Tragedy in Omaha

I just read a stirring article by Pastor Erik Raymond of Omaha Bible Church regarding the horrific shooting by Robert Hawkins at the Omaha Westroads Mall.
When these type of things happen in our world, how do we or how should we as Christians respond? Pastor Erik has written a very helpful article that gives us some needed Biblical insight in the midst of the crisis.

Robert Hawkins, his heart speaks from the grave

We can learn a lot about the outworking of depravity by watching the news. Robert Hawkins was a 19-year-old teenager who is responsible for one of the most bloody and gruesome days in Nebraska history.
After being dumped by his girlfriend, fired from his job at McDonalds, and awaiting a pending court appearance for a minor in possession charge, he went on a shooting spree in Omaha’s Westroads Mall.
An informing aspect of this tragedy is the suicide note that Hawkins left behind. In the note he wrote that he wanted “to go out in style.”
Do you hear him crying out with futility, frustration, confusion, anger, deception, and hatred?

We can interpret what he meant of course, reading his horrific actions back into his terminology. He means that by ending 9 lives (including his own) and terrorizing countless others that he would be going “out in style.”
Truly this is a gruesome keyhole into the human heart. The Scripture tells us that our hearts are not our allys but our enemies. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17.9) The human heart holds the distinct rank of the most deceitful thing in all of the world. It is desperately sick.
Think for a moment about the charges leveled at the heart by God. The Bible says that the heart, our hearts, your heart, is the most deceitful thing in all the world. It will lie to you, trick you, entice you, mislead you, and ultimately kill you. The heart’s end game is not your happiness but rather your destruction. It does not long for you to experience of the joys of heaven but rather for you to experience the pain, destruction, hopelessness and torment of hell.
You see this with Robert Hawkins. His heart speaks so clearly and so loudly in deceit. He actually believed that this would be “in style.” Are you kidding? This is so sad. The heart’s deceit actually convinced him that to mow down people in a shopping mall and then to take his own life ushering him into the presence of the inflexibly righteous judge of heaven and earth was ‘going out in style.’ Do you see this perversion? Do you see the deceit?
But do not think that just because you have not sinned in the manner that Hawkins did that your heart is somehow more tame than his was. The Scripture refers to “the heart”, that is the fallen heart that is in all of us. We all have the potential to carry out such things as was horrifically witnessed on Wednesday in Omaha. It is the restraining grace of God that prevents this from being commonplace and keeps it in the realm of abnormal tragedy.
Make no mistake about it, every sin is a ploy by your heart to destroy you. Every pursuit of idolatry has in its end game your destruction. You may try to lessen this by relativizing things, but it is not biblical to do so. Every lust (ungodly pursuit) is hatched in the heart and its intention is death (James 1.13-15). The overt aim of the heart is to destroy you and plumit you into eternal hell and then run a victory lap proclaiming the triumph. Do not flatter your heart by thinking that you have somehow tamed your heart; for it is this thinking that makes Jeremiah’s point. The deceit of the heart will lie and trick you by flattering you. This is sobering indeed.
On one level it is troubling to consider the true terrorist lies inside of each of us. We find ourselves echoing the words of the Apostle Paul: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7.24).
But he goes on… “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7.25). Indeed Christ has come to conquer sin and death by giving believers a new heart, new affections, new desires, and new life. Instead of loving sin and hating God, now by the grace of God Christians may love God and hate sin. Believers are being conformed more and more into the image of Jesus and as a result slowly being transformed from their depraved disposition. But at the same time we understand that we are not yet conformed into this image, and to be honest, quite a ways away.
So what do we do?
Press hard into grace, knowing that the heart is deceitful and we cannot trust it or even evaluate it apart from the Word of God. The very next verse in Jeremiah says, “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jer. 17.10)
So let us have a healthy and informed fear of the deception of our own heart. Let us run to the Word of God which is the unique standard of evaluating our hearts (Heb. 4.16), and let us cling to the ever able grace of God that flows to helpless sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5.6).