Lessons from the Casey Anthony Trial – Part 1

If all goes as planned, Casey Anthony goes free on Sunday after three years in jail, 33 days in court and only 11 hours of jury deliberations. In a case echoing the O.J. Simpson trial where the glove didn’t fit, the prosecutors’ charges simply didn’t prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds.

Now, in the curious aftermath when no motive was discovered, no killer identified and no murder charges proven, millions are asking, “What really happened?” The answer is that some knowledgeable person (or persons) isn’t talking, and only God knows what really occurred.

Several notable spiritual lessons emerge from an otherwise dreadfully secular fiasco.

Family dysfunction is a heavy price for society to pay. When children are not raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord, social and moral aberrations abound. When kids are left to partying, immoral lifestyles and birthing fatherless children, it exacts a terrible price in emotional stress and financial burden. Untold millions of dollars are spent to build and maintain jails for convicted criminals and those awaiting trial and to hold lengthy trials. The emotional drain on those involved and even on curious watchers is enormous.

That there is evil in the world is beyond question and is focused by bizarre murder trials such as Anthony’s. Gross criminality feeds off satanic deception. Many of the major mystifying murders and murder trials seem strangely contorted, and truth is lost in the demonic haze. Satan is a deceiver of the world and its nations, and when rampant sinning is practiced, he has a field day of distorting the truth.

A Satanic stronghold energizes death. “…He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44)

Satan is a crafty thief of God’s largesse. In John 10:10, Christ spoke of the contrast. “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Life and death choices confront each human, and God always yearns for life decisions. “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

The lustful life is always a death march as James 1:15 warns. “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

As the end times proceed, we should expect more of this wretched perversity. The Apostle Paul forecast that in history’s closing days men would not receive “the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11) Yes, the definite article “the” is there in the original. Satan is “the lie” as opposed to Christ, who is “the truth.” (John 14:6)

Even though evidence of guilt was not established, a little girl is still dead as the result of sin. In a collision of sin and righteousness, perhaps no human court will ever determine what really happened.

Dave Virkler