Will stricter gun laws stop mass killings?

Another mass killing of 26 church members in Sutherland Springs, Texas and there are renewed demands for stricter gun control laws to stop them.

But the problem is not "guns!" It is the "human heart!" We read in Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"

The "big lie" coming from the heart of sinful mankind is that man's heart is "naturally good." This is the fallacy that drives man-made efforts for self-reform and national reform. But God, who is the perfect searcher of the heart, is also the greatest psychologist. God tells us that we cannot fully fathom the depths of depravity that come from man's heart.

Matthew 15:9 says: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man."

Acts 9:1 tells us that Saul was filled with "murderous threats." He wanted to destroy the Christian Church. God touched the heart of Saul, led him to see his sins, moved him to repent and to believe in Jesus Christ as his Savior. God changed Saul's heart and life. By God's grace, "Saul" the "persecutor" became "Paul" the "preacher" of the Gospel that turns peoples hearts from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.

The "heart of man" is the culprit. May we pray that God will do what we can't do, namely, change our hearts and those of all sinners by His powerful, life-changing and life-giving Word!

REV. DAVID V. DISSEN,

pastor emeritus, Cape Girardeau