EDITORIAL - Doubters of Satan were furnished all the proof they should need as a living Satan arose to the top of Mandalay Bay hotel last Sunday night and unleashed hell for about eleven minutes. Stephen Paddock acted only as Satan and someone possessed with evil knows how to act. He wreaked devastation in the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. Fifty-nine deaths and over 500 wounded people were the result of Paddock's calculated, well strategized maneuver to bring about mass carnage.
Evil works hard to find a way. Evil is cunning, calculating, sly, secretive, hypocritical but works toward the goal of destruction. Whether we are talking about devils who were involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks that resulted in about 3000 deaths or Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing or the recent attack on a theatre in Paris, France, evil finds a way.
Evil can use a car driven into a crowd or a homemade bomb to mangle people. Evil can use knives, fire, poison, acid or other ways. We don't have to name all the ways that evil can bring about sadness and sorrow because evil works day and night plotting and thinking of how it can succeed in stealing, killing and destroying good people just so their lust for innocent blood is briefly satisfied.
Whether you believe that Satan is a horny-headed figure walking around with a pitchfork, a spirit, a fallen and disgraced angel from heaven or something else, surely you believe in the reality of evil. We saw evil, once again, on Sunday night in Las Vegas embodying Paddock and doing what evil always does.
We see evil breaking into people's houses and robbing people. We hear of evil robbing convenient stores. We hear of evil killing one another in Chicago or evil abusing a child or hurting a spouse. Evil rises up in all kinds of ways. Sunday, evil briefly rose up but seemed like an eternity, to those fleeing for their lives. Las Vegas, our nation and especially all the families involved were forever changed.
For every Satan that rises there are hundreds and thousands of angels. We have heard many, many stories of good and wonderful people saving lives and rescuing people in Las Vegas. Countless stories have been told of people who gave their lives saving someone else. There are so many stories of heroes who did so much to aid and save people who had been wounded. Say whatever you want about Las Vegas, there were a lot of God's people at work helping people in that scene of real hell.
The massacre in Las Vegas reminds us that we live in a world of good and bad. Satan is real and he embodied Paddock to carry out his work. God is also very real and he embodied thousands of people in Las Vegas Sunday night from the police to the many concertgoers who worked so heroically to overcome evil with good.
We have to keep helping each other and working together. We must be angels soaring higher. We have to put race, religion and partisan politics aside. We have to be on the lookout because there is always another Satan lurking and waiting to rise.
Glenn Mollette is a syndicated columnist and author of twelve books.
He is read in all fifty states.
