by Who would have ever thought we would be living in a time when murderers are considered heroes?
I suppose, in one sense, it’s not surprising. Millions of children are murdered in their mother’s wombs, and those who murder them, the abortionists, are considered heroes or heroines. We now have this particularly alarming example of Luigi Mangione, who shot the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, being applauded.
Consider an interview conducted on the streets showing startling opinions from the public:
Question: What do you think about Luigi Mangione?
Person #1: I’m up in the air about it because he killed someone, but I can understand part of his reasoning.
Question: Luigi Mangione, do you think he is a hero?
Person #2: Yeah. I do think he is a hero.
Question: Should Luigi Mangione be free?
Person #3: Yes. He is fighting for the people!
Person #4: He is a man of the people.
Person #5: Taking someone’s life is objectively something that is wrong to do, but he is a hero, in my opinion.
ABC News had this headline: ‘Supporters of suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione established defense fund.’
The article began, “As New York City prosecutors work to bring murder charges against Luigi Mangione in the brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, supporters of the suspect are donating tens of thousands of dollars for a defense fund established for him, leaving law enforcement officials worried Mangione is being turned into a martyr.”
Then, adding to the absurdity, politician Elizabeth Warren stated in an interview about Mangione, “You can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.”
Oh, really? How about in reference to politicians? What if somebody said, ‘Well, you politicians can only push us so far, and then we’re going to eliminate you!’ It’s an egregiously irresponsible statement, to say the least.
Interestingly, Hannity on Fox News said, “Cheering for the murder of an unarmed man is beyond sick.”
I agree; it’s morally sick. However, what needs to be recognized is that a person must believe in absolute authority to be able to make that statement. If there’s no absolute authority—God, who sets the rules, who decides right and wrong—how then can we say that an action is ‘morally sick’?
Why shouldn’t everyone act according to their personal judgment and whims? In Judges 21:25, we’re told, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” That is the point. When there’s no absolute authority, everyone does what he believes is right. Right or wrong is subjective. What’s good or evil is subjective.
Our culture has increasingly abandoned God, deserted God’s Word, thrown Christianity out of the public education system, taught generations of people that there’s no God, and bought into the lie that we are merely animals. It is no wonder people think: ‘I can do whatever I want. I’ll define right and wrong. If I want to murder, it’s okay for me if I determine it to be the right thing to do. Why not?’
It reminds me of Jeremiah 17:9, which states, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”
It’s a heart problem. That’s what we need to understand. The gun that was used to murder the CEO wasn’t the problem. Knives used to kill people are not the problem. What is the problem? The problem lies within people’s hearts. We’re sick; we have a sin problem. When people let their sinful nature rule over them, they do whatever is right in their own eyes.
There is a verse from Scripture that I have read many times over the years that I once thought, ‘I can’t imagine a culture being like that!’ We are now at a time when the verse in Isaiah 5:20 is precisely what we are witnessing in our society: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
We see Isaiah 5:20 happening in all sorts of ways, and now we see it happening in regard to murder. People are calling murder good, and those who want to condemn murder evil. Who would have ever thought that we would be in that situation?
It’s a reminder that the culture is sick—and you can’t just treat the symptoms; you have to treat the sickness. The sickness is man’s heart. Until people recognize that this is a spiritual issue, we will be unable to deal with the many ramifications happening as a byproduct.
We have to understand the true sickness and deal with the origin. Doctors don’t just want to deal with the symptoms; they must get to the root cause and deal with the disease. The root cause is a spiritual issue. We have to be pointing people to the truth of God’s Word, the saving Gospel, and see a heart change—from a sick heart because of sin to one regenerated by the work of the Lord, Jesus Christ, through what He did on the cross of Calvary and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
That’s the solution.