Can It Happen Again?

 

Those of you who are old enough can remember the name Jim Jones, the former leader of the People’s Temple Church. On Saturday, November 18, 1978, a total of 918 members of the People’s temple Church in Jonestown, Guyana committed suicide/murder. Of this number, 294 of the dead were children under the age of 18. I was 28 years old at the time and remember spending over a week talking about the event at work and at church. Though 45 years have passed, I still vividly see in my mind the pictures of hundreds of people lying dead on the ground; arms wrapped around one another, mothers holding their babies, and a father embracing what must have been his wife and children. The question that people asked then, and continually ask to this day is, “How could so many people do such a senseless thing? How could so many people forfeit their life, and the life of their children?” While I still find these questions hard to answer, I do believe I have a better understanding of it today than I had so many years ago.

Jim Jones, the founder of the “People’s Temple Church” was a charismatic leader. In 1952 he left the Methodist church. He claimed to be “the manifestation of Christ principle.” He claimed to heal the sick just like Jesus did. He even claimed to raise the dead just like Jesus did. In fact, he demanded the absolute loyalty of his followers. Being disloyal to him was tantamount to being disloyal to Christ, himself. Jones said: “I have put on Christ, you see. I have followed after the example of Christ. When you see me, it is no longer Jim Jones here. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ that lives here. Now Christ is in this body. You will not get Christ’s blessing in Jim Jones’ blessing until you walk like Jim Jones, until you talk like Jim Jones, until you act like Jim Jones, until you look like Jim Jones. How long will I be with you until you understand that I am no longer a man, but a Principle. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light. No one can come to the Father but through me.”

Jones claimed that he was the only way to the Father. Therefore, those who believed in him were willing to unquestionably follow him, even to death. But again, “How can religious people be so mistaken?” I believe the answer can be found in a comment made by the Major in charge of the Army operation to remove the bodies from Jonestown. In disbelief, he said, “There were no Bibles in Jonestown! These people had been weaned away from the Word of God and had learned to trust in the word of a man.”

[Romans 1:18-32] Can such a tragedy happen again? Of course, it can, and in fact is happening this very day. The death and destruction of faith in God is in a slow-motion free-fall. Not through mass suicides, but by the people who are turning away from the Word of God to follow the words of men. “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man… Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (v. 22-25). Loyalty to God’s Word can save you from the tragedy of following men to our own physical and spiritual destruction. The World Economic Forum, meeting again this very week, is leading the world down a God-less path of nonsense, sighting the “fact” that the inhabitants of the earth must become, in essence, wiser than God the Creator of the universe, to save the planet from our mindless destruction of it. “…all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).