Why What Happened To Jamal Is Important To Learn From
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| Some men, thinking they are going the right way, are actually going the wrong way. |
When someone is able to look past their own identity, their preconceived notions, their ideologies, and past what they've always perceived as 'true', they may be able to really find Truth.
Truth in this sense: what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.
There are basics to this life, this human experience we are all a part of.
The rudimentary basics, the foundation, and the limits to human activity have long been known.
The problem is that the basics have been ignored or reworded in ways dissimilar.
What is the basics?
God's Law.
Simply put: the 10 Commandments.
One of those commandments is 'thou shall not kill / murder'.
Simple enough it seems.
But notice how men have conceived an array of excuses and reasons to circumvent this law and apply laws of their own.
Yes, for every trespass comes a consequence.
But do men have the 'right' or a 'lawful allowance' to take the life of another human being?
I say no... a resounding and very loud NO!
In the Light of Christ, men are not permitted to take such action.
But someone may say 'the Law of Moses provided for capital and corporeal punishment' of someone trespassing the Law.
I agree, it did... but why?
One reason is to show how important and grave it is when the Law is violated.
Another, and the greater lesson, is so men may realize that it isn't about bringing forth punishment (which can be argued as obeying God's Law), but rather providing room for mercy (which is the Way God's Law is fulfilled):
While Yeshua was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and His disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
On hearing this, Yeshua said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’
For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
- Matthew 9: 10-13
Realize that the Law provided for retribution (eye for an eye).
However, mercy and forgiveness is the teaching that introduces 'the spirit of the law'.
If every person applied retribution, or if retribution was the 'only' dynamic God had intended, then men would be justified in killing and the killing would never cease.
Notice that when the first documented murder / killing of a human being occurred, God Himself did not enact retribution... but allowed for a way to preserve the guilty man's possible redemption.
That allowance was quite weighty.
Read the dramatic outcome of God's decision that, in one instance, protected the murderer (the sinner), and at the same time punished the murderer while they still lived on earth.
As I understand things, it seems God allowed mankind to take on the weight of judgment.
God also taught mankind to resist the temptation to render judgement and / or the condemnation of others, and rather desired man to realize the higher teaching of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and thus love.
To one mind, it is 'just' to exterminate the murderer.
This is the way the world is and to convince minds vacant of God's love, this is the only way for them.
But looking at things from God's perspective, it is truly just to open a way for redemption... and leave room for God to exact His vengeance, or His judgment, at His proper time.
This is, after all, what God has provided mankind through Messiah.
This is why we read Messiah, although Himself being just in rendering judgment on earth and condemning men, did not take this option... so we may learn.
Instead, God's heart was revealed in allowing for men to somehow learn redemption, learn how to love the sinner or the unlovable, and leave all judgment to God.
This is why Today, in places where God's grace through Messiah can be clearly evidenced, a life sentence behind bars (freedom removed) is rendered in place of execution (life removed, which is solely God's domain).
When pursuing Truth as God has declared it, we are able to face that Truth in the face of lies.
This is why politics, religion, and every other notion originating from below can be seen as a lie pretending to be Truth.
When God's Word is applied, when His Word is the definition of Truth (not man's rationalizing his emotions in arguing his 'truth'), God's heart and will can be realized.
Only then can the believer realize what God has established and provided... and the believer can submit to God in all things.
Herein is peace experienced... even in the face of hostility and darkness.
Consider how Christ extended grace to His enemies... and always left a way open for them to repent.
He didn't condemn them, nor fix their fate while they lived.
The ancient Church got it right when it was subject to a hostile government (Rome, Persia, elsewhere at that time, and even Today).
Somewhere along the way, this clarity was somehow 'lost' on certain administrators of the Church when the Way desired to compensate for the manners of this world.
Although God established the Church over the kingdoms of men (and realize His kingdom still reigns over the kingdoms of men), the old way (the letter of the Law) was argued instead of the spirit of the Law (mercy).
Men's hearts surely waxed cold where greater love was the calling... as Christ predicted this would happen.
Yet not every believer in Christ was (or is Today) convinced of these old manners, but instead kept (keeps) their hearts set on things Above.
Surely the old has gone and the new has come... but many are still confused.
It is a lie to suggest that God's justice can be rendered through the hands of men.
This is why lies have arisen when it comes to political arguments over the man Jamal Khashoggi.
Lies from the mouths of so many, whether they think themselves to be Christians, or Muslims, or atheists, or whatever.
Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of Me.
At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
- Matthew 24: 9-14
Many false prophets have arisen.
Not only have false prophets arisen in the 1st century after Christ rose into heaven, but since then.
It was false prophets who likely agreed to compensate secular confusion in allowing for men to take the life of other men.
It was a hypocritical stamp of approval to allow for capital punishment in the 'name' of God.
This, in the Light of Christ, is an overstep into God's realm of life giving and life taking.
This is why, in relation to the hearts that consider it 'just' or 'God's will' to murder a man pursuing what is true from false (to mention the journalist Jamal Khashoggi), it is clear and easy to cite where such justifications are found.
We can see how lies are not only spoken, but lies are allowed, from yet another false prophet:
Narrated Jabir bin ‘Abdullah:
Allah's messenger [Muhammad] said, "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His apostle [Muhammad]?” Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, "O Allah's messenger [Muhammad]! Would you like that I kill him?" The prophet said, “Yes." Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Ka’b). "The prophet said, "You may say it.”…
- [Sahih al-Bukhari] USC-MSA web reference, Vol. 5, Book 59, Hadith 369
It is no surprise, then, that men simply lie about assassinations and murders still Today.
Such men go very far in their religion to justify their nefarious activity by quoting a false prophet when desiring to say they are acting on God's behalf.
When religion argues and justifies lying, while also claiming to speak truth as a means to protect themselves or safeguard what they hold as 'true', the dissonance is only obvious to those following He who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life.
If your religion somehow argues a justification for murder / killing (whether you suppose yourself to be a Christian, Muslim, or anything else), realize the teaching of God's mercy is being ignored.
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