“Of all bad men,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “religious bad men are the worst.” Lewis added, “The ‘average sensual man,’ who is sometimes unfaithful to his wife, sometimes tipsy, always a little selfish, now and then (within the law) a trip sharp in his deals, is certainly, by ordinary standards, a ‘lower’ type than the man whose soul is filled with some great Cause, to which he will subordinate his appetites, his fortune, and even his safety.”

In the atrocity that plagued Orlando this past weekend, we saw Lewis’s long proverb on display. The homosexual nightclub Pulse was filled with those illicitly satisfying their sensual desires. In walks a man who is blind to the notion that you don’t cure one evil through the exercise of another. Motivated by the “great Cause” that is radical Islam, he commits mass murder on a historic scale.

Of course, other than perhaps the gunman Omar Mateen, no one visiting Pulse last Saturday night/Sunday morning thought his life was going end. However, make no mistake about it, as this page well documents, and in spite of the decades of liberal propaganda to the contrary, whether or not a homosexual nightclub is visited by a homicidal Islamist, those steeped in the homosexual lifestyle are putting their lives at considerable risk. To remain silent on this issue means tens of thousands of those made in the image of God will suffer horrifically.

Multiple studies have revealed that homosexuals live about 20 years less than national averages. Even the CDC admits, “[R]ecent studies have examined the health and health care of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations and have found clear disparities among sexual minority groups (i.e., gay or lesbian and bisexual) and between sexual minorities and straight populations. These disparities appear to be broad-ranging, with differences identified for various health conditions… [and] health behaviors such as smoking and heavy drinking…Across most of these outcomes, sexual minorities tend to fare worse than their nonminority counterparts.”

In other words, it’s much more dangerous to live a homosexual lifestyle than it is to smoke. (According to the CDC, and The New England Journal of Medicine, the lifespan of smokers is about 10 years less than nonsmokers. And we all know how the left loves cigarettes.) Whether drug or alcohol abuse, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, false religions, and the like, any place outside the will of God is a dangerous place.

“The most dangerous place in America,” said pastor, author, and university president Dr. Mark Rutland, “is the place where authority is not observed and where rebellion is inculcated into the lives of our young people… The most dangerous place in America, is the place that is filled with disrespect, irreverence, and the spirit of lawlessness — the spirit of disobedience.”

As I noted after a different mass shooting nearly three years ago, for decades now, millions of American youth, taught by their Faustian masters, (whether in their homes, at their schools, or through the media) have been brought up in this spirit of rebellion. Thus hundreds of millions of Americans have suffered with the cursed fruit of a nation that has rebelled against authority of most every kind, but especially that of God. We are a nation filled with wicked rebellion. (Ask large city police departments — like Chicago’s — where this spirit of rebellion has led.)

Good has become evil, and evil has become good. A man commits mass murder and so many of us look for answers and explanations in his weapon of choice. Satan laughs. We have not armed ourselves against one another so much as we have taken up arms against God and His law. No one should be surprised that a nation which has killed over 50 million of its children in the womb is a violent nation in other ways as well. As Mother Teresa taught us, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child — a direct killing of the innocent child — murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

We are a nation plagued not only with violence and lust, but with greed, gluttony, slothfulness, selfishness, along with almost every other wickedness you can imagine. It is little wonder then that we elect leaders who reject God’s idea of marriage and who refuse to defend the most defenseless among us. It is little wonder that, more and more, our courts reject the moral authority of God’s law.

Just prior to his death, Moses warned the children of Israel of the curses that followed disobedience: disease, drought, financial ruin, military defeat, and death. Jesus regularly warned of the earthly and the eternal consequences of rejecting Him and going our own way.

Filled with pride and jealousy, King Saul spent the last years of his life trying to kill David. While suffering this persecution, David wrote multiple Psalms. Many of these Psalms speak to how David found safety with God. Psalm 34:7-8 declare, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

Nevertheless, a relationship with our Creator does not guarantee an earthly life of protection and safety. Centuries of martyrs testify to this. In spite of his faith, for years David’s life was in danger. In spite of their earthly walk with the Son of God, most of Jesus’ Disciples died for their faith. What they, and all who share their faith, are guaranteed, is that, no matter their earthly fate, they will end up eternally safe in the Father’s Kingdom. My prayer — and yes, to really fix things like this, we must pray — is that those in Orlando and around the world will find this eternal safety in God’s loving arms.

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas