The gun vs. the gospel in Wood Green

Yesterday afternoon, shortly after starting some street evangelism at 15:30, Michael, a member of Grace Baptist Church Wood Green, asked if I had seen a helicopter. I had not, but I had heard one. "Was it police?" I asked. "No. It was red, so it must have been an air ambulance" he replied. A short while later I saw another helicopter and noted, seeing its black and yellow colours, "Now that is a police helicopter." The afternoon continued and I forgot about it.

This morning, I discovered that a teenage man was shot in the head 5 minutes walk down the road from me yesterday afternoon at around 15:30.

As always there will be those who speculate that he was in some way guilty of wrongdoing that led to this, and then there will be those who postulate that no, he was a good boy and is totally innocent, gunned down in cold blood. Both groups miss the point. A fellow human is now fighting for his life because of the violence that the evil in someone's heart drove them to. We should pray for the young man, that he would know God's healing. For his family and the police, that they will know God's help. For the perpetrator, that he will know God's hurt. And for them all, that they will know God's hand in salvation.

On one side of Grace Baptist Church's building someone was wielding a gun to take life. On the other side, we were offering the gospel which gives life. One day these two may very well meet more directly and personally on our streets, even in our chapel, and the one be leveled at those bearing the other. The gun may, because of its life-destroying pain, seemingly have the upper-hand for a time. But we should not be paranoid now, nor anxious and afraid then. The gospel, because of its life-giving power ultimately triumphs, and God's glory, goodness, and grace will one day blast away all darkness.

"I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself." Philippians 3:18-21