11/04/08

Dear Tom:

We spoke yesterday, and you were against capital punishment.  I said God requires murderers to be executed.  You wanted to see it in the Bible, and brought your Bible from the truck.  I showed you Numbers 35:33.  You said it was just my interpretation that God requires capital punishment.  Better read it again, Tom.  But this time read it in a better translation, the King James Version.  That other translation, whatever it was, (it wasn't the King James), will hold you back spiritually.

As a young man, I was advised to read at least a chapter a day in the Bible.  I recommend that to you, also, Tom.  I've been a Christian for more than six decades, and I am now sharing with you my knowledge that God wants murderers to be executed.  That commandment that says, "Thou shalt not kill" means "Thou shalt not commit murder."  When the authorities executed that murderer, Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, it was not murder to execute him.  They were doing God's work that God wanted to be done in executing that murderer.  

I pointed out to you about Achish, who disobeyed God and took some stuff, spoils from the enemy, that God had said not to take.  Achish didn't directly murder anyone.  But Achish was executed anyway, because God wanted that to happen.  You said the fact that he was stoned doesn't necessarily mean that that's what God wanted to happen.  No, you're wrong about that, Tom.  If the Children of Israel had done wrong in the sight of God when they executed Achish, then God would have told us in the Bible that they did wrong.  But God didn't say they did wrong because, when they executed Achish, they were doing right in the sight of God to execute Achish.

Let me give you a New Testament example.  Do you know the name Ananias?  But in the New Testament there is more than one Ananias.  I mean the Ananias whose wife was Sapphira.  You ought to know who I'm talking about without having to look it up.  It's in the 5th chapter of Acts. Both of them did wrong in the sight of God, and died for their sins.  Did they murder someone? No, they just lied.  And for their sins they died.  In the New Testament, not the Old Testament.

In another place in the Bible, God says, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."  So God requires that murderers be executed, Tom.  If you are going to continue as a Christian, you have no right to be against executing murderers.  Are you smarter than God, Tom?  Are you wiser than God?  Neither you, nor me, nor anyone else is smarter nor wiser than God. 

So the best thing for you, and for me, and for everyone, is just find out what God says on every subject, and then just simply agree with God.  Your disagreeing with God yesterday was probably not because you'd rather be a servant of Satan, but probably because you simply didn't know what God says on the subject.  You haven't been studying the Bible enough.  God says in Hosea, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."  Do you want you and your family to be destroyed because of your lack of knowledge, Tom?  The solution to the lack of knowledge problem is study the Bible more.  If your pastor also doesn't want murderers to be executed, it's time to pray about a different church to go to.