bomber on U.S. soil, blew up a school in Bath, Michigan, killing 45 people--37 of them children--after detonating explosives he planted under the school.
The above three lists represent just a small portion of a much larger problem. I didn’t even mention the school shootings at Jonesboro and Columbine. It is very hard to categorized the extreme level of the evil we see today. This weekend, I read about an Islamic terrorist group that used a small boy to decapitate one of their hostages.
I believe firmly that the reason we are seeing an across-the-board surge in violence is directly related to the end times. Because man has turned his back on God, the Lord is slowly lowering the hedge of protection.
Without God's protective power, Satan would be able to destroy every Christian on the planet. The story of Job gives us good insight into devil's capabilities. In the book of Job, Satan complained that God had made Job unreachable. Once God gave the devil limited authority over Job's life, he had control over weather, enemy forces, disease, and pestilence--and he could even cause fire to come down from the sky.
The rapid growth in the power of evil seems to forewarn of the time when the devil will be given nearly full control of the earth. The Bible warns that the calling card of the last days would be a world filled with violence. The carnage of last week is a stunning testimony of how close we are to the tribulation hour.
The desensitization process has largely robbed us of the ability to sense our moral freefall. I like what one board member said last week, "Are we becoming an un-shockable society, with a higher tolerance for evil? I believe this is true, and it is a sign of the end times. While everyone is still asking 'Why?' this week, we as Christians have an opportunity to share our perspective on end-times events and offer hope to those whose hearts are burdened."
If there is any final stage to the dispensation of evil, it will likely come in the form of an attack with weapons of mass destruction. A terrorist group could release chemical or biological agents in a crowded area, killing tens of thousands of people. Because such an attack is generally easy to pull off, I believe the preventive will of God is the only reason we have not seen terrorists successfully deploy such weapons.
Every time we see one of these deadly attacks take place, we should remind ourselves that earth is not our true home. When Christians become comfortable in their lives, they tend to be unproductive. An active believer is someone who realizes this world is of no lasting value.
"And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [will let], until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy wit the brightness of his coming" (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8).
SOURCE: Rapture Ready