Monday 20 October 2014

Sutton Shooting



‘A man has been injured in a suspected shooting in a Nottinghamshire town. The victim was found by police with a non-life threatening wound to his leg in Hamilton Road, Sutton-in-Ashfield on Thursday evening’.

These lines taken from the BBC News website are a reminder of how events of a serious nature are getting closer and closer to each one of us. Whether this particular matter turns out to be associated with a crime or not we will have to wait and see. Some of us living in the locality remain a little uneasy.

Those old enough to remember back into the 20th Century can recall events that became national scandals which, in today’s world, would barely feature. Gun crime is one such event. The sadness is that we have not noticed. When change is gradual, and over a lengthy period, the shock is lost. What can be worse is when decline is seen as ‘progress’, and change for the worse is somehow ‘normal’.

The marital exploits of 20th Century film stars, like Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, were regarded as scandalous by many of the day. Now such exploits are commonplace. How many people do we know who have been married, and remained faithful to their partners, for more than 30 years? Multiple divorces are seen as  ‘progress’. This is ‘tolerance’. The damage to the adults and children caught up in this moral mess is greater than anyone realizes, or stops to calculate.

What we often lose sight of is that the God of the universe does not change, and His standards are unalterable. What society once abhorred but is now prepared to accept and even applaud remains sin in the sight of God. Social views can change. God does not! The laws of the land can change. The law of God does not! The challenge is that measured against the ten commandments we all fall short.

The fact that God does not change is a challenge to all of us but it also offers us hope. Whilst God’s standards remain the same, the way of salvation remains the same. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is still the only way to God. When all around may be changing, and changing rapidly, how reassuring to know that faith in Christ can still being salvation to a lost sinner!

[picture taken from: http://www.deepdotweb.com/]