The Death Penalty

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

There are many Christians that come against abortion and in the same breath can speak that the death penalty is ok.

If the issue is the santity of life? why is the death penalty considered godly(of all things) rolleyes.

For the record I do not believe in abortion and I do not believe in the death penalty as well. I do believe that some individuals should never leave prison, however it is not our right morally or SCRIPTURELY to take a life that God gave.

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

Rev Luckett you said,

But Jesus died in our place so that we could have eternal life.

Have you ever had a kid asked you if the people in the OT had eternal life before Jesus came on the scene?

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

I draw the line when the lines of man's justice and GOD's justice are totally opposite and it contradicts GOD's ways. Abortion is a crime called murder. Why isn't it treated as such?

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

Because it would mean some executioneer would have to be treated in the same manner

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

Were the executioners called by GOD treated the same?

[Scott R. Newman]

"Ones are quick to holler, "kill em" imagine one hollering that in reference to yourself, gossip is a form of murder, how many here need to be on deathrow"

Good point (I'm agreeing with her??). We all were enemies of the cross at one time and worthy of death, as a matter of fact its why we needed and need a redeemer since we were all born and shaped in iniquity. We were begotten by the Gospel of Christ. We were born under a death sentence of judgement right out of the womb.

1Jn 3:12 not as Cain who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. And for what did he kill him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's things were righteous.
1Jn 3:13 Do not marvel, my brothers, if the world hates you.
1Jn 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
1Jn 3:15 Everyone hating his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has everlasting life abiding in him.

God's standards are higher than man's standards. Out of the 10 laws and commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai the world will only convict you on just two of them. Murder and Theft. The world doesn't care whether you commit adultery, or blaspheme God's name or dont keep the sabbath holy or covet thy neighbors wife and things (matter fact America wants us to covet, its how they get rich in keeping up with the Joneses).


" Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. " (Matthew 5:19)

I think what changed me from believing the death penalty was a valid punishment for those who murder, was when I started to do ministry in the prisons years ago. I have seen the salvation of the Lord with my own eyes and call many of those who murdered, friends of mine. Matter of fact, a brutha' who went with me to Papua New Guinea last month murdered two men and is born again and is becoming a missionary if he can go through the process of dealing with his past of the application of a missionary organization. I've seen the transforming power of Christ firsthand. Even Moses killed as well as King David and God still showed great mercy in favoring them. This man who went with us to PNG at many times preached the hardest, taught with more passion through tears than anyone else of the 18 people who went on this missionary trip. He knows firsthand of God's redemption work in his life. He was my roommate on the trip and I had to at many times minister to him and counsel him through God's Word that his sins were washed away and thrown into the sea of forgetfulness. Not only does God forgive, but God also forgets. The problem is that we don't forget as well as the world. His testimony was used greatly as we ventured to the streets, marketplace as well to the PNG prisons and the men were astonished that this african american came all this way to tell them the story of redemption. It was very powerful...He's in the picture that I posted on this page. In one he's preaching through the retelling of his testimony and his life and how he killed two men by age 20 and what he was like living in the projects of Dallas Texas. In another pic he is preaching and speaking about his testimony to many in a marketplace. When he spoke the crowd was silent and listened intently in how God changed his life. Really next to me, he was received very good..LOL The third pic is me and him flying on a two engine plane headed to the highlands to speak at the many tribal villages where there was much warfare and killing from village to village. Through his testimony of killing and blood letting the people of PNG were moved greatly to seek reconciliation as many gave their lives to Christ. This is why I am completely against the killing of any person but would rather seek to sow a mighty seed of God's moving Word that cleanses us all as we move from being dead in our sins to be alive in Christ that moves us to repentance to salvation, to sanctification to ultimately glorification.

"So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee" (Hebrews 5:5).

[newview]

I'm Against The Death Penalty. Especially for a society that is not perfect and does not know the truth and would not know it if it bit them on the face.When someone is executed and they are innocent - all of society should feel depressed.

Here is a scary and depressing story:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann
The article is 17 pages
or
you can listen here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2009/09/07/090907on_audio_grann/?xrail

Here is just an excerpt:
The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

Willingham told the Barbees to call the Fire Department, and while Diane raced down the street to get help he found a stick and broke the children’s bedroom window. Fire lashed through the hole. He broke another window; flames burst through it, too, and he retreated into the yard, kneeling in front of the house. A neighbor later told police that Willingham intermittently cried, “My babies!” then fell silent, as if he had “blocked the fire out of his mind.”

Diane Barbee, returning to the scene, could feel intense heat radiating off the house. Moments later, the five windows of the children’s room exploded and flames “blew out,” as Barbee put it. Within minutes, the first firemen had arrived, and Willingham approached them, shouting that his children were in their bedroom, where the flames were thickest. A fireman sent word over his radio for rescue teams to “step on it.”

More men showed up, uncoiling hoses and aiming water at the blaze. One fireman, who had an air tank strapped to his back and a mask covering his face, slipped through a window but was hit by water from a hose and had to retreat. He then charged through the front door, into a swirl of smoke and fire. Heading down the main corridor, he reached the kitchen, where he saw a refrigerator blocking the back door.

Todd Willingham, looking on, appeared to grow more hysterical, and a police chaplain named George Monaghan led him to the back of a fire truck and tried to calm him down. Willingham explained that his wife, Stacy, had gone out earlier that morning, and that he had been jolted from sleep by Amber screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!”

“My little girl was trying to wake me up and tell me about the fire,” he said, adding, “I couldn’t get my babies out.”

While he was talking, a fireman emerged from the house, cradling Amber. As she was given C.P.R., Willingham, who was twenty-three years old and powerfully built, ran to see her, then suddenly headed toward the babies’ room. Monaghan and another man restrained him. “We had to wrestle with him and then handcuff him, for his and our protection,” Monaghan later told police. “I received a black eye.” One of the first firemen at the scene told investigators that, at an earlier point, he had also held Willingham back. “Based on what I saw on how the fire was burning, it would have been crazy for anyone to try and go into the house,” he said...

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

Acts 25:10-11

10 Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar's judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest.

11 For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.


Commentary on the passages reads: "Paul was willing to abide by the rules of the law, and to let that take its course. If he deserved death, he would accept the punishment."

Is this proof that NT saints should abide by the laws of the death penalty just as Paul was willing to do so if he was actually guilty of a crime punishable by death??? Would Paul make a claim just because he knew he wasn't guilty and therefore this was an incident of word play???

"anything worthy of death.... I refuse to die.... "


Romans 13:1-4: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

If "vengeance is mine saith the Lord" then why is Paul talking about authorities who "beareth not the sword in vain" as "ministers of God"? .... are they ministers of death??

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

Paul was doing what many born again Christians on deathrow are doing "putting it in God's hands" there is no defeat in Christ, and it is not called justice when the death penalty is carried out. Yes, if it was death I faced by a higher authority not to compromise my belief I would have to be as the three Hebrew boys, rejoice in the fact that my God can deliver me, and if HE doesn't I know that HE can.

Those that fall victim to the death penalty(Christians) have the victory, it is the state of the Christian believing that this sinful act is right in sight of God that is in question.

Michael Vick did time because of a dog dying, where were those Christians that were concern about the MAN'S soul? there is never a time that any man should make sport of murder, and that is exactly the state mankind is in and has been in since the Christians were being fed to lions, and now some feel it's right to again murder? We are to love even our enemies, not put them to death.

Now don't get me wrong the Bundys, Mansons... should never see freedom, they are reprobates.

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

Merriam Webster:

Kill - to cause the death of...

Murder - the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Are there any situations where either of these is an acceptable action or reaction of a Believer?

Can a Believer defend himself, his family or is neighbor to the point of using deadly force? If so, or in doing so they kill someone.. is that considered an instant death penalty no matter the impetus which caused the Believer to react in such manner?

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

I would, and I'll gladly go to the gallows, chamber, firing squad or whatever for fighting and even killing in the name of protecting my wife and family! I am not called to stand and die like a fool. I am called to stand and defend my family like a man.

The ONLY reason why JESUS told Peter to stay thy hand was because prophesy had to be fulfilled! Read CHRIST's words in all the Gospels and see.

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

Trevor... so if you did defend yourself and you killed the person... would it be a sort of death penalty for violating you in some way or posing a threat to you and your family?

Were is the concern for the person's soul when you are in danger?

I watched the movie "End of the Spear" recently. In it, there is a scene called Ready for Heaven:

Just before flying in to engage the Waodani (natives), Steve Saint asks his father if they will use their guns if attacked. He replies, “No. If we die, we are ready for heaven, but the Waodani are not.”

So, again, if you... saved Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ... heaven is your home saint of God... if you are in danger and know that if you die your soul is not in jeopardy, then why would you kill the person attacking you knowing that possibly their souls are in jeopardy???

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

And please don't take my comment as being sarcastic. I'm not. That was a very powerful scene in that movie and it was actually something that I have not considered.