RBV: I Kings 11:42

"And the period that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years."

--I Kings 11:42

The reign of King Solomon is a rather bittersweet one. Here he was, the wisest man who had ever lived, ruling over a powerful, wealthy nation at peace, yet the evidence that we glean from Scripture is that his forty-year reign was the prelude to disaster. As Solomon breathes his last breath, the kingdom is poised on the brink of rebellion because of heavy taxation and forced labor (see I Kings 9:20-22; 12:1-5); his heir, Rehoboam, is proud and listens only to his foolish friends (see I Kings 12:6-11); and God has been shunted aside to share glory with a menagerie of other deities (see what happened in Israel immediately after his reign; I Kings 12:25-33).

The Bible provides us both sides of the coin of Solomon's time on the throne of Israel. He presided over Israel's Golden Age and the building of the Temple and a grand palace for the royal family (see I Kings 4:20-8:66). The Queen of Sheba and countless others visited Jerusalem to gaze on the wonders collected there by the king and to hear his wisdom firsthand (see I Kings 4:29-34; 10:1-13). Scripture informs us that gold and silver were as common in Israel's capital as baser metals were elsewhere (I Kings 10:14-23; II Chronicles 9:27). Solomon was so strong and the nations around were so weak that no one dared disturb the peace of the time (except at the very end of his reign; I Kings 11:14-40).

But the underside of the coin is far darker. Though Solomon had been humble as a young man, asking God for understanding so that he could properly rule and judge his people, his pride soon led him to disobedience. He began to flout the instructions given by God through Moses to Israel's kings (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). He made alliances with foreign nations, particularly Egypt, marrying hundreds of domestic and foreign princesses to cement these ties (I Kings 11:1-3). Of course, these women brought their own gods and goddesses to worship, and it was not long before Solomon was honoring their wishes to have various shrines and "high places" built to house their idols (see I Kings 11:4-8).

As usually happens, when the people saw that Solomon had compromised with idolatry, they followed suit, visiting the ancient groves and hilltop altars that had lain unused but not unforgotten. With few exceptions, subsequent kings either neglected God's command to destroy these high places or made half-hearted efforts. Solomon's reign set an unfortunate standard for most of the kings of Judah who followed him, and the people sank deeper into lifestyles contrary to the law of God.

The number forty is frequently a biblical indication of testing. Solomon received forty years from God to see if he would follow His ways or not. The book of Ecclesiastes indicates that, perhaps at the end of his life, Solomon made an effort to repent--or at least he realized that, in the end, it is a person's chief duty to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13). We really do not know if he passed or failed his test, but we can learn a great lesson from the forty years of his wonderful, terrible reign.

Where Is Your Heart?

When speaking with a new client, career counselors, after getting all the pertinent information on job history and the like, will often ask their clients, "Now, what do you really want to do? Where is your heart?"—or as the self-help book asked, "What color is your parachute?"

They probably receive a lot of wild responses such as, "Well, I have always wanted to run away to the circus." Or, "I actually enjoy ironing!" Or, "All my life, all I have ever wanted to do is sing!" A good counselor, after hearing what the client would like to do, will put him through a battery of tests to see if his talents and aptitudes actually match his dreams.

Often, it is not the case. The tests may show that the man who wanted to run away to the circus would actually do well as an accountant, and the woman who loved ironing would make an excellent TV meteorologist. The singer should perhaps not quit his day job.

The question, though, is a good one: "Where is your heart?" We are considering, not the thumping muscle in the center of one's chest, but what has been called "the heart of hearts," our deep-down desires, goals, dreams, hopes, aspirations. What do you enjoy doing? What would make you spring out of bed every morning, other than a strong cup of coffee?

It can be put another way: What are we invested in? We should not think of this only in terms of money, but also in terms of time, resources, loyalties, hopes, etc. As a new year begins, perhaps this is a question worth pondering.

On the annual holy days, we frequently read the instructions in Deuteronomy 16:16-17 on giving an offering to God. Verse 17, however, applies to this question of "Where is your heart?": "Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you." On the surface, it may not seem to be relevant, but it indeed comes into play because what we are able to give depends on where we have placed our priorities. And we place our priorities where our hearts are.

Business people make sure that the resources of the company are expended on their core missions. They have to know what they really want to accomplish so that they can allocate the necessary resources to those chief operations or goals. A firm may direct a large portion of its resources to marketing, so it can get its name out before the demographic that will buy its products. For other enterprises, the priority might be research, as they want to put more money into making their products better and developing new products that will serve their clientele and increase profits. Yet others, perhaps those in service industries, may consider people to be the most important part of their business. These organizations emphasize customer relations and satisfaction. Where the priorities are decides where the resources go.

In the same way, a family may budget its resources for necessities: food, energy, rent or mortgage, clothing, automobile, education. Our priorities, however, are not always necessities, and this is where we may begin to go off the track. We can convince ourselves that certain things that are not really necessities are necessities. Food on the table, a roof over our heads, and clothing on our backs are necessities. High-definition televisions, DVDs, convection ovens, iPhones, PlayStations, and all the latest whiz-bang gadgets are not necessities, but we often convince ourselves that they are, having completely swallowed the drivel of advertisers.

This should lead us back to asking ourselves, "What are our priorities?" What is truly important to us? What do we really need versus what do we merely want? Where are our hearts?

Notice Jesus' instructions from Luke's version of part of the Sermon on the Mount:

But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:31-34)

Our Savior succinctly explains what our priorities are—where our hearts should be. Earlier, He had advised that we should not even worry about necessities. Nevertheless, what does He tell us to do here? He says, "Sell what you have, and give alms," so one element of our priorities is giving. This is not a command to give all our money away. What He says is modified by what His instruction concerning providing ourselves money bags: He does not want us to make ourselves destitute. In fact, He wants us to gather and increase treasure!

Jesus instructs us to spend our resources—whether it is time, energy, our concentration, or even our money—on the things that really matter, that will propel us toward the Kingdom of God, that will secure for us heavenly and eternal benefits. That is where our hearts should be: in the things that God also prizes.

Isaiah provides a clear and succinct description of what that treasure is: "The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high; He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, and the strength of salvation; the fear of the LORD is His treasure" (Isaiah 33:5-6). God's treasure is the fear of the Lord, and that is where our hearts should be also.

Theologians sometimes quibble about the precise definition of "fear of the Lord," but a more general, more encompassing one may be better for our purposes. Simply put, the fear of the Lord is perceiving and accepting where we stand in relation to God and then acting appropriately. It is recognizing that God is vast and we are minuscule. He is magnificent, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing—among other things—and we are but worms. And once we have this fact firmly embedded in our minds, we live every second in the humility and fear of this awesome Being, for one with the proper fear of the Lord puts God, His will, and His goals first.

When we do this, the rest of life falls into place. This is not to say that all of our problems disappear. Certainly not. Nevertheless, we now have a template for making wise, godly decisions in ordering and conducting our other concerns, for "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). When our hearts are first and foremost unflinchingly loyal to God, we have set our course to achieve the greatest goal a human can desire, to please God and dwell eternally with Him in His Kingdom. Is that where your heart is?

Death Is Not the End (Part One)

Looking at life from God's point of view, He stacks the deck in man's favor. He says with such positivity that He desires to redeem all people, if they will have it. This appears in I Timothy 2:4: ". . . who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." He also says in II Peter 3:9 that He "is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." He is confident that He can bring every human being to salvation as long as each person yields to Him.

On the other hand, there is the equally wonderful expectation of God destroying all evil, including all unrepentant people, from earth for all eternity. The Bible terms this destruction the "second death" (Revelation 21:8), the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14), "everlasting fire" (Matthew 18:8), "hell fire" (Matthew 5:22), or the "resurrection to condemnation" (John 5:29), which we have called the "third resurrection." At some point in the future, after the Millennium and the White Throne Judgment period (see Revelation 20:4-13), everything that is sinful and evil will be wiped away, and the Father Himself will then descend from heaven and live among redeemed humanity (Revelation 21:3-4).

We cannot imagine life without sin. Except for a very brief time after God created Adam and Eve, some sort of wrong or evil has always existed in the hearts of human beings. We have lived with it for so long that, sadly, we do not understand how to live without it. Even seeing the reality of the moral perfection of Jesus Christ is extremely difficult for us, and trying to live our own lives sinlessly is a task beyond our power.

Knowing how sin begets evil and death (see James 1:15), those of us whom God has called yearn for life without sin, but we know that such a time, when God's goodness infuses the whole world and everything in it, remains years in the future. The Bible prophesies that, between now and that wonderful day of gladness, dark days of tribulation and destruction—a time of woe that the world has never before seen (Mark 13:19)—will come to pass.

For mankind to reach this promised Utopia, a great deal of dying must occur. Billions of people have already died in various ways throughout history, and billions more will perish in the meantime. Death is inevitable for human beings, as the author of Hebrews writes: "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. . . ." (Hebrews 9:27).

It has been roughly calculated that upwards of fifty billion people will rise from their graves in the judgment. In this general resurrection will rise Israelites and Gentiles, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, from all eras of history and from every race, tribe, nation, and language that has ever existed on the face of the earth. Among their few common traits is that they will all have died.

Death is not generally considered to be an uplifting topic. However, there is no reason to approach it from a morbid point of view, or from one that invokes fear or grief. God is always positive, and His point of view concerning death is based in reality and hope. If we have the proper perspective, we can actually have a healthy, positive view of death.

Certainly, God calls death our enemy (I Corinthians 15:26) because it is a result of sin. Death entered the world once Adam, as mankind's representative in the Garden of Eden, ate of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Romans 5:12). However, before creating humanity, God had realized man would sin, bringing upon him the penalty of death, for the redeeming sacrifice of the One who became Jesus Christ "indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world" (I Peter 1:20). God, then, allowed sin and thus death to occur, and He has incorporated death into His plan.

In doing so, God has made something positive out of it. Sometimes, what we consider to be a curse ends up being a blessing. This occurs because we often look at matters from the wrong end, not considering that even the worst of circumstances may work out quite positively when all is said and done. In the end, even death can be seen as a good thing in some respects.

Notice Hebrews 2:10, 14-15, which ultimately casts death in a positive light:

For it was fitting for Him [God the Father], for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation [Christ] perfect through suffering. . . . In as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

All men have been subject to the fear of death, and it is something that we have to strive to overcome. When we are called out of the world, we do not immediately shed all of our wrong, human perspectives. It may take years to overcome our fear of death, and most of us never do. However, Christ has freed us from the fear of death, and now we live in the fear of something else, the fear of God (II Corinthians 7:1).

Even so, we still fear death a great deal. We often take a loved one's or a friend's death very hard, and personally, we fight death with a vengeance. These are natural, human things to do, and we are not bad people if we do them. Nevertheless, there are situations and reactions that we need to learn to approach from God's perspective. Normal reactions like deep grief or denial are hard to let go because we have all our lifetime been enslaved to the fear of death.

Even Jesus, facing the horrific death of crucifixion and the crushing penalty of humanity's sins, reacted with strong, visceral emotion:

And he was withdrawn from [His disciples] about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41-44)

Jesus was God in the flesh (John 1:14), and at this moment, His flesh cried out in anticipation of the suffering and pain He would soon encounter. Not only that, He had never experienced a moment of being forsaken by His Father (Matthew 27:46), when He would be absolutely alone to undergo the cessation of His life in payment for all iniquity. How frightening a prospect that must have been! Yet, even in His desire to avoid these physical and emotional pains, Jesus illustrates perfect submission to His Father's will, realizing its necessity for the success of His plan. Knowing God would raise Him to eternal life after three days, He did not fear death—what He feared most was life without God!

Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Four)

Psalm 128 illustrates how properly honoring and working with God within marriage and the family produces the finest product for His Kingdom:

Blessed is every one who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways. When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD. The LORD bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel! (Psalm 128:1-6)

Notice how positive this psalm is! The whole process begins with a proper fear of the Lord, and from that foundation, blessing radiates out to the whole family. When the fear of the Lord forms the basis for a marriage, the couple is starting out their marriage properly, and they can expect good results—positive fruit—in time.

Because a man and his wife begin on the proper footing—and it is assumed that they continue in it—they will find happiness, satisfaction, unity, and of course, blessedness. There is even the good possibility of a long, fulfilling life. God presents a family that is content and fruitful, full of potential for growth and expansion.

Moreover, the last sentence in Psalm 128 suggests that such families bring peace to the whole nation! James 3:18 reads: "Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." An environment of peace—what is found in a God-fearing home—provides the ideal setting for the growth of righteousness and its fruit. Such homes produce upstanding, productive individuals who build society, not tear it down with hostile acts that disturb the peace. Ultimately, the entire nation benefits from the godly fear practiced and taught in Christian families.

This is what God wants. He is looking for a home for His offspring in which this peaceful environment will be created in order to produce children in His image—godly seed. In Malachi 2:13-16, God is quite displeased with His people because their marriage relationships had degenerated to the point that husbands were treacherously divorcing their wives for inconsequential reasons, breaking the covenant, the vow, that they had made. They were not creating the proper environment for producing godly seed for His Family.

This third purpose for marriage is a very important one—to produce the right environment for raising children, not for just one's own family, but for God. Again, we see that the physical mirrors the spiritual in this relationship. Even though we are physical beings, God has given us a spiritual component that makes us different from the animals, and when He calls us into His church, He gives us an additional element, His Spirit, that elevates our purpose to a far higher plane. Thus, there is always a higher purpose in everything that we do. We cannot avoid it, as it is the overriding purpose of God Himself.

A fourth purpose for marriage is also found in Genesis 1:28: "God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" The two key words here are "subdue" and "dominion," both of which are terms of command and control. The fourth purpose, then, deals with marriage providing a basis for proper government.

"Dominion" has thrown many people off-track, assuming that God means autocratic, despotic rule. However, any dictionary will show that dominion is nothing more than "supreme authority" or "sovereignty." The Hebrew word, rādâ, implies exercising authority over those who are under one's control, whether a king over his kingdom or an employer over his employees. It does not necessarily suggest harsh, cruel governance.

"Subdue" (Hebrew kābaš), however, can have this implication. Nevertheless, subjecting creation to human benefit or people to God's way does not have to be done with rigor. Severity should be applied only when there is steadfast, defiant resistance, and then only as necessary. The two words together provide a wide range of means for mankind to order and govern what he has been given. Of course, God does not intend for humanity to go beyond the authority He has entrusted to it, either in terms of scope or of application.

So, as these opening instructions to mankind indicate, God uses marriage to teach us how to govern. Marriage teaches us how it is done best, specifically as God Himself governs. God is a Father, and He has a Son who is the Head of the church. We in the church comprise the Son's wife, His Bride, and we are learning how to rule with the Son forever in His Kingdom. A primary institution that God created to teach us this is marriage, the very same institution into which we will soon enter with His Son. Again, we see the physical blending into the spiritual.

In our physical lives, most of us begin to live within the family as a child, and from that position of weakness and immaturity, we learn how to be ruled, to submit, and to learn and grow as a subordinate. We learn what it is like to be under authority. Later, as we grow in maturity, we take on more responsibilities and experience more freedom. If we are alert and smart, we learn many facets of how to rule ourselves and thus how to govern others.

When ready, we take up the challenge of living at the next level of authority as a husband or wife. We learn, in that role, other things that teach us about government and how best to handle situations. First, we must become accustomed to living with our new mate, ruling ourselves and providing direction to a developing family as a spouse.

Then, sometimes suddenly, we have to learn how to govern little ones. As they grow, we learn different ways—better ways—to govern them at their various levels. The diverse situations that arise in life lend themselves to learning new and different approaches that will lead to better outcomes. The family and our changing roles within it teach us how to do that.

The godly family, beginning with marriage followed by the rearing of children, teaches us how to govern. Along with the Bible, it gives us most, if not all, the necessary instruction that we need. These experiences over time become part of our characters, which we will carry through the grave. We will have those experiences to draw upon when similar instances arise among those who will be subject to us into God's Kingdom.

The basic tools, provided to us through God's instruction and applied in the Christian family, prepare us to rule in God's Kingdom and to teach the right and proper way to live.

Signs and Wonders

It is hard to shrug off the impossible. Yet, when it comes to the miracles of Jesus Christ, many people do just that—and gladly. Millions, even a great many who call themselves Christians, are only too eager to avoid or ignore what they mean.

Miracles, signs, and wonders produce two simultaneous but contrary effects: They attract and repel. They attract us because they are rare and amazing, and in the case of Jesus’ miracles, they are also beneficial. People who had not walked for many years caper like goats. The blind can read the sacred scrolls at the local synagogue. The chronically ill regain their health and strength. Lepers, their skin pink and whole, can once again mingle with crowds and rejoin their families. And how many dead men, women, and children does Jesus raise to life? Jesus’ miracles are events that make us want to stand up and cheer.

But, at the same time, these same stupendous miracles repel us. We draw back in uncertainty and fear—perhaps doubtful of their authenticity, certainly terrified of the power of the Miracle Worker. Not only can He raise the dead, but He can also still a raging storm, stroll across a tossing sea, and with a word topple a whole company of soldiers. Demons—even Satan the Devil himself—leave the scene at His command. He feeds four and five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, and without breaking a sweat, produces dozens of gallons of wine for a wedding party. Perhaps most personally terrifying of all, He knows what is in people’s hearts, almost as if He can read their thoughts.

So is Jesus of Nazareth to be praised or feared for His powerful miracles? Both, of course, for Scripture declares, “O LORD, how great are your works!” (Psalm 92:5), yet also, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). In the miraculous demonstrations of the power of God in Jesus Christ, we see “the goodness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22). Far from being some mere sideshow, His miracles were an integral part of His ministry, and their implications still resound to our day.

Some people consider the miracles of the gospel accounts as a kind of advertizing. The idea is that Jesus would blow into town, heal some well-known leper or cripple or maybe cast out a troublesome demon, and the crowds would gather, hoping to witness more wonders performed before their very eyes. Then, having caught them in His net, Jesus would preach the gospel to them, and many would believe in Him. While they made for an effective marketing technique—and the gospel narratives admit that crowds did gather to see Him perform miracles—there is an element of cynicism in this conjecture, as if Jesus healed the sick or cast out demons callously, calculatingly, just to draw an audience to hear His pitch. In it, He becomes merely a religious huckster, the original Elmer Gantry.

However, this is not the case in the least. Matthew, Mark, and Luke often bring out the fact that, upon seeing the sick and troubled folk brought before Him, “He was moved with compassion” (Matthew 9:36; see, for instance, Matthew 14:14; 20:34; Mark 1:41; 6:34; Luke 7:13). John is the only one who tells us that, at Lazarus’ resurrection, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) over the people’s grief, as well as over their ignorance and hopelessness. As the prophecy of Isaiah 53 informs us, He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), our Savior who cared for humanity so deeply that He offered Himself to redeem every last person from sin and death. Such a merciful and loving Person does not use parlor tricks, as it were, to gain a following. His concern and desire to help were real.

John’s gospel clues us in to the divine purpose for Jesus’ miracles. After narrating the miracle of the wine at the wedding feast, the apostle adds, “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11). This verse gives us three purposes for the miracles Jesus did: 1) that they are signs; 2) that they “manifested His glory”; and 3) they helped His disciples to believe in Him. They did attract attention to Him, but ultimately, God had deeper, spiritual purposes for them.

John calls this and other miracles a “sign.” A sign is something that identifies or indicates. The Greek word he uses is semeíon, “a sign or distinguishing mark whereby something is known; an event that is an indication or confirmation of intervention by transcendent powers,” according to a leading Greek-English lexicon. Jesus performed this first miracle to identify or indicate something, and the most obvious answer to what that something was centers on who Jesus is. In turning water to wine, Jesus contrasts Himself to Moses, whose first plague turned water to blood (Exodus 7:14-25). In effect, the miracle indicates “a greater than Moses is here,” and that greater One could be none other than the promised Messiah.

This sign “manifested His glory.” In other words, the miracle declared or made known Christ’s special status. Through this wonder, certain people became aware that Jesus was no ordinary man but a higher Being, worthy of all honor and praise. We could go so far as to say that these people, whose eyes had been opened, could conclude that He was indeed God in the flesh, for only the Creator God had enough power over nature to change one substance into another and with such perfect results. The same could be said of His other miracles: No one but God could do what He did.

Finally, the apostle tells us that the miracle at Cana confirmed or strengthened His disciples’ faith. Turning water into wine was a proof that erased any doubt that they may still have had about His own or John the Baptist’s claims about Him. They not only believed who He was, but they could now fully believe what He said. They could trust Him to reveal the deep spiritual truths of God because they experienced His power in action producing excellence and good. If He would go to such lengths to make a wedding feast joyous and save the couple from embarrassment, what would He not do to save us and give us eternal life?

John does not say it, but mingled with this boosting of their faith must have been at least a twinge of the fear of the Lord. When we walk with God, He will certainly help us and bless us through the working of His power. But what form would His power take if we should cross Him and become His enemy? That sword has two edges, as Hebrews 4:12 attests.

Far more than some kind of “magic,” the miracles of Jesus Christ teach us profound lessons about Jesus, His mission, His message, and our responses to Him. We scoff at them or ignore them to our peril.

April Murder

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April 19, 1993: Seventy-nine people die, including 21 children, when the FBI conducts a dawn assault on the Branch-Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The cause of the uncontrollable inferno that killed so many is still a point of controversy.

April 19, 1995: The Alfred R. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City is bombed, killing 168 (of which 19 were children) and injuring over 800. Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier are all later convicted for their parts in this tragedy. McVeigh is executed in 2001.

April 20, 1999: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold massacre twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School just west of Littleton, Colorado. Twenty-four others are wounded. Harris and Klebold commit suicide at the scene.

April 16, 2007: South Korean émigré Cho Seung-Hui kills 32 (and himself) and injures 29 during two separate rampages on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.

For future reference, it might be prudent to be extra careful during the third week of April next year and in all years after that. In the past fourteen years, 292 people were killed in the above four April mass murders in the United States, and perhaps others could be added to the tally.

Most "rational" people would conclude that the chronological convergence of these atrocities is merely coincidence, that there is no evidence that links them, and they are probably right. There are more differences than there are similarities. But, just for kicks, let us consider the possibility that these tragedies are connected. What are the commonalities among them?

First, there are the dates, of course. On the Gregorian calendar, they all occurred within four days of each other, in different years. Conventional wisdom suggests that the Oklahoma City Bombing was specifically timed to occur on the anniversary of the Waco Assault, in retaliation for the government's unlawful use of power against its own citizens. The Columbine Massacre may also have been planned for April 19, as both killers mentioned on videotape that they intended to top the carnage of the previous mass killings, but the making of propane bombs delayed their plans for a day. So far, no word has come out that Cho timed his killing spree to coincide with the others. For what it is worth, Adolf Hitler's birthday was April 20, 1889.

Second, there are the large casualty figures. The smallest of them, the Columbine slaughter, totaled 39 dead and wounded, including the perpetrators. Cho's rampages caused 62 casualties; the FBI's assault, 79; and McVeigh's bomb, nearly 1,000. While none of these figures approach the nearly 3,000 deaths of September 11, 2001, they are nonetheless atrocious, and in the Columbine and Blacksburg murders, very personal. Also, the first two tragedies killed high numbers of children (21 and 19, respectively), while the last two were perpetrated by students on school campuses, leaving many students dead (12 and 27, respectively). Finally, the last two also ended in the suicides of the killers.

Third, there are the killers' grievances. All of them, including the FBI, felt justified in taking multiple lives in retaliation for real or imagined offenses committed against them. As an agency, the FBI was frustrated and confused by the unorthodox beliefs and staunch resistance of the Branch-Davidians, and its morning assault appeared to be an over-the-top response to this defiance. Allegedly, McVeigh and his cohorts used their bomb to express their indignation against the federal government. Columbine killers Harris and Klebold evidently struck out against those who looked down on them and bullied them. Cho's "multi-media manifesto" rails against rich, pampered, dissolute Americans. While none of these gripes justify mass murder, they provided rationales for their homicidal behavior.

But there is a fourth commonality that too few people—and even fewer media pundits—are comfortable in pointing out: All four of these atrocities were acts of pure evil. Americans are so liberal and humanistic in outlook that they can hardly imagine, much less verbalize, that some of their fellow citizens are evil people. The "experts" provide them with convenient dodges: The killers had "issues"; they were "disturbed"; their frontal lobes had been "compromised," making them unable to control themselves; they had been led astray by violent video games or movies; they had been trained to kill in war or in their line of work; etc., ad nauseum. Why can many not accept the fact that there are genuinely evil people who do indisputably evil things?

In an insightful commentary on the Virginia Tech massacre, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan relates her conclusion about the matter:

The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who'd been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who'd shot him, "An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it." It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil.

The reason for evil being so unimaginable in present-day America resides in her citizen's rejection of revelation and enthusiastic embrace of so-called scientific reason. Science cannot empirically test evil, nor its ultimate source, Satan the Devil. Having spurned the Bible's warnings about "the god of this age" (II Corinthians 4:4), who has deceived the whole world (Revelation 12:9), and accepted on faith that human nature is on an evolutionary course toward perfection, many people never really consider if true wickedness even exists. They coin euphemisms to describe evil acts: They become "crimes," "tragedies," "misdeeds," "atrocities," "psychopathic violence," even "outbursts of a tortured soul." And by ignoring the existence of evil, they bar themselves from seeking real solutions to it.

Proverbs 8:13 says, "The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate." When so many in this nation forsook the fear of God, they failed to hate evil, and evil, unrecognized and ignored, began to grow and spread, breaking out in murder and mayhem in April and September and in every other month of the year. Until Americans once again acknowledge the presence of evil within the "desperately wicked" human heart (Jeremiah 17:9), they will not be able to devise viable solutions to counter it. And if they refuse to change their approach, the days of Noah are at hand (Matthew 24:37).