New York City gunman was targeting the NFL

A lone shooter killed four people Monday evening at a Midtown Manhattan office building, including a New York City police officer and an executive from the financial firm Blackstone. The gunman shot a fifth person, who was in critical condition, before turning the gun on himself.

Tuesday morning, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said investigators found a suicide note with the shooter. He appeared to be targeting the National Football League and believed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease associated with head injuries. “He alluded to having CTE from playing in the NFL—he never played in the NFL,” the mayor said. “He alluded to the CTE being the reason for his illness.”

After spraying the building lobby with gunfire, the gunman rode the elevator up to the thirty-third floor, where he killed another person before shooting himself in the chest. He appeared to have been headed to the NFL offices in the building, but went to the wrong elevator bank by mistake.

According to an all-staff message sent by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the victim is a National Football League employee in critical but stable condition. The email also states that all other NFL employees were safe and accounted for.

All sin is the result of deception

According to police, the New York City shooter had a documented history of mental illness. This apparently motivated him to act in a heinous way that made some kind of horrific sense to himself. This is tragically unsurprising—according to studies, the presence of a mental disorder is associated with a four to five times increased risk of criminal outcomes.

But in a larger sense, all sin is the result of deception. Let me explain.

Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44) and “the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9) who “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). His purpose is to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). As a result, whenever we see theft and murder and destruction, we can know that the devil has been at work.

He deceives non-Christians to keep them from turning to Christ: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But Christians must also beware lest we are “outwitted by Satan” (2 Corinthians 2:11). He led Ananias to “lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3) and can do the same to us.

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked”

Satan hates our Father, but he cannot attack the omnipotent God of the universe, so he attacks those our Father loves. The devil is a “murderer from the beginning” and “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44), so we know that he can want only what is harmful to us.

However, he knows that we will not choose what hurts us unless we are deceived into doing so. This is why he offers us pleasure and benefits that seem at the time to outweigh any pain they might cause. As a result, the sinner “says in his heart, ‘I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity’” (Psalm 10:6). In addition, “he says in his heart, ‘God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it’” (v. 11).

But “do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). As a result, “Desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15).

Once again, I must repeat the familiar axiom: Sin will always take us further than we wanted to go, keep us longer than we wanted to stay, and cost us more than we wanted to pay.

If you are thinking right now that this does not apply to the temptations you are facing, you are being deceived by the Enemy himself.

Four responses to the deception of sin

As a result, we must “give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). How?

One: Expect temptation

What Satan did to God’s Son in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11), he does to God’s people today. This is why Scripture warns that “your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8b). The time to be prepared is before temptation strikes.

Two: Guard our minds

Peter’s warning is preceded by this command: “Be sober-minded; be watchful” (v. 8a). We are called to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). 

Begin the day with prayer, Bible study, and worship. Stay connected with God in prayer throughout the day. Think biblically about the issues you face. When our minds are close to God, his strength is our victory.

Three: Turn temptation into intercession

Every time we are tempted, we must recognize that this is a battle we cannot win or we would not be facing it. Satan knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows those temptations we can easily defeat and does not waste time on them. But he also knows those temptations we cannot defeat in our strength (what the Puritans called “besetting sins”) and focuses on them.

However, he does not want us to recognize that this is the battle we face, so part of the temptation is the lure to fight in our own ability. Then, slowly and incrementally, we are dragged into the spiritual quicksand until we are defeated.

The key is to turn temptation instantly to the Lord, asking for his help, strength, and victory. This frustrates our enemy on two levels. One: it leads to spiritual victory in Christ (cf. Romans 8:37). Two: as Erasmus noted, Satan hates nothing so much as for evil to be used for good.

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer includes these words I find that I need pray every day:

To my humble supplication

Lord, give ear and acceptation

Save thy servant, that hath none

Help nor hope but thee alone.

Four: Redeem failure through repentance and restoration

When we do fall to temptation, the sooner we confess our sin, repent, and seek God’s restoration, the better. Cancer only grows, and the consequences of sin only worsen. The right time to turn back to God is now.

“A slip of the tongue” and the soul

Once when CS Lewis was praying from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, he came to the phrase, “O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us our mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal” (my italics).

However, as Lewis related in his famous last sermon, “A Slip of the Tongue,” he reversed the two: “I had meant to pray that I might so pass through things temporal that I finally lost not the things eternal; I found I had prayed so to pass through things eternal that I finally lost not the things temporal.”

This is a mistake we are all tempted to make each and every day. To use God as a means to our ends, to use religion to be blessed by the Almighty, is to be deceived into believing that the Creator is subject to his creation and that we can sin in temporal ways without eternal consequences.

But this is a deception, indeed. As Lewis asserted in his sermon,

“It is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention: it is our selves.”

This is the one path to victory in Christ.

Will you choose it today?