eMails, oh you better believe I get eMails!, especially when I stomp on dearly cherished beliefs of this Pagan Western Culture! So, if you like the culture you live in, sold out to God-less-ness, no worries - you will write me off as a whack-o. But, if you have read your Bible and wondered at some of those odd passages - and my comments as of late ... read on! I have summarized those questions to reply to below - there is no hope I could answer each and every eMail on this subject! And the subject is the tension between God and His desire, and your life - failures and successes. It is my desire we all live as close to God as we can, but the more sin you shovel under the carpet, the greater you distance will be from God ...
You believe in capital punishment?
Easy question to answer, God believed in it.
You have to use man's logic to say He no longer does, because he asked that those involved in sexual sin be executed, those involved in paganism be executed, murder, etc, etc, etc!
It becomes easier to understand when your loved ones suffer rape, victimized by murder, kidnapped and used by the porn industry, or just plain driven crazy by those dedicated to sin and making your life miserable - yeah it is real easy to understand that capital punish is too light of a sentence!
But, you need to experience victimization to understand the price of justice in this life.
No, I believe that God's grace extends to everyone - and only when someone has demonstrated beyond all possible doubt that they can not live in a civilized society - well, they have sadly made their choice.
The excesses of this society killing anyone and everyone, under the pretext of "justice", has led to a situation where no one is actually held accountable - outside of incarceration these days! Sorry, but that is not justice, nor was it ever God's will that we live in an amoral society occupied by criminals allowed to victimize over and over again!
Many Should Be Executed?
There are lots of excuses for killing people. As I said just earlier, there are many deserving of death, I do not KNOW that they should be killed. I am a pacifist, I believe that all men are redeemable before God and should be allowed that opportunity for redemption! Whether you are Adolf Hitler or Ted Bundy, you must get your best shot at understanding what you have done - and the price you need to pay for the blood you have shed. The choice to die was made when you murdered, the choice for eternal life needs to be made before you go to face God.
I can remember back about the time of Ted Bundy's rampage in the USA and the body count is ticking away, I was asked for my feelings in a random on the street interview about capital punishment, this unknown killer and justice for the victim's families. I needless to say really put my foot in it! I commented that I had been counseling at the local prison and the more I learned about these men and their lives, the more I became aware that the real problems began with their grandparents whom were not caught and executed for their crimes! Yeah, that one really opened a can of worms, but was a true enough observation. Just a generalization, not 100% true since evil can appear in a child of even God-ly parents, but something in that environment did trigger that child to make the wrong choices! And whomever that trigger was, probably would not have had an impact - if they had paid for their problems earlier on.
Luckily, I am not God, because only He can identify the root causes of evil and act accordingly, when we let Him.
Abandonment is exactly what?
You abandon your marriage vow and sink into the cesspool of porn.
You play house with someone else.
You decide your spouse needs punished and cease marital relations.
You co-habit, for the sake of the children only or dogs or whatever.
You put yourself before your spouse in the relationship.
Lots of ways to abandon someone in this day and age!
God's remedy has always been, abandonment = divorce because of the hardness of someone's heart.
And before that hardness of heart, came sin, which is the underlying problem throughout this discussion.
Marriage is not what we know marriage to be?
Until the Roman Catholic Church came along and corrupted marriage, it had been something setup between families and generally there was a purpose for the marriage (business related, political, whatever). We think ourselves more civilized since we now base marriage on hormones or the fickleness of "love". I think history shows this culture is mislead.
In the class I mentioned on Friday, where we took on this idea of what is marriage? One of the guys realized that the woman he had lived with for a decade before marrying someone else and "settling down", probably was his wife in God's eyes. He was devastated. It seems that all was not well in his marriage, it had been based on drug usage and pleasure and both were wearing thin - hence, he was remembering the one whom drop kicked his butt out the door for the drugs. Now he understood that he had it coming and his position was none to stable before God.
This whole idea of a playing house - "spiritual unions" - common law marriage - whatever you want to call it, is viewed as marriage before God. That is why He is so adamant on the subject of - you stick with it until either abandoned by your spouse, death or divorce!
But, if you believe going to the government for permission to marry, then either to another government agency or church to marry you - is the definition of marriage, okay - but it is your commitment to your spouse and to God that is the real basis of your marriage. And, when that marriage has been broken, what are you to do? Probably try again and start off a great deal smarter!
***
In thinking through these answers, I thought of so much more I could say, but to what avail?
In the end, what must stand out in your mind is that we are to live a life trapped between the culture we are born into and Heaven or Hell. Little we can do is going to be "right", but by God's grace He sees His Son and not our sin. He knows our heart and forgives us our stumbles when we are His.
Life can be utter frustration outside of our control or desire but God will see us through to His end, for His goals and for His desire. If your life does not spell His witness, through you - reaching out and healing those around you with His Love - well, the problem is not going to be God's. Because that is the entire goal in this life.
As Corrie Ten Boom told me over forty years ago:
"When there is less of you and more of Him, then He can move in your life ..."
... and, move He will, when we allow Him to.
Just so we understand that His desires may well not be our own.
And, He will allow us the choice to do His will or not.
Corrie was a smart woman and I never forgot those words, which is impressive, since if you are a long time reader you know that I lost virtually all of my memories in October 2015. Yeah, they have not returned, but it seems that if they were important - or God would restore them ...
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