A Blessing Through Killing The Wicked

A Blessing Through Killing The Wicked

        The Word of the LORD:

“And Moses stood at the camp’s entrance and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites gathered around him. ²⁷ He told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man fasten his sword to his side; go back and forth through the camp from entrance to entrance, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’”²⁸ The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about 3,000 men fell dead that day among the people.²⁹ Afterward Moses said, “Today you have been dedicated^[f] to the Lord, since each man went against his son and his brother. Therefore you have brought a blessing on yourselves today.” Exodus 32:26-29

        The Bible is against murder, but not killing. Killing can be done for various justifiable reasons whereas murder is unjustified and wrong. There is a difference. Any Christian who claims it is wrong to kill or soldiers are sinning because they kill enemies, or capital punishment is wrong because it murders criminals and life in prison is righteous, are not very intelligent or knowledgeable about what God’s Word says. Ecclesiastes 3:3 states that there is “a time to kill.” God commanded the Israelites all over the Old Testament to kill the wicked and commit mass genocide of wicked nations who were under God’s judgment. There were many wars fought with Israel against wicked nations. War then is much the same as it is now, except we do not literally have God commanding battles. Humanity is left on its own to figure it out. The problem is humanity is mostly sinful and the wars they start are for sinful causes. Even so, within this context there are righteous defenses to madmen. WW2 is one example of a righteous cause, a cause to fight the evils of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany led by madmen who wanted world domination and wanted to grasp it through murder and mayhem and the slaughter of innocent people. To allow such atrocities to occur and not stand up for it is insane. Hardly any normal person would claim it would have been better to let Germany and Japan do what they wanted and we should not have defended against them. All through history wars have been fought. Some wars have 2 sides who are both evil fighting each other much like what was described in the Old Testament where wicked nations fought other wicked nations such as described in Genesis 14.

        The key to being on the right side of any war is knowledge of the Bible and God’s standards of what is good. Obviously, if someone today wanted to fight the Islamic State most Americans would say that I.S. is an evil entity (whether or not one would think we should send troops or not). Being against them is righteous. Also, killing them is also righteous. Going to battle against I.S. and killing them is how you can stop them. In WW2 the Allies won the wars by going into battle and killing as many NAZIs and as many Imperialists on both the Western and pacific fronts. That is how you win wars. One side says, “we want to do this and will kill you to get it,” and the other says, “no you won’t because we will stop you and defend ourselves and kill you.” That is war. To win and to allow a better world to survive you must kill the enemy and as many as you can before have the advantage ot win so that they will surrender.

        It can be said killing is morally permissable also for capital punishment. Laws in the Bible over and over demanded the death of certain people who broke certain laws. Some laws were not punishable by death, but many were. Capital punishment is promoted by the LORD all over the Old Testament as well as supported by the New Testament when Paul states that “if you do wrong, be afraid, for [the government rulers] does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” Certain grievous sins deserve the death penalty. Wasting time on people serving life sentences is a waste of resources. God does not teach that we should provide life imprisonment for murderers or rapists, but they they should be put to death.

     God told Moses to command the Levites to kill everyone they could going forward to the other side of the camp, and then back to the first side of the camp. It was a forward and back clean sweep of everyone including their own family members and neighbors. God demanded the death for the horrible sin of idolatry right after God had rescued the Hebrews from Egypt. Moses stated that the Levites received blessing from God because of the act of killing approximately 3,000 people in 1 day. God demanded the execution of the wicked and it was just, because God commanded it, and they were under his righteous judgment. Sometimes it really is correct to kill people and God will bless those who do it.

        I believe God blessed America and the Allies in all the the killing of enemies in WW2 and provided a temporary time of prosperity for America. But like the Israelites America has become lazy, stiff necked, immoral, and idolatrous. America will not last much longer at the rate things are going.

        The only time killing is justified is if it is commanded by God, which today God is not physically present and audibly commanding things. God’s Word is how we receive God’s commandments. Any execution and any war fought needs to line up with Scripture. A soldier is under the command of his government and sent off to battle, they are not held accountable for killing enemies in battle. On the other hand, unjustified death such as mass genocide of innocent people is sinful. The only mass genocide commanded by God was in the Old Testament because the nations were under his judgment, not one person was innocent in those nations and God had deemed that it was their time to go. It was a specific time in Israel’s history for their nation and society alone. It is not a command by God to kill everyone who is in a false religion. God is perfect and absolutely holy. He is a righteous judge and allowed to make decisions on who lives and who dies. Nobody else! No one else in the Old Testament made these judgments, but simply followed orders from God who literally was there telling them what to do. Through Christ, now days we understand that vengeance is God’s and not ours, so we spread the Gospel. But when we are attacked by evil forces, or our family is in danger by criminals we are very justified in defending ourselves even to the point of killing a criminal or attacker, as well as justified in sending soldiers to war to face enemies and hopefully killing them. I believe today the truest evil in the world we are threatened with are the radical Islamists, the Islamic terrorists, who are torturing, raping, murdering, at an unbelievable rate everyone who does not perfectly fit their ideology. These enemies are named the Islamic State and Al Qaeda (including all their affiliates).  I believe it is morally justified to kill as many of them as we can before they kill all of us. And believe me they will kill as many Americans as they can if they get here. Our government has a God given obligation to protect us and defeat such types of enemies. Sending soldiers to battle is the right thing to do, yet our President does not care. The time to kill is now!

Bible Contradiction? Not So Fast! Slow Down And Read Further!

Bible Contradiction? not so fast! Slow Down And Read Further!

        A lot of times when people read the Bible they will see one thing and assume it is a Bible contradiction or be totally confused. It makes them stop to think hard about the passage at hand and about why is it written the way it is written, and how it all make sense logically. Atheists love to misrepresent and misinterpret types of things!

        When confronted with a confusing passage or one that seems to make no sense that comes off as a contradiction it is best to slow down, think it over, then read further for it to be explained. Often times people who have the intention to find a contradiction in the Bible will simply think they find one and stop and not read further. If they only read further it will be explained and found to not be a real contradiction.

        For this discussion Read Exodus 4-7.

        One example I will present is Exodus 4:30,

“Aaron repeated everything the LORD had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people.“

What makes this verse confusing is that prior in the story God had specifically told Moses he would perform such duties. But Moses complained and said he was not a good speaker so he needed help. God then told Moses that Aaron would be his spokes person. The main verses on this part of the story are Exodus 4:13-17,

“Moses said, ‘Please Lord, send someone else. 
Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses, and He said, ‘Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. When he sees you his heart will rejoice. You will speak with him and tell him what to say. I will help both you and him to speak, and will teach you both what to do. He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and you will serve as God to him. And take this staff in your hand that you will perform the signs with.“

When reading this it seems confusing that in verse 30 Aaron is the one performing the signs with the staff and his hand. Before all of this Moses had met God at the burning Bush where God gave him directions on how to perform 2 sign miracles. One was throwing his staff onto the ground to make it turn into a snake, and the other was putting his hand inside his robe and pulling it out to become diseased and white and putting it back in and returning his hand to normal. In Exodus 4:30 it says that Aaron performed these signs. But if God gave Moses the direction to to them why is it said Aaron is doing them? When reading it, it feels very random. Is this a contradiction? It is not, and to find out why it is not you simply should read further into the story.

        In chapter 7 of Exodus God specifically tells Moses to tell Aaron to perform the miracles. Verses 8-9 state,

“The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘When Pharaoh tells you: Perform a miracle, tell Aaron: Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh. It will become a serpent.”  

So not only could Aaron perform the miracle God gave direction to Moses to do, he could do it with his own staff. This is most likely because Moses gave the staff to him to carry. It did not have to be Moses’s staff necessarily. God allowed Moses to be silent and not be the spokesperson for God since he was afraid, and instead allowed Moses to tell Aaron to do everything for him including the miracles. Aaron even did many of the plague miracles as well, but later Moses performed the plague miracles. So according to what is written in Exodus 4:30 it is plausible that Moses also told Aaron the directions on performing the miracles as well.

Aaron turning his staff into the snake while Moses stands silently behind

        It is plausible that God told Moses to tell Aaron to do the miracles even if it is not written down explicitly that he did in verses 4:14-17.” It was also not written down that Moses explained it to Aaron either in verses 27-28 where Moses and Aaron met and greeted. Verse 27 says “Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say, and about all the signs He had commanded him to do.” It can be understood that in this sentence it is implied Moses also explained that Aaron would be the one to do them. It is obvious later in chapter 7 that this is so. Since Moses told Aaron to do the miracles in front of the Egyptians it is apparent this understanding that Aaron would be doing the miracles was established before he met the Israelite elders as well beforehand.

In verse 4:17 God says directly to Moses, “And take this staff in your hand that you will perform the signs with.” This does not negate Aaron being the one to do them. Saying “you will perform” can be understood as a general statement. It does not necessarily mean only Moses can and will do it, but a general term that it will be done by Moses and Aaron together. It could also be understood as a plural “you” with the understanding of “you and Aaron.” People speak this way all of the time in every day language today. Someone gives orders to someone that they MUST do something, yet that person oversees other people who are the ones who are physically going to do it. Whereas the person who was commanded to do them actually does not do the work. This happens in the military or any profession with a hierarchy. No one would ever accuse a general of a contradiction when he commands someone under him who is in charge of other men to do something, when it is the other men he is in charge of who do the work the general asked him to do. Moses was given special authority that he would “serve as God” to Aaron in 4:16. In 7:1 God told Moses that He made him like God to Pharaoh and Aaron is his prophet.  So Moses could be told to do something by God, and then have Aaron do it for him instead of him doing it. There is absolutely no contradiction in this passage.

        Exodus 4:30 is simply one verse that could be thought of as a contradiction without further reading in the passage, story, chapter, or book. Remember for the next time when reading the Bible you find something that is confusing to stop, relax, think it over, then continue reading. It will be explained eventually further in the Bible. Also, it never hurts to ask your pastor or seek out a respected Bible teacher on the topic that concerns you. Don’t give up, God will reveal the answer to you in His Word.