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I've had people ask me why, if God is love, why he commanded military action so often in the Old Testement? Why does He condone capitol punishment? In way of answer I tell them to consider a surgeon who operates on a patient to remove a malignant tumor. Surgery is a subdued form of violence. It involves the use of a "weapon", a scalpel, and it inflicts upon the body a traumatic wound, yet it is undertaken in order to save a life, to heal an aggressive disease that cannot be stopped any other way. God understands human kind as we will never know ourselves. He knows that the ravages of corruption lead to violence and destruction. He further foreknows what devastation evil violence will bring to the innocent. His cure for evil, be it in the form of a predator nation, or a violent crime, is righteous violence. It is not undertaken with caprice, but very reluctantly, and its purpose is always the preservation of freedom, or the protection of the innocent. If there were another way, God would employ it. Our illusions that criminals can be rehabilitated, or that detente can avert a war with an evil regime, are just that, fairy tales. In our earnest attempt to impose a civilized solution we allow a cancer to spread and imperil our lives. God is love, infinite love. All He does is steeped with His love for us, even for the most degenerate, the most corrupt. He loved Adolf Hitler as much as He does your mother, yet He can not permit the cancer of apostate motivation and tyranny to endanger the welfare of free men. |