On Nov. 5, 26 people were killed in a small Texas town while worshipping God together. Twenty others were wounded — 10 of them now critical.

On Oct. 1, 59 persons were killed and 500 wounded in a Las Vegas shooting. Several hundred have been killed all over the country in the interval between those two massacres.

Reports on opioid deaths in Mississippi alone will be well over 200 this year. Heroin use is reported to be multiplying.

Why? How? Who? When?

We would like to find a one-dimension answer that wouldn’t affect the way we now live. Some believe gun control is the solution. It can’t be that simple, but I’ve never understood why a civilian needs a rapid-fire military weapon. It would be best if only those who can safely and wisely use a weapon had one. Some maturity and wisdom is required to use a slingshot or bow and arrow.

Please consider these thoughts on the “why.”

The mass media has destroyed our imaginary two-world concept (one for children, one for adults).

Our entertainment industry thrives on violence and vengeance and vulgarity; and on children and youth, and deviant adults who need scripture lessons to live by. Some movies and TV series I’ve seen advertised are: “Assassins Creed,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Underworld: Blood Wars,” “Mobile Strike,” “Suicide Squad,” “Shameless” and “Damnation.”

The commercials look like Isis training camps with weapons of mass destruction. Death and blood and devaluation of life flow profusely. Many scenes look like hell with demons.

Every farmer and gardener knows that your harvest comes from the seed you sow. “You reap what you sow” (Galatians 6:7).

That is exactly what is happening in our country where we have let unbelievers (Psalm 14:1) discard divine revelation and prayer. The very textbook of life has been laid aside to teach theories as though we are products of millions of years of lucky accidents.

Jesus the Christ came from heaven to earth to teach us all we need to know of peace and goodwill, and to stop the carnage of violence and unbelief.

We must again sing the song of angels at Jesus’ birth — in homes and nursing homes and churches and schools throughout our educational systems: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to mankind” (Luke 2:14).

Only a sovereign God can reverse the direction of a nation with a culture of violence. We can help.

Glenn Martin is a retired Methodist minister from Brookhaven.