The Alex McFarland Show-The Solution to Stop Mass Shootings-6

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of scripture.

Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. For you, God, created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes, the eyes of God, saw my unformed body.

That's Psalm 139 verses 13 and 16. And as we talk about life, my heart is heavy as I record this because news is breaking throughout America and around the world really about the school shooting their Rob Elementary School in southwest Texas. News reports vary. The most recent report says 21 are dead. And now, Salvador Ramos, his name enters the list of infamy, along with names like Dylan Klebold from the 1999 Columbine shooting. This gunman, 18 years old, and just hours before going to open fire in a school, shot his grandmother.

As of Wednesday morning, May 25th, she is in critical condition but survived. She shot his grandmother and then goes into the school and he's got body armor, a backpack, two assault rifles that he had posted pictures on social media of the rifles that he had bought once he hit his 18th birthday. And he opens fire and there's a terrible tragic bloodbath of killing.

Now what is the answer? As might be expected as this news unfolds, politicians and President Biden, liberal Democrat politicians are crying out shrill, screaming almost for the banning of guns or certainly certain types of guns. Let's disarm the citizenry. In this broadcast, what I want to talk about, a little bit of analysis on the news, the question of whether or not firearms should be made illegal. And then I want to talk about why human life is sacred in all contexts.

And the sacredness, the sanctity of human life is not just a Christian precept or even a religious precept, but I would submit that that is an American constitutional precept that was woven into our culture from the very beginning. And I want to give you reasons why I believe banning of firearms is not the answer. Because do you know school shootings, while there have been really 35 to 36, roughly about three dozen school shootings in American history, you might think this really began with Columbine, but it didn't. I mean we go farther back than that. In 1940, there was a pretty famous school shooting in which, if I recall, something like five or six people died. But would you believe the first school shooting, shall we say, was in 1764 at a college in America where 11 people died.

So school shootings, the rare, the majority have happened really within about the last 20 years, but there has been violence. Human beings have murdered human beings not just since the beginning of this country, but since the beginning of time. In fact, the very first family, Adam and Eve, and they had sons, Cain and Abel. The human race was only on planet earth a very short time before we introduced sin into the equation. And within the first family, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, there was a homicide. Isn't that something?

Cain killed his brother and brother has been killing brother ever since. Now this is tragic. And in trying to reasonably, with a calm head, though a heavy heart, in trying to reasonably speak to this issue, what we've got to do, we have to try and help people understand we don't minimize the suffering, our hearts break.

This is so tragic. And look, having been on the road now for 24 years as a speaker, I remember I was on the road when the Columbine shooting erupted. And you remember Cassie Bernal famously memorialized in the news, and the gunman said, do you believe in God?

And she said yes, and she was gunned down. People still talk about it today. I was interviewed on the news quite a bit in those days following Columbine, and I've been there. And then there was Santa Fe, Texas, and there was Sandy Hook, and so many others, Oakland, California in 2012. Some of you may be old enough to remember the shooting at Kent State back during the turbulent times of the late 60s and as we got into the 70s. And it seems like with increasing intensity in recent decades, violence in America has only escalated, and I would say it has.

And the answer, I'm going to give a short answer and then I'm going to unpack this. The answer is not to disarm the citizens. The answer has got to be the restoration of morality and the restoration of the family.

Now, the blame for this, honestly folks, and this is hard truth, the blame for Salvatore Ramos, the blame for this, the blame, the blood of these slain students and adults must lay at the feet of those that have fought endlessly for the abolition of a moral conscience in America and the destruction of the family. But I am saying to you, and I will say it to my dying breath, the answer is not to disarm the citizens, abolish firearms. Listen, if there weren't firearms, then miscreants who were living at the beck and call of their sin nature would use rocks or sticks or some other weapon. Listen, because there are car wrecks, you don't abolish transportation.

Because there is gravity, you don't make it illegal for people to walk upstairs and get in high places. The answer is not to try to create a police state. The answer is to teach morality and the answer for psychological and social and emotional problems among young people. And I've spent my graduate career and my life preparing to work with young people and working with young people. Let me say this, what matters to young people, sure God and truth, but family. Young people need a mother and a father. And so when we come back after this brief break, we're going to talk about the solution. The solution is to teach morals and affirm the family.

If you want killings like this to stop in America, three things. Teach morality, be a champion for the family, and then on the spiritual level convert young people to the gospel of Jesus Christ where they will know that life is sacred. They will know that they're accountable to God. They will know that there is an afterlife. There is a heaven for those who know Jesus. There's hell for those that enter eternity without Him as Salvador Ramos no doubt did. He is in hell right now.

And so as our nation grieves, this is not a time to advocate further progressivism or the moral relativism, the tragically delusional relativism that is killing our country. The answer is for every citizen, every rational adult, and certainly the clergy to talk about morals, to talk about family, and to talk about the gospel. Stay tuned. More with the Alex McFarland Show when we return. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert.

Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Are you tired of liberal agendas ruining our country, but you don't know what to do about it? That's why Truth and Liberty Coalition was founded. We want to equip you to take back our country and impact the world. Here's how we do it. We educate through broadcasts, conferences, and our website with resources that inform, equip, and motivate. We unify by collaborating with like-minded organizations like the Family Research Council, the Family Policy Alliance, and My Faith Votes. We mobilize by providing practical tools you can use to impact your local community.

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Alex McFarland here. We're talking about the recent shooting just hours ago in Texas. Very, very sad. And I would submit to you that the answer is that we have to restore morality, objective morality, the belief, yes, that there are objective rights and wrongs and that those moral truths descend from the character of God. Our Creator, as we said at the beginning, Psalm 139, that God wove each of us together in our mother's body and God, even before we were born, delivered, God sees us. That's the personhood of every individual. Not only the Christian worldview, but just the natural law worldview. And if you listen to our programs, you know we talk much about natural law, that there are moral truths written on the hearts of all people. Everybody knows right from wrong. And we know that killing another human being, unjustified, that's called murder, that's wrong.

That's wrong. Well, the Humanist Manifesto, which some decades ago was signed by people like John Dewey, Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, more recently secularists like Carl Sagan and others that want a godless America, like the Democrat Party. I couldn't believe it late last night as I was reading this, as several leaders said that our thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved people in Texas. One Democrat leader, and I won't use the language, but tweeted, blank your prayers. You've got to understand that the Democrat Party of 2022, as anyone who's even remotely watched the news in recent years, you've got to know this is not the Democrat Party of FDR, this is not your grandmother's Democrat Party. This is a party vehemently, militantly wed itself to secularism, humanism, a godless, progressive, Marxist future. The Humanist Manifesto I and II said the following, quote, we need to extend the uses of the scientific method.

Confronted by many possible futures, we must decide which to pursue. Now these are humanists, and this philosophy typifies the left today. No deity will save us, we must save ourselves. Moral values derive their source from human experience. That's false, by the way. Ethics is autonomous and situational.

No it is not. Needing no theological or ideological sanctions. No, you've got to understand values do not come about in a vacuum. If a person says we ought to do this, we ought not do that, well those aughts, those moral imperatives that people set forth do not come about out of thin air. And so when they say we must make guns illegal, well there's an ideology behind that. There's the belief for one thing that people are basically good. Let me say any human being, because part of being a human is to have free will, that's called volition. And part of being a human that the founders recognized, like Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, he said if men were angels no government would be necessary. But because men are not angels, we have a sin nature and we have free will.

Listen, ban guns, people will pick up clubs and rocks. And the answer for God's sakes, and I'm not being scatological or flippant here, but for God's sake, Democrats, I ask you, how many children have to die before you will acknowledge God and moral truth? What would be so wrong with doing what we did for the first 200 years of our nation's history, and we say here are the Ten Commandments. Commandment 6, thou shalt not commit murder.

Now I can hear it. Right away the progressive left will say, ah, ah, ah, the First Amendment prohibits you from invoking moral and religious truth. Congress will make no law regarding the establishment of religion.

Okay. Forget for a moment that the Ten Commandments are found in Exodus chapter 20, even though the man that wrote the First Amendment, Fisher Ames, had no problem with the fact that the moral code on which our nation was based is found in the pages of Scripture. We've talked about this ad infinitum many times.

George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, the signers of the Declaration, they believed in, yes, God and the Bible they did, but they believed in what we call natural law, that moral awareness is written on the hearts of all people. Let me say this, folks. We know that lying is wrong. We know that murder is wrong. We know that stealing is wrong. Bearing false witness, slandering somebody is wrong.

Adultery is wrong. Every human being knows right from wrong. Now, the answer is not to abolish firearms. It is not to disarm the citizenry because criminals will only have more opportunity to kill, to vandalize, to steal, to destroy. When the citizens are disarmed and people are not able to defend themselves, that doesn't eliminate crime.

That simply means that the people are less able to defend themselves when they are the victim of a crime. So the answer is to teach morality to young people. And we teach morality and we tell young people, look, there are things objectively right and there are things that are absolutely wrong. And where do rights and wrongs come from? Well, the Humanist Manifesto is wrong. They said they do not derive their source from a deity.

No, they do. What is morally right is that which conforms to the character and nature of God. And so when the progressive Marxist socialist left, the anti-marriage, anti-truth crowd says there is no God, there is no deity, then what they are saying is we will prevent you from being able to adjudicate what is right or wrong. Now why do they want to do that?

They want to do that because they want to expunge a Judeo-Christian natural law ethic from our culture so that they can import a socialist humanist Marxist ethic. And it's sad at this time of bereavement to have to talk about the fact that, yes, we are in an ideological war. But the reality is these crises come about.

Many people have said this. Rahm Emanuel famously said it, never let a good crisis go to waste, although that quote is probably not original with him. But they are using this time of crisis to attempt to further erode the Judeo-Christian moral foundation of America, what shreds of that world view are left, and to further talk about making this a nation that we are basically prisoners of a police state. Now stay tuned, we're going to come back and I'm going to give what I know, what not only we know from our nation's history but from world history, what are the solutions.

There is actually hope, but we've got to be brave enough and rational enough to acknowledge the truth and move toward it. Stay tuned, we're back after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. In the mid-1980s, Jerry Cox was a public school history teacher in Arkansas with no political aspirations. That changed when he realized those who held a Christian worldview had no representation in the Arkansas State Capitol. Jerry founded Arkansas Family Council and for more than three decades, AFC has been the voice of biblical values in Arkansas. More Than Words is an inspirational story, one you should read and encourage others to read as well.

Visit afa.net slash the stand. Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics, teaching in more than 2200 churches around the world, schools, and college campuses. Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God. He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com or you can contact us directly by emailing bookingatalexmcfarland.com.

He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. By the way, July 8th through 10th, I will be at the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina, The Cove, teaching 1 Peter Jesus Christ our hope for now and for eternity. And you can go to thecove.org, t-h-e-c-o-v-e, thecove.org, and I would love for you to be there. Also, our youth camp is coming up July 17th through 22nd. The theme is Unashamed, Building Your Biblical Worldview, and I will be talking with young people.

Also, we'll be talking about God, truth, morality, being a citizen. You see, what we do in our seminars around the country, in our youth camp, in our viral truth campus clubs, if you want to learn about how your middle schoolers and high schoolers can start a campus club, my goodness, go to our website alexmcfarland.com. We will coach your young people into knowing how to share truth with their friends. And by the way, our events, publishing, broadcasting, events, conferences, camps, seminars, our publishing, my 18 books that the Lord has allowed me to write, and the pamphlets and handouts, tens and tens of thousands of copies in circulation, and then our radio shows, podcasts, television program. We can do these things and our staff of seven and myself, our volunteer network of hundreds of people across America, we're only able to do all this thanks to your prayers and financial support.

But let's talk about this. Morals. Friends, the entirety of our country, I've talked about this so much, is based on the belief that there are moral truths. In fact, in the Declaration of Independence, when Jefferson wrote regarding our break with Britain because of their injustices against the colonists, when the 56 men signed their name to this statement appealing to God for the rectitude of our intentions, what they were saying is what we need to once again familiarize ourselves with, that there is moral truth, it comes from the character of God. And look, when there is injustice, we have the right, really the obligation to stand against it. And if we don't, if we know the right but won't do it, or if we see the wrong and don't speak out, then we're accountable to God. So for young people, so for a Salvador Ramos, imagine how things would be different if he had been told, you know young man, there is morality, you'll answer to God, and so part of the moral code written on the soul of all people and part of the moral truth on which our nation was based is that it is wrong to take another human life.

It's even wrong to take your own life. Then family, folks, this I know from my graduate studies and 25 plus years of working with young people, interviewing psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health professionals, what matters to young people is family. And we have so many voices in our nation saying that a child doesn't need a mother and father.

No, if we want to see these shootings end and the likelihood and the possibility be as minimalized as possible, we must restore the family. I know from interviewing hundreds of young people for my books, when there is not a mom and dad, when parents are divorced, that is a wound that goes deep into the psyche of a young person. And we need stable families.

Part of the reason that our nation is possibly at a point of terminal illness has been not only the breakdown of the family, but the left and certainly the ideologues that are in public education and the godless media and the anti-family sentiment. Young people need to know about morals. Young people need to know about God. Young people need to know that they have a stable sanctuary called the home.

And as much as I appreciate aunts, uncles, grandparents, kids need to be raised by their biological mom and dad. This is hard truth. And if we are remotely rational, we have to ameliorate ourselves to this truth. So how can we make a difference in a culture of disbelief, a culture of decadence, really a culture of death? Well, we have got to understand the fundamental presuppositions that permeate so much of our culture. You know, there was a Dr. Donald Bruce from Scotland, a professor, he said the critical problem of our times is gradualism. What did he mean by that?

Just gradual drift away, drift away. Now, there was a time when we looked outside of ourselves for God, truth, and morality. God is sovereign. Truth is not something I determine for myself. Truth is something I discover. And morals are unchanging. What's right is right because it's based in God. But the current model, and this is just drilled into people from childhood up, is that we look inside ourselves.

Man is autonomous. That's what the Humanist Manifesto said. Values are speculative, unknowable, and habits change.

They're mutable. And what's right is right because of its utility. We're relativists.

I make my own truth. We're pragmatists. Something is right if it seems to work. And then we're utilitarian. We just do what works for us. We need to come back to, it is natural law, but it's the Ten Commandments. Now, we need to expose the flaws within the fundamental assumptions of our culture. Now, for decades, we've just been growing in our secularism, and people have worked to replace the basic fundamental cultural assumptions that our founders held, which were biblical, and which sustained us. And America was land of the free, home of the brave, sanctity, security. You remember the Norman Rockwell pictures of the four freedoms. Freedom from fear and danger. Well, we don't have that anymore.

Why? What's been lost? Our safety? Well, yeah, but we've lost that stability, that safety, because we've turned away from God. And we've got to expose the flaws of our culture and to replace them with the new, or the returned, old, timeless assumptions that we need God.

So what do we do in conclusion? Okay, let's talk about the sanctity of human life, the unborn. And we haven't even talked about abortion. How, oh my goodness, five decades plus of no legal protection for the unborn. Look, if there is no legal protection for the unborn, why should there be legal protection for the living?

Well, of course, there should be on both accounts. But we have to talk to youth about the inherent sanctity of human life. We've got to remind people that our Constitution recognizes the humanity of all persons, yes, including the unborn.

And we have to oppose the anti-life assumptions that permeate so much of our culture. And then, through our words and deeds, promote the message of the abundant life here and the eternal life hereafter that comes only through Jesus. And then pray and pray.

Joel 2, 13 and 14 is a good word for us as I close. Tear your hearts, not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love. He relents from sending calamity.

Who knows? God may turn and have pity and leave a blessing. So, how we need this? May God grant that we have a move of the Holy Spirit. And may God grant that though we may grieve, we turn to Him. And spreading the message of life and truth in the Gospel begins in each one of us today.

May God bless and may God help America. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Or by calling 1-877-YES-GOD-1. That's 1-877-YES-GOD-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.