The Mass Murder Cycle
There have been at least a dozen times in the history of Rapture Ready that I’ve written a Nearing Midnight article about some mass murder event. I’ve never produced an article that had two such events that occurred within days of each other. As you all know, 22 people were killed in El Paso, and 9 people were killed in Dayton.
The pointless loss of life is always the most distressing thing, but I am increasingly bothered by how methodical the media and politicians have become in reacting to these events. The press rushes in to milk out all the emotional points from the victims. Then they place the blame on Republicans, the NRA and Fox News for fomenting hate; never mind the fact that the shooters were once again fans of Democratic causes. Finally, we are reminded that all gun violence can be solved by us turning over our weapons to the government.
The liberal media can get my blood pleasure up with some of the most subtle remarks. One Yahoo news article simply said that Trump broke his silence over the El Paso shooting. The reporter was sneakily implying that Trump shared some blame in the tragedy, and he was at a rare loss for words. Another reporter did even better while going after Senate leader Mitch McConnell. While blaming McConnell for inaction, he noted that he was the current leader of the Senate. The reporter must have physic powers that senses balance of power is about to switch sides.
With the news business long dead, we have propagandists manning the news desks. These political hacks are longing for the days of the Obama presidency. It was eight peaceful years where no one mass murder events took place. To put this work of fiction to bed, someone created a list of events that remind us of the rivers of blood that plagued Obama’s term:
July 23, 2015 — Lafayette, LA — 3 dead, 9 injured
July 16, 2015 — Chattanooga, TN— 5 dead, 3 injured
June 17, 2015 — Charleston, SC— 9 dead
February 10, 2015 — Chapel Hill, NC— 3 dead
May 23, 2014 — University of California, Santa Barbara. — 7 dead (including gunman)
April 2, 2014 — Fort Hood (Second Shooting). — 3 dead, 12 injured
September 16, 2013 — Washington, DC. — 12 dead
December 14, 2012 — Newtown, Conn. — 27 dead (including gunman)
September 27, 2012 — Minneapolis, Minn.— 7 dead (including gunman), 2 injured
August 5, 2012 — Oak Creek, Wis.— 7 dead (including gunman), 4 injured
July 20, 2012 — Aurora, Colo. — 12 dead, 59 injured
May 31, 2012 — Seattle, Wash.— 6 dead
April 2, 2012 — Oakland, Calif. — 7 dead
February 22, 2012 — Norcross, Ga. — 5 dead (including gunman)
October 12, 2011 — Seal Beach, Calif. — 8 dead, 1 injured
January 8, 2011 — Tucson, Ariz. — 6 dead, 14 injured
August 3, 2010 — Manchester, Conn. — 9 dead (including gunman), 2 injured
November 29, 2009 — Parkland, Wash. — 5 dead (including gunman)
November 5, 2009 — Fort Hood, Texas — 13 dead, 30 injured (including gunman)
April 3, 2009 — Binghamton, N.Y. — 14 dead (including gunman), 4 injured
March 29, 2009 — Carthage, N.C. — 8 dead, 3 injured (including gunman)
March 10, 2009 — Geneva County, Ala. — 11 dead (including gunman), 6 injured
The most important list is a constantly updating mass murder list. This record of ever-changing highest death counts is a testament of how crazy our society has become:
1 2017 Las Vegas shooting; 58 killed
2 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting; 49 dead
4 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting; 27 dead
5 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting; 26 dead
6 1991 Luby’s shooting; 23 dead
7 2019 El Paso shooting; 22 killed
8 1984 San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre; 21 murdered
9 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting left 17 dead
10 1966 University of Texas tower shooting; 16 killed
There is another mass murder list that is taking place in our major cities. We don’t read reports about these deaths because they occur in the single digits. The city of Chicago during the first week of this month had shootings that left seven people dead and another 52 people wounded. The victims ranged from 5 to 56 years old.
The city’s emergency rooms were so badly stretched to the limit that Mt. Sinai Hospital in Douglas Park was forced to go on bypass for several hours. All wounded were directed to the city’s four other trauma units.
It should be obvious that the reason for the violence is that our society has drifted from biblical moral values. If someone dares to bring up sin as the possible cause, they get shouted down.
When Chicago voters elected Lori Lightfoot as mayor, I was very disappointed that she was a lesbian. I was absolutely mortified that there is not a single Republican among the 12 people running for that office. You would think that after 40 years of failed socialism, some part of the voters would seek an alternative. If California continued having major earthquakes, the current mentality would call for the election of a Satanist for the governorship.
The mass murder cycle cannot continue on forever. Eventually, we are going to reach a point where lawlessness will make people willing to give up their freedom to have some form of security. When we become so blind as to make such a choice, we no longer deserve to have either.
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
–Todd
Deal-of-the-Century Update
One has to wonder how many times President Trump has heard the following words, or those similar: “You must not give away land God has given Israel, Mr. President.”
Or: “Mr. President, America must never abandon Israel or deal treacherously with the Jewish people.”
The reason it is reasonable to wonder this is, in part, because of recent developments in the process known as “the Deal of the Century.”
Emails received have indicated on numerous occasions the trepidation the emailers feel–that is, the uneasiness about the probability of the Trump administration making a “deal” that will almost certainly include giving the Palestinians part of Israel’s land in a ”two-state solution” to the conflict in the region.
The deal, of course, involves the Trump Administration trying to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the so-called Palestinians. I say “so-called” because the word “Palestine” is a term concocted, many scholars believe, from the ancient people who were Israel’s enemies, the Philistines. This is the people from whom, of course, the giant Goliath and his brothers came in the biblical David and Goliath account.
There has never been such a homeland for those called “Palestinians.” The Arab/Muslim world has used its claim that Israel is an illegitimate occupier of the Palestinian homeland in recent times to foment hatred against the Jewish state.
There is fear amongst the diplomatic world that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could at any moment flare to trigger thermonuclear response from the Zionists, as the Muslim-haters of Israel terms that nation. Israel, it is known by all, although not officially admitted, has one of the world’s most lethal nuclear capabilities.
The Trump administration has been working to construct what the president, in his usually outspoken manner, calls “the Deal of the Century.” By that, he means he intends to come up with a plan that will make peace in the region, thereby eliminating the fears of war that might ignite because of the conflict.
It was rumored that the American administration intended to include as part of this plan for making peace the dividing of Israel’s land in order to create a separate nation called Palestine.
Christians who are savvy about Bible prophecy and who observe the times in light of Christ’s promised return have weighed in heavily on this possibility. They stringently oppose such division of Israel’s land, based upon, in part, passages in the book of the prophet Zechariah and Joel.
Joel prophesied: “For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3: 1-2).
The prophet was foretelling about Armageddon, of course. He was saying that God will bring the nations of the world into the killing fields of the Plains of Esdraleon–the Valley of Jezreel surrounding Megiddo–to punish them for their maltreatment of His chosen people of Israel.
Those who hold to the premillennial, pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy believe that to be instrumental in dividing the land God gave Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will bring a curse on the perpetrators– based upon God’s promises found in Genesis 12: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).
There was, as I say, trepidation amongst these Christian believers that President Trump planned to make the division of Israel’s land part of the Deal of the Century.
Something has, perhaps, seemingly put a stop to that troubling rumor. The following news excerpt explains in part.
There is no Palestinian statehood in the “deal of the century,” only autonomy, as U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a silent member of the administration’s Mideast peace team, has revealed.
Friedman warned the Palestinians that the Clinton, Olmert, Kerry and Obama proposals are no longer on the table…
Now the architects of the peace plan are making clear that all those proposals are a thing of the past and there is no better deal on its way.
When Arab countries are disintegrating because of jihad on one hand and Iran on the other, no stable Arab government would see the formation of a new Arab state as a dream come true. A bold new peace plan should propose taking a completely different direction. (“There might be something to ‘deal of the century’ after all, opinion by Ben-Dror Yemini, Published: 8-01-19 Rapture Ready News)
Again, based upon this overt declaration that there will be no Palestinian state constructed as part of negotiating peace, one must wonder how many times President Trump has heard the words, or those similar: “You must not give away land God has given Israel, Mr. President.”
It is fodder for conjecture whether Bible prophecy adherents close to the president, such as Dr. Robert Jeffress or John Hagee, have had an influence. Certainly the Holy Spirit is at work in these closing days of the Church Age (Age of Grace). We will keep watch, with great interest, on unfolding things surrounding this “Deal-of-the Century” process.
–Terry
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