Going to Jesus

Daily Thoughts

 Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:

• Collection

  Thoughts for the Morning Thoughts for the Evening Random Thoughts

• Month

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• Day

  03-01 “I Will Answer ALL Your Questions.” 03-02 The Will of the Flesh and the Will of Man 03-03 Self-will and Strong Will 03-04 The Danger of Liberty 03-05 A Chastened Man 03-06 Reconciled 03-07 “Reconciled” Response 03-08 “Reconciled” Response 03-09 One Way 03-10 “One Way” Response 03-11 A Checklist For Staying Free 03-12 Everything Jesus Is 03-13 Becoming An Unbeliever 03-14 We Cannot Even Love God 03-15 Seeing The Father 03-16 “You Are Still A Proud People” 03-17 'You Are Still A Proud People: Response 03-18 No More Church 03-19 “Church” 03-20 Because God Did Not Reveal The Truth 03-21 The Death Penalty 03-22 False Teachers 03-23 Leave The Saving To God 03-24 “That They Might Be Damned” 03-25 “A New And Living Way” 03-26 “Hard To Understand”? 03-27 Saving Love 03-28 With What God Is 03-29 Loving The Feelings 03-30 True Fasting 03-31 God Is Humbler Than Man

 

Thought for the Morning
3-21

The Death Penalty

Hi, Pastor John :

I have (at least) two questions. The first is on the death penalty. At school, you know, they have flyers advertising discussions on various subjects, on anything from abortion (yuck) to the war in Iraq to, of course, the death penalty. All the time I hear people getting all “intellectual-sounding” and essentially saying (as I find this is how “intellectual people” generally like to think), “It’s a woman’s right to abortion! War is bad - and the Iraqis have their right to be Muslims! The death penalty should be abolished!” I’ve thought that since God ordained the death penalty for sin that it is justified even today (though I am curious as to how many people are wrongly accused and sentenced to death - but I guess that is in the hands of God, no?). Actually, I think it’s a mercy that it is not imposed more widely than it currently is!

Gail

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Hi Gail:

God has ordained earthly governments and empowered them to execute evil doers. When any nation becomes so “sophisticated” that it refuses to carry out that obligation, it cannot long survive. It will decay from within.

I believe that in the latter part of Solomon’s Wisdom, I speak of the goodness of quickly punishing sin. This includes imposing the death penalty. In the Bible, all that God was interested in was exposing who was guilty in a capital crime. When that was ascertained, the offender was executed within the hour. That kind of swift punishment will deter criminals by putting real fear in them. The way capital punishment is carried out in this country, sometimes decades after the crime is committed, is counter-productive. It encourages sin because those with a criminal mind are not going to fear dying twenty-five years after the crime is committed.

Men are imperfect judges. But if they would do right, God would help them make right judgments. Good discernment is one of the benefits of living a sincere, morally upright life.

Pastor John