December 9, 2025 • 27 mins
We wrestle with deadly force from the street to Scripture, weighing policy shifts, gritty case stories, and the tension between justice and mercy. We look at how a holy God judges sin, why any of us still live, and what true accountability should require.
• defining deadly force beyond firearms
• shift from fleeing felon doctrine to imminent threat
• why “unarmed” does not always mean safe
• two DC cases and missing context in headlines
• human reactions after shootings and moral weight
• sin, holiness, and divine judgment in Scripture
• Korah’s rebellion and Acts 5 as warnings
• the cross as perfect justice and perfect mercy
• reframing the question toward grace and accountability
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
We're back with the Cops, Criminals, and Christ
podcast with an episode todaythat I'm a little nervous about.
I want to hear what you have tosay.
Let's dive in.
Tell us what we're talking abouttoday.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Deadly force.
Deadly force is something fromthe first day you sign on as a
policeman to the day you retire.
You are very, it's very centralin our training and in our minds
every time we go out on thestreet.
All that.
Deadly force is central to thisweird job I chose.
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
Define it.
What is deadly force?
SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
Deadly force is when you it's not anytime you use
force, you grab a guy tohandcuff, and that's not deadly.
It would have to be that whatI'm doing could result in the
death of that individual.
So we always think guns, but itdoesn't have to be guns.
We can hit guys with cars, wecan cause deadly force that way.
We can deadly force uh when wehit them with a slapjack, an
instrument, you know.
(00:50):
If it's a sick person or or highon drugs or something, you can
kill them lots of ways.
You know, we've killed guys withuh chokeholds and by wrestling
around with them and then theyend up dead.
So there's lots of differentthings that can happen, and all
of that is considered deadlyforce because it's force that we
started that ended in death, orthat we attempted to kill them
with and that all sounds very nobueno, not good to me.
(01:14):
Well, you know, it's really goodbecause we need somebody in
society who can stop evil thatis deadly.
So the only time deadly force isjustified is when uh a life is
in danger, another life is indanger, or our lives are in
danger.
That's the police kind of motto.
Now, in the police department,DC police didn't used to be that
(01:36):
way when I first started.
We also had another, there'sanother option, and that is if a
felon, if somebody who webelieve is gonna cause bodily
harm to another, who's at riskof causing more bodily harm to
another, and they're runningaway, you can kill them.
Now, so expect this.
Think of it this way (01:55):
a guy has a gun in his hand, he just
killed somebody, he's runningtowards another person
screaming, I'm gonna kill you.
Even though it's his back to me,I can shoot and kill him.
Because he's about to go hurtsomebody else.
SPEAKER_01 (02:10):
And when you say you can, you mean you would not be
penalized, charged, etc., if youdid.
SPEAKER_00 (02:16):
Well, I can't tell you today what would happen.
I mean, lots of people, thecourts can do whatever they want
to do, but I'm saying the lawand what they've trained us was
there were those exceptions.
In our case, it was a littlewider when I first started.
But remember, there used to beall over the United States
something called a fleeing felonlaw.
I don't know if you ever heardabout this.
But let's say that any felonyyou commit, you steal a car, you
(02:38):
break in a house, those are allfelonies.
You steal over a certain amountof money in a store, you that's
a felony.
You assault somebody with vigor,you know, you beat them real
bad, and you're running away, wecould shoot them and kill them.
Fleeing felon law.
It was all over the UnitedStates, and then it slowly over
time started getting pulledback.
And now I don't know anybodythat's a fleeing felon law.
(03:01):
Any felony.
Yeah, so you could steal a car,and as you're running away from
stealing a car, they could killyou.
Cops could kill you becauseyou're a fleeing felon.
SPEAKER_01 (03:09):
Now you say this is all good news, but I think you,
as well as I know, there'ssomething in the news that even
that cops have done that evenyou don't agree with, that
you're like, that is not good,that's not the best way, that's
not the right way.
Obviously, people listening tothis could say, what in the
world is everything wrong withcops because they are so
powerful, you know, um, I don'twant to say hungry, but like
(03:30):
overuse their authority or thefact that this is a possibility
in the hands of a cop that weknow are so flawed is dangerous
and scary, not good news.
How would you respond to that?
SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
Well, I mean, sure, uh, until you need him, you
know.
Listen, because there's bad guysout there, and there are bad
guys in police work, and youknow, everybody does this
illustration, but cop doctors,nurses, we have these crazy
stories of doctors and nursesthat kill people, you know?
And boy, policemen who do thatshould, you know, be treated as
such.
If they murder somebody, thenmurder is murder.
(04:01):
Doesn't matter if you had auniform on or not.
But you on your street, I don'tcare how bad your criminal you
are, you still would rathersomebody kill somebody before
they kill you or your child.
Guaranteed.
Guaranteed everybody agrees onthat part when it comes to them,
you know.
But policy-wise, they might say,Oh, the cops shouldn't have
(04:21):
guns.
And then you say, Would you wanthim to have a gun when the guy
is shooting at you?
Would you want him to have agun?
Usually they'd say yes.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
So you're saying there's circumstances that are
justifiable that everyone wouldpotentially agree would be a
good thing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
And there's, you know, unique circumstances.
Some would say much lesscircumstances, others would go a
little wider.
But either way, deadly force isa problem.
Deadly force is a problem thatis only exists because of sin
and wickedness.
It doesn't exist.
Deadly force wouldn't have toexist in society if people would
stop sinning stop sinning.
You also wouldn't have policemenmisbehave if they'd stopped
(04:58):
sinning.
SPEAKER_01 (04:59):
In heaven, there will be no deadly force.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
No, there'll be no deadly force.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (05:04):
Where do you see this in scripture?
How do you reconcile this withwho God is and what that means
for us?
SPEAKER_00 (05:10):
Let me say this a little bit about humans at
deadly force, just because I'vebeen around a lot of it.
So I worked in homicide a veryshort time, but I also was on
the scene of several times whenpolicemen killed somebody, or
lots of times when bad guyskilled each other.
Lots of times, you know.
And so anyway, I've seenpolicemen.
Sometimes you you go up andthey're they're throwing up, you
know, because they're so upsetover what they just did.
(05:32):
Other times they're high fiving.
Either human beings reactdifferently to this.
Sometimes the high-fiving, I'veseen hugs.
I've hugged a guy who justmissed a shot, uh, just missed
getting shot and then fired.
And uh, and then you justnaturally hug.
Why?
Because humans, when theysurvive something deadly and
they survive, it's it can beafforded to feel like you made
(05:54):
it, you know.
The the reason is is becausethe, you know, I just think it's
a normal human reaction.
Uh, but on the other hand, thereare guys that are desperately
upset by this, and so much sothat they never get right again.
Guys drink, guys think, butthat's just a lower percentage,
I would say, of soldiers and ofpolice and others who use deadly
(06:15):
force, it is generally not lovedor enjoyed, but it is something
that they feel like they theywere right in doing in some
cases.
But we have lots of cases we cantalk about deadly force-wise.
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Well, what's one in your police career, as the
people want to know?
I'm sure that you were maybelike most glad deadly force was
an option or that the mostnecessary use of deadly force in
your career.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
There were lots of those.
There was one I was thinkingabout.
Now, this is a good storybecause the Washington Post
wrote an article saying that theDC police killed two unarmed
men, and and they didn't tellanything else in the story.
Now, it's an interesting story,and it named the officers who
killed the the unarmed men.
Let me just tell you whathappened.
(07:02):
One case, uh, we had a jailinside the hospital.
That's how bad our our littledistrict was, that we had to
have a prison inside thehospital.
So we had bad guys in there,we'd take them over, guys would
come over from the prison, fromthe jail, they'd hold them there
and then take them over.
Okay.
So we had two policemen workingin there.
And uh one night, uh 4 or 5a.m., a young female officer who
(07:25):
was only about five feet tall.
She's really small, she showedup, went back to the strong
room, this jail thing.
And what she sees is a guy whohad beaten the uh policeman with
he had taken his club and hadbeaten the policeman so bad,
he's an older policeman.
Uh he had beaten himunconscious, blood all over him.
He turns and he charges her.
(07:47):
Now he did not have a gun in hishand.
He did not have a gun in hishand.
She shot and killed him.
But remember, she's five feettall.
She's uh has no defense at thispoint.
She's stuck with this fella.
He already is, to her idea,killed a policeman, and now he's
running at her.
He doesn't have a gun.
So the pol so the post printedthat and said they killed an
(08:08):
unarmed man.
Well, I guess, yes.
Now let me give you another one.
This is really easy.
SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
Did she get charged or was that justified?
SPEAKER_00 (08:15):
No, she she never got charged in court or
anything, but got charged in asense by the Washington Post.
I wrote an editorial, which Istill have, to the Washington
Post about these two shootings,saying this is, you know, just
just uh horrific uh uh lack ofcontext, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (08:31):
Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Yeah, I'll give you another one, a guy you know,
Gigi Neal.
He was a policeman's policeman.
I mean, this guy, he man, he hehad chances to shoot at people
every day because we were in thestreet all the time.
This guy was a hardworkingpoliceman.
Everybody in the city knew him,bad guys, good guys.
Gigi Neal.
Well, he goes through all ofthat.
He recovered, I'm telling you,I'm telling you, this guy
(08:55):
recovered hundreds of gunswithout firing a shot.
Without firing a shot.
All right?
He's driving home one night inhis cruiser, and a guy drives to
carjack him.
The guy is unarmed, but the guyis huge.
He overpowers, he's by himselfon his way.
And the guy overpowers him, isbeating Gigi to the point he
doesn't know what else to do.
(09:16):
He's going unconscious.
He's now pushed back in hisseat, back into his cruiser, his
car, and this guy's just killinghim.
He's literally doesn't know whatto do.
He takes his gun out finally,you know, he's begging the guy
to get off.
He's fighting back, he's doingeverything.
He just didn't have anythingelse he could do, so he fired
one shot into the guy.
And uh then, by the way, his gunfell apart, which was
(09:37):
frightening.
And the guy didn't stop, by theway, after he got shot.
A lot of times, after you shootsomebody, if they're high or it
takes a minute for it to killthem.
And in that case, the guyfinally died right on top of
Gigi.
He was still fighting andfighting, fighting, and then he
just passed and made away.
The Washington Post Prince says,Gigi Neil shot an unarmed man.
(09:58):
Well, wait a second now.
Should he have, should he not?
I don't know what else he coulddo in these cases in the these
particular scenarios.
But my point is, deadly forcecan always be examined and
shouldn't be examined.
And it was put before a grandjury and he wasn't indicted.
But we have to remember thatit's necessary at some times,
and it's needed sometimesbecause people are sinful and
(10:20):
they do crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
People are sinful and they do crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (10:23):
That's it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
Brains are really broken.
SPEAKER_00 (10:27):
That's that's right.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (10:28):
It really goes deep, and yeah, it's not something
that changes with a little jailsentence when they get back out,
I fear.
SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
No, no.
SPEAKER_01 (10:35):
Pretty proven.
SPEAKER_00 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
Do you want to answer my question about the uh
where in the Bible do you seethis?
How does this inform your viewof God and his view of people
and humanity and all of it?
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
So I if I were to preach Christ to you, I would
always tell you, one, he is aGod who is holy and righteous.
But two, he is a God who ismerciful and loving.
So this is the truth of thegospel, it is the good news of
the gospel that you and I aresinners, absolutely, but that
Christ has an answer,absolutely.
(11:10):
But there are all these times inthe scriptures where God uses
deadly force.
How can that possibly be?
SPEAKER_01 (11:23):
And I think that's a hard pill to swallow.
Tell us.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Tell us, yeah.
Well, what do you think?
I mean, you if you if you studythis, I I'm kind of fascinated
by this because it's hard for meto understand, too.
So I'll give you one that's uhquite a story.
It's in um Numbers um 16, Ithink.
(11:47):
And uh Korah, the Bible is notright here, um, but Korah anyway
rebels against uh Moses, and soMoses is leading the people
through the promise on the wayto the promised land, and Korah
and a bunch of other leaders goagainst him, go against Moses,
and rebel against not just him,but against the Lord as well.
(12:11):
Long story short, worth readingthe passage.
But eventually God warns them,and then you know what he does?
Opens up the earth and swallowsall of them.
They all die.
Immediate, boom, right there,deadly force.
I think 250 died then.
So I have to say, what the heck?
How the heck is that justified?
(12:32):
I mean, is he I mean, we'retalking about whether policemen
should do it in here, 250 peoplewere killed.
So for me, I say, man, do Ireally understand the Bible?
Do I understand God?
So let me give you some thoughtsthat help me on this, on God's
deadly force, let's say.
And there's several of these.
I think that one of the thingsto know is that, first of all,
God is a um holy God, that he isright, he is right, and he is
(12:58):
the only righteous one in thewhole universe.
Not Korah, not me, not anybody,just him.
And all of us, when given theopportunity to live righteously
and live for him, disobey andlive our own way.
So all of us are sinful.
I just was with little Joytoday, your little girl.
And while I'm with her, she'sjust so cute and wonderful, but
(13:18):
she also is disobedientnaturally.
Uh, she does things sheshouldn't do, no matter what you
do, and that's because she's asinner.
She's a little sinner,especially she isn't a sinner.
SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
Well, I mean, gee, I think they're like I need to
give my consent to diss myone-year-old.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Well, hey, this is the fact of life.
You you got you got 25 kids.
Any of them do you know thataren't sinners?
SPEAKER_01 (13:44):
She's made in God's image.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (13:46):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (13:47):
And flawed by sin, perhaps.
Sin nature, perhaps, but therehasn't been a lot of sinning
yet, okay?
SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Yes, she hasn't done much yet.
She hasn't done much.
So listen, so so here's numberone thing you gotta know.
All men are sinful.
And and here's the bottom line.
The bottom line is the Biblesays the wages of sin is death.
Now, by the way, as we talk tochildren, uh, when there's um
no, they call like an age ofaccountability, and there's also
(14:16):
the mental capacity to makedecisions.
Uh, if somebody loses their lifebefore those two things have
happened, uh, they go straightto heaven.
I just want to make sure that'sunderstood.
Because sin comes really from awillful heart that is choosing
unrighteousness.
And I really use babies or kidsbecause I don't have to teach
them to lie, I have to teachthem to tell the truth.
You know what I mean?
(14:36):
I don't have to teach a kid tolie, I never had to teach a kid
to lie.
You were a rotten kid when youwere little and you used to do
all kinds of terrible things.
Naturally.
So look, here's our here's whatwe're gonna learn.
One, all men are sinful.
Okay, so let's just accept that.
Then we say, with that, thewages of sin is death.
So if all men are sinful and allmen are eligible for the death
(14:57):
penalty, is it wrong for GodAlmighty to kill them, to apply
the death penalty?
If he does it at twenty-two orhe does it at 102.
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
And by death penalty, you just mean we're all
gonna die.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
Yeah.
And he can take your life whenhe wants to because all men are
sinful, and we're we deserve it.
So it's kind of like more like Ideserve at any time to have my
wife complain to me because I'venot always been a perfect
husband.
She could say that, and I'd haveto say, it's fair, I've not
always been a perfect husband.
(15:32):
See what I mean?
I'm always guilty of that, nomatter what.
And so she's right.
If she wants to bring that up,she's she's correct.
But God is perfect.
My wife isn't, she's darn close,though.
But God is perfect, and he says,so that's the first one.
SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
Second one is so with that one, you're saying the
posture of your heart, theposture of your life should be
like, we all are headed towardsdeath, we all deserve to die.
It is by God's grace that He'sHe's not instilled that power
here and now.
We didn't bring ourselves intothis world, we don't bring
ourselves out of this world.
God could do whatever he wants,and he's choosing to give you
(16:09):
life today.
SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
That's exactly right.
And and so 22,000 times a dayyou breathe.
If God decides to stop thattomorrow, it's like a guy uh
coming to knock on your door, hecomes knocking on your door, you
answer the door, he hands you ahundred dollars.
You say, What's this for?
Nothing.
Just take the hundred dollars.
He leaves, comes back the nextday.
(16:30):
He does that for 30 days, heknocks on the door, gives you
$100.
The 31st day he stops and hegoes and gives your neighbor
$100.
You look out the window and yousay, Where's my money?
That's what it is to say, Ideserve life forever.
I deserve life, I deserve neverto die, whether of cancer or of
God's judgment, I never deserveto die.
(16:51):
Where's my life, God?
That's not true.
He gives you 22,000 breaths aday.
By the way, this doesn't resolveit.
Can I give you my other reasonswhy?
SPEAKER_01 (16:58):
Yep, let's hear the number.
SPEAKER_00 (16:59):
Okay, number two, each person's judgment is fair
and justified.
Why?
Because he's the perfect judge.
The problem we have in our courtsystem, and I've seen it as a
policeman, is that juries get itwrong sometimes, and judges get
it wrong, right?
So that scares us when we havethe death penalty on earth
(17:19):
because human beings are makingthe decision.
By the way, are you against thedeath penalty?
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
I remember in what grade was I in that I had to do
a persuasive speech, and youtold me, I don't know, you
didn't tell me, but I definitelyremember your influence of being
for the death penalty, and thatwasn't very popular.
It wasn't.
I remember that.
The teacher being surprised, thefriends, maybe it was like sixth
grade.
I mean, I was young, where Ihadn't really like formed my own
(17:46):
thoughts.
But I would say a lot ofChristians now would say it's
not up to us to take life fromwomb to tomb.
It's not up to us to take life.
So that would be one view of it.
Are you still pro-death penalty?
SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
Sure.
For the right case, for theright cases.
The problem is we could talkabout this a lot, and I think
it's interesting, but the thethe problem is in logically, it
is fair for people to say, howcan you say you can't take their
life in the womb, but you cantake their life here?
I understand the the dilemma.
If you hold to it's a right tolife, only God can take a life.
(18:22):
That kind of to me, it's quiteeasy to understand.
The baby in the womb has donenothing, has had no chance to do
anything wrong.
And the people who get the deathpenalty, and I and I just
challenge anybody, go online andread the stories of people
sitting on death row.
You won't sleep well.
You won't sleep well.
They're rough stories.
Now, are there innocent people?
Of course.
Of course, because again, wedon't have perfect judges and we
(18:44):
don't have perfect jurors.
Okay, but imagine this anybodywho gets judgment, who gets
killed by God, or gets judged byGod deserves it because he's a
perfect judge, knows the wholestory.
Okay, third one God doesn't,this is an important one.
God doesn't lose his temper orfly off the handle when he's
talking about judgment.
(19:04):
He doesn't do that.
God is totally wonderful,totally merciful, loves people,
loves all of us, love Korah andthose that he had to take their
life.
He only judged those whoabsolutely rebel against him.
Okay?
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:19):
You ready for number four?
Number four.
Christ, this is a beautifulthing.
Christ, his own son, had to diefor sin, and this is the
ultimate proof that God believesin the justice of the death
because of sin, because he evenput his own son to death.
(19:40):
You see what I mean?
So it's not like he just putsbad guys to death.
His son carried all of our sinon him.
And so the wrath of God, insteadof being poured out on
individual humans, was allpoured out right on Jesus
Christ, and he put his own sonto death.
And the Bible says a strangething.
It says it pleased him.
It pleased him to kill his son.
(20:01):
Now, what is he saying there?
He just loved people so, so muchthat it brought joy to think
that even at the death of my myson, as horrible as it was, and
it was beyond terrific.
Teaching God is giving us isthat's how great his mercy is,
that he was pleased.
Why?
That Jesus died, and Jesus, itsays how to get through, who for
(20:21):
the joy set before him enduredthe cross, despising the shame,
probably hanging there naked ashe was brutalized and murdered.
And and yet he forgives the guyswho died.
This is the beautiful picture.
Whenever you want to think aboutGod's judgment, always remember
that the judgment was applied tohis own son.
And it was applied for you andI.
(20:43):
What do you think?
SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
It's a pretty crazy, pretty crazy thought.
I think that's one that takessome, you know, contemplating it
should take some contemplatingand then to think he didn't stay
dead, you know, he rose again sowe can have life.
It's pretty powerful.
I think that's a reallycompelling way to think about uh
deadly force and what what Godis willing to do to save his
people uh all through time.
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
Yeah, it's listen, I I you know, I kind of talk fast
and I'm making light of it.
Look, I don't understand theKorah and his guys either.
I don't understand why he got itand others didn't.
You know what I mean?
Like I just watched something onForensic Files last night, this
horrific child murder.
I'm like, man, that guy he hewas executed, but I thought he
should get killed ten times.
I mean, that he's so evil.
(21:27):
But the truth is, me picking whodies and who lives and dies,
it's kind of tough because Idon't, I'm not righteous, I'm
not perfect like him.
So anyway, okay, five.
If these are true, uh here, herethis is really I think could be
helpful for you.
If this is true, what I've said,everybody deserves justice.
God is totally righteous and theperfect judge.
(21:49):
He deals with sin, the wages ofsin is death.
He uses his own son to die.
Then the real question doesn'tbecome, we don't become
surprised that he killed a fewpeople.
What we really get surprised isthat any of us survive.
God could kill anybody he wants.
He's God.
He could do whatever he wants.
But somehow, in spite of thefact that I'm rebellious to God,
in spite of the fact that I'mcertainly not deserving, he
(22:10):
keeps giving me breath.
SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
That's what it's like when you look at all he's
capable of, all he's proven hecan do, who God says he is, and
what he says he can do, and whatyou've seen, the perspective and
the posture changes to likegrace and mercy that I'm here,
that I've given breath, that Ihave another day, that he has
chosen to save me, that I dohave the opportunity to accept
Jesus as my savior and followhim.
It's it shifts what you'relooking at in the equation of
(22:34):
who God is, from why that andwhy that person to why not me,
why not my.
SPEAKER_00 (22:40):
I think that these uh these other things to see
here is that when these murdersor not murders, uh deaths,
deaths happened, um in in uh incivil society, the ones I saw as
a policeman or whatever, um,there is not always a linear
track to change that there wassomething happened as good as a
(23:02):
result of it.
We don't have that.
We we do not have that.
We can't have any proof that thecapital punishment, you know, is
effective for this.
Probably a lot of reasons forthat.
It's interesting in the storiesI've read, and I have not read
all of them or studied themenough to be sure of this, but
in most of those cases, theywere examples to the rest of the
Jewish people or the newChristians, like if you take in
(23:23):
Acts 5 when Ananias and Sapphirawere taken home or taken, their
lives were taken by God.
In those stories, it was donewith the idea, with the impact
that the whole church waschanged as a result of this.
And the same thing happened atthese deaths in the Old
Testament, where it generallyelevated the holiness of God, it
(23:44):
elevated reverence for God, andhe used it to change lives.
So let's just think if he'swilling to lose his own son for
humanity, would he be willing totake one bad guy so that a bunch
of others could repent?
And for generations, they'd knowthe story of Korah and they'd
always say, That God isrighteous and just.
I'm not messing with them, I'mgonna get right with them now,
(24:06):
just like anybody watching thisright now should do the same
thing.
unknown (24:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:10):
Your deal should not be to lay in bed at night and
judge God and evaluate God.
Oh God, now you're on thejudge's robe, you got the
judge's robe, and God sits atthe defense table and you choose
whether or not God did right orwrong.
I wouldn't spend two secondsdoing that.
What I would do is I wouldevaluate, evaluate instead my
own heart before God, and thatGod, every breath I've taken is
(24:32):
by his mercy.
And what I need to do is makesure I am right with him.
And that would requirerepentance of your sin.
On his fall on your face beforehim and ask him for mercy, and
our savior will come, and hesays, He who calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved.
And Kor could have been saved,and all the guys that lost their
lives, if they'd have done thatexact thing, they could know for
(24:54):
sure they're going to heavenwhen they die.
SPEAKER_01 (24:56):
Yeah, it's it's like you see God's grace and mercy in
our life, and then you also seehow much we shouldn't mess with
God in the time he's given usbecause it is like it's actually
quite serious obeying God, notto not uh you know messing with
what God desires and asks of us.
It's not worth it, you know.
(25:16):
Not that he's gonna strike youdead today, but just that his
ways are worth worth followinghim in his ways because
certainly, certainly shouldelevate our view of God and his
power as well.
That could be um, you know, theHoly Spirit within us, living
with him with grace and mercyand his justice and all of that.
(25:37):
Or you see the flip side oflike, no, God's power and wrath
is is a real deal not to bemessed with.
SPEAKER_00 (25:44):
I've had this happen police work uh where I've talked
to guys that the policeman orthe prison guard or whatever
sees the bad guy doingsomething.
I remember this uh guy who's nowa pastor, he was on the prison
yard and he was stabbing a guyto death like this in a prison
guard in jail.
And the prison guard shot fromthe from and uh he just missed
(26:06):
him, but they were able to grabhim and stop him from killing
this guy.
When he was in the cell just afew minutes later, he had the
blood all over him, he'sstanding there.
The guy who fired, the theofficer fired, walked up to him
and said, I don't know why, butGod wants you alive.
Somebody moved my hand when Iwhen I was about to fire and and
and it spared your life.
(26:27):
Now, here's the question uhinmate and that prison guard now
he looks at that guy and hesays, He could have killed me,
but he didn't.
He could have killed me, but hedidn't.
And so now he he loves or heappreciates that prison guard,
the same one who he hadanimosity for five minutes
before.
In the same way, if you changeyour thought process and you
(26:50):
realize this God could kill me,he could take my life, but he
didn't.
And so you have this greatrelationship with God because in
fact, he is the merciful one.
He could have, but he doesn't.
And he's given me this greatlife and he's renewed me and he
gives me love for the Bible andso on.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
We'll be back for more on the Cops, Criminals, and
Christ podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (27:10):
Okay, talk to you then.
We're back with the Cops, Criminals, and Christ
podcast with an episode todaythat I'm a little nervous about.
I want to hear what you have tosay.
Let's dive in.
Tell us what we're talking abouttoday.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Deadly force.
Deadly force is something fromthe first day you sign on as a
policeman to the day you retire.
You are very, it's very centralin our training and in our minds
every time we go out on thestreet.
All that.
Deadly force is central to thisweird job I chose.
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
Define it.
What is deadly force?
SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
Deadly force is when you it's not anytime you use
force, you grab a guy tohandcuff, and that's not deadly.
It would have to be that whatI'm doing could result in the
death of that individual.
So we always think guns, but itdoesn't have to be guns.
We can hit guys with cars, wecan cause deadly force that way.
We can deadly force uh when wehit them with a slapjack, an
instrument, you know.
(00:50):
If it's a sick person or or highon drugs or something, you can
kill them lots of ways.
You know, we've killed guys withuh chokeholds and by wrestling
around with them and then theyend up dead.
So there's lots of differentthings that can happen, and all
of that is considered deadlyforce because it's force that we
started that ended in death, orthat we attempted to kill them
with and that all sounds very nobueno, not good to me.
(01:14):
Well, you know, it's really goodbecause we need somebody in
society who can stop evil thatis deadly.
So the only time deadly force isjustified is when uh a life is
in danger, another life is indanger, or our lives are in
danger.
That's the police kind of motto.
Now, in the police department,DC police didn't used to be that
(01:36):
way when I first started.
We also had another, there'sanother option, and that is if a
felon, if somebody who webelieve is gonna cause bodily
harm to another, who's at riskof causing more bodily harm to
another, and they're runningaway, you can kill them.
Now, so expect this.
Think of it this way (01:55):
a guy has a gun in his hand, he just
killed somebody, he's runningtowards another person
screaming, I'm gonna kill you.
Even though it's his back to me,I can shoot and kill him.
Because he's about to go hurtsomebody else.
SPEAKER_01 (02:10):
And when you say you can, you mean you would not be
penalized, charged, etc., if youdid.
SPEAKER_00 (02:16):
Well, I can't tell you today what would happen.
I mean, lots of people, thecourts can do whatever they want
to do, but I'm saying the lawand what they've trained us was
there were those exceptions.
In our case, it was a littlewider when I first started.
But remember, there used to beall over the United States
something called a fleeing felonlaw.
I don't know if you ever heardabout this.
But let's say that any felonyyou commit, you steal a car, you
(02:38):
break in a house, those are allfelonies.
You steal over a certain amountof money in a store, you that's
a felony.
You assault somebody with vigor,you know, you beat them real
bad, and you're running away, wecould shoot them and kill them.
Fleeing felon law.
It was all over the UnitedStates, and then it slowly over
time started getting pulledback.
And now I don't know anybodythat's a fleeing felon law.
(03:01):
Any felony.
Yeah, so you could steal a car,and as you're running away from
stealing a car, they could killyou.
Cops could kill you becauseyou're a fleeing felon.
SPEAKER_01 (03:09):
Now you say this is all good news, but I think you,
as well as I know, there'ssomething in the news that even
that cops have done that evenyou don't agree with, that
you're like, that is not good,that's not the best way, that's
not the right way.
Obviously, people listening tothis could say, what in the
world is everything wrong withcops because they are so
powerful, you know, um, I don'twant to say hungry, but like
(03:30):
overuse their authority or thefact that this is a possibility
in the hands of a cop that weknow are so flawed is dangerous
and scary, not good news.
How would you respond to that?
SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
Well, I mean, sure, uh, until you need him, you
know.
Listen, because there's bad guysout there, and there are bad
guys in police work, and youknow, everybody does this
illustration, but cop doctors,nurses, we have these crazy
stories of doctors and nursesthat kill people, you know?
And boy, policemen who do thatshould, you know, be treated as
such.
If they murder somebody, thenmurder is murder.
(04:01):
Doesn't matter if you had auniform on or not.
But you on your street, I don'tcare how bad your criminal you
are, you still would rathersomebody kill somebody before
they kill you or your child.
Guaranteed.
Guaranteed everybody agrees onthat part when it comes to them,
you know.
But policy-wise, they might say,Oh, the cops shouldn't have
(04:21):
guns.
And then you say, Would you wanthim to have a gun when the guy
is shooting at you?
Would you want him to have agun?
Usually they'd say yes.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
So you're saying there's circumstances that are
justifiable that everyone wouldpotentially agree would be a
good thing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
And there's, you know, unique circumstances.
Some would say much lesscircumstances, others would go a
little wider.
But either way, deadly force isa problem.
Deadly force is a problem thatis only exists because of sin
and wickedness.
It doesn't exist.
Deadly force wouldn't have toexist in society if people would
stop sinning stop sinning.
You also wouldn't have policemenmisbehave if they'd stopped
(04:58):
sinning.
SPEAKER_01 (04:59):
In heaven, there will be no deadly force.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
No, there'll be no deadly force.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (05:04):
Where do you see this in scripture?
How do you reconcile this withwho God is and what that means
for us?
SPEAKER_00 (05:10):
Let me say this a little bit about humans at
deadly force, just because I'vebeen around a lot of it.
So I worked in homicide a veryshort time, but I also was on
the scene of several times whenpolicemen killed somebody, or
lots of times when bad guyskilled each other.
Lots of times, you know.
And so anyway, I've seenpolicemen.
Sometimes you you go up andthey're they're throwing up, you
know, because they're so upsetover what they just did.
(05:32):
Other times they're high fiving.
Either human beings reactdifferently to this.
Sometimes the high-fiving, I'veseen hugs.
I've hugged a guy who justmissed a shot, uh, just missed
getting shot and then fired.
And uh, and then you justnaturally hug.
Why?
Because humans, when theysurvive something deadly and
they survive, it's it can beafforded to feel like you made
(05:54):
it, you know.
The the reason is is becausethe, you know, I just think it's
a normal human reaction.
Uh, but on the other hand, thereare guys that are desperately
upset by this, and so much sothat they never get right again.
Guys drink, guys think, butthat's just a lower percentage,
I would say, of soldiers and ofpolice and others who use deadly
(06:15):
force, it is generally not lovedor enjoyed, but it is something
that they feel like they theywere right in doing in some
cases.
But we have lots of cases we cantalk about deadly force-wise.
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Well, what's one in your police career, as the
people want to know?
I'm sure that you were maybelike most glad deadly force was
an option or that the mostnecessary use of deadly force in
your career.
SPEAKER_00 (06:42):
There were lots of those.
There was one I was thinkingabout.
Now, this is a good storybecause the Washington Post
wrote an article saying that theDC police killed two unarmed
men, and and they didn't tellanything else in the story.
Now, it's an interesting story,and it named the officers who
killed the the unarmed men.
Let me just tell you whathappened.
(07:02):
One case, uh, we had a jailinside the hospital.
That's how bad our our littledistrict was, that we had to
have a prison inside thehospital.
So we had bad guys in there,we'd take them over, guys would
come over from the prison, fromthe jail, they'd hold them there
and then take them over.
Okay.
So we had two policemen workingin there.
And uh one night, uh 4 or 5a.m., a young female officer who
(07:25):
was only about five feet tall.
She's really small, she showedup, went back to the strong
room, this jail thing.
And what she sees is a guy whohad beaten the uh policeman with
he had taken his club and hadbeaten the policeman so bad,
he's an older policeman.
Uh he had beaten himunconscious, blood all over him.
He turns and he charges her.
(07:47):
Now he did not have a gun in hishand.
He did not have a gun in hishand.
She shot and killed him.
But remember, she's five feettall.
She's uh has no defense at thispoint.
She's stuck with this fella.
He already is, to her idea,killed a policeman, and now he's
running at her.
He doesn't have a gun.
So the pol so the post printedthat and said they killed an
(08:08):
unarmed man.
Well, I guess, yes.
Now let me give you another one.
This is really easy.
SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
Did she get charged or was that justified?
SPEAKER_00 (08:15):
No, she she never got charged in court or
anything, but got charged in asense by the Washington Post.
I wrote an editorial, which Istill have, to the Washington
Post about these two shootings,saying this is, you know, just
just uh horrific uh uh lack ofcontext, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (08:31):
Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
Yeah, I'll give you another one, a guy you know,
Gigi Neal.
He was a policeman's policeman.
I mean, this guy, he man, he hehad chances to shoot at people
every day because we were in thestreet all the time.
This guy was a hardworkingpoliceman.
Everybody in the city knew him,bad guys, good guys.
Gigi Neal.
Well, he goes through all ofthat.
He recovered, I'm telling you,I'm telling you, this guy
(08:55):
recovered hundreds of gunswithout firing a shot.
Without firing a shot.
All right?
He's driving home one night inhis cruiser, and a guy drives to
carjack him.
The guy is unarmed, but the guyis huge.
He overpowers, he's by himselfon his way.
And the guy overpowers him, isbeating Gigi to the point he
doesn't know what else to do.
(09:16):
He's going unconscious.
He's now pushed back in hisseat, back into his cruiser, his
car, and this guy's just killinghim.
He's literally doesn't know whatto do.
He takes his gun out finally,you know, he's begging the guy
to get off.
He's fighting back, he's doingeverything.
He just didn't have anythingelse he could do, so he fired
one shot into the guy.
And uh then, by the way, his gunfell apart, which was
(09:37):
frightening.
And the guy didn't stop, by theway, after he got shot.
A lot of times, after you shootsomebody, if they're high or it
takes a minute for it to killthem.
And in that case, the guyfinally died right on top of
Gigi.
He was still fighting andfighting, fighting, and then he
just passed and made away.
The Washington Post Prince says,Gigi Neil shot an unarmed man.
(09:58):
Well, wait a second now.
Should he have, should he not?
I don't know what else he coulddo in these cases in the these
particular scenarios.
But my point is, deadly forcecan always be examined and
shouldn't be examined.
And it was put before a grandjury and he wasn't indicted.
But we have to remember thatit's necessary at some times,
and it's needed sometimesbecause people are sinful and
(10:20):
they do crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
People are sinful and they do crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (10:23):
That's it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:25):
Brains are really broken.
SPEAKER_00 (10:27):
That's that's right.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (10:28):
It really goes deep, and yeah, it's not something
that changes with a little jailsentence when they get back out,
I fear.
SPEAKER_00 (10:34):
No, no.
SPEAKER_01 (10:35):
Pretty proven.
SPEAKER_00 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01 (10:37):
Do you want to answer my question about the uh
where in the Bible do you seethis?
How does this inform your viewof God and his view of people
and humanity and all of it?
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
So I if I were to preach Christ to you, I would
always tell you, one, he is aGod who is holy and righteous.
But two, he is a God who ismerciful and loving.
So this is the truth of thegospel, it is the good news of
the gospel that you and I aresinners, absolutely, but that
Christ has an answer,absolutely.
(11:10):
But there are all these times inthe scriptures where God uses
deadly force.
How can that possibly be?
SPEAKER_01 (11:23):
And I think that's a hard pill to swallow.
Tell us.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Tell us, yeah.
Well, what do you think?
I mean, you if you if you studythis, I I'm kind of fascinated
by this because it's hard for meto understand, too.
So I'll give you one that's uhquite a story.
It's in um Numbers um 16, Ithink.
(11:47):
And uh Korah, the Bible is notright here, um, but Korah anyway
rebels against uh Moses, and soMoses is leading the people
through the promise on the wayto the promised land, and Korah
and a bunch of other leaders goagainst him, go against Moses,
and rebel against not just him,but against the Lord as well.
(12:11):
Long story short, worth readingthe passage.
But eventually God warns them,and then you know what he does?
Opens up the earth and swallowsall of them.
They all die.
Immediate, boom, right there,deadly force.
I think 250 died then.
So I have to say, what the heck?
How the heck is that justified?
(12:32):
I mean, is he I mean, we'retalking about whether policemen
should do it in here, 250 peoplewere killed.
So for me, I say, man, do Ireally understand the Bible?
Do I understand God?
So let me give you some thoughtsthat help me on this, on God's
deadly force, let's say.
And there's several of these.
I think that one of the thingsto know is that, first of all,
God is a um holy God, that he isright, he is right, and he is
(12:58):
the only righteous one in thewhole universe.
Not Korah, not me, not anybody,just him.
And all of us, when given theopportunity to live righteously
and live for him, disobey andlive our own way.
So all of us are sinful.
I just was with little Joytoday, your little girl.
And while I'm with her, she'sjust so cute and wonderful, but
(13:18):
she also is disobedientnaturally.
Uh, she does things sheshouldn't do, no matter what you
do, and that's because she's asinner.
She's a little sinner,especially she isn't a sinner.
SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
Well, I mean, gee, I think they're like I need to
give my consent to diss myone-year-old.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Well, hey, this is the fact of life.
You you got you got 25 kids.
Any of them do you know thataren't sinners?
SPEAKER_01 (13:44):
She's made in God's image.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (13:46):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (13:47):
And flawed by sin, perhaps.
Sin nature, perhaps, but therehasn't been a lot of sinning
yet, okay?
SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Yes, she hasn't done much yet.
She hasn't done much.
So listen, so so here's numberone thing you gotta know.
All men are sinful.
And and here's the bottom line.
The bottom line is the Biblesays the wages of sin is death.
Now, by the way, as we talk tochildren, uh, when there's um
no, they call like an age ofaccountability, and there's also
(14:16):
the mental capacity to makedecisions.
Uh, if somebody loses their lifebefore those two things have
happened, uh, they go straightto heaven.
I just want to make sure that'sunderstood.
Because sin comes really from awillful heart that is choosing
unrighteousness.
And I really use babies or kidsbecause I don't have to teach
them to lie, I have to teachthem to tell the truth.
You know what I mean?
(14:36):
I don't have to teach a kid tolie, I never had to teach a kid
to lie.
You were a rotten kid when youwere little and you used to do
all kinds of terrible things.
Naturally.
So look, here's our here's whatwe're gonna learn.
One, all men are sinful.
Okay, so let's just accept that.
Then we say, with that, thewages of sin is death.
So if all men are sinful and allmen are eligible for the death
(14:57):
penalty, is it wrong for GodAlmighty to kill them, to apply
the death penalty?
If he does it at twenty-two orhe does it at 102.
SPEAKER_01 (15:08):
And by death penalty, you just mean we're all
gonna die.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
Yeah.
And he can take your life whenhe wants to because all men are
sinful, and we're we deserve it.
So it's kind of like more like Ideserve at any time to have my
wife complain to me because I'venot always been a perfect
husband.
She could say that, and I'd haveto say, it's fair, I've not
always been a perfect husband.
(15:32):
See what I mean?
I'm always guilty of that, nomatter what.
And so she's right.
If she wants to bring that up,she's she's correct.
But God is perfect.
My wife isn't, she's darn close,though.
But God is perfect, and he says,so that's the first one.
SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
Second one is so with that one, you're saying the
posture of your heart, theposture of your life should be
like, we all are headed towardsdeath, we all deserve to die.
It is by God's grace that He'sHe's not instilled that power
here and now.
We didn't bring ourselves intothis world, we don't bring
ourselves out of this world.
God could do whatever he wants,and he's choosing to give you
(16:09):
life today.
SPEAKER_00 (16:09):
That's exactly right.
And and so 22,000 times a dayyou breathe.
If God decides to stop thattomorrow, it's like a guy uh
coming to knock on your door, hecomes knocking on your door, you
answer the door, he hands you ahundred dollars.
You say, What's this for?
Nothing.
Just take the hundred dollars.
He leaves, comes back the nextday.
(16:30):
He does that for 30 days, heknocks on the door, gives you
$100.
The 31st day he stops and hegoes and gives your neighbor
$100.
You look out the window and yousay, Where's my money?
That's what it is to say, Ideserve life forever.
I deserve life, I deserve neverto die, whether of cancer or of
God's judgment, I never deserveto die.
(16:51):
Where's my life, God?
That's not true.
He gives you 22,000 breaths aday.
By the way, this doesn't resolveit.
Can I give you my other reasonswhy?
SPEAKER_01 (16:58):
Yep, let's hear the number.
SPEAKER_00 (16:59):
Okay, number two, each person's judgment is fair
and justified.
Why?
Because he's the perfect judge.
The problem we have in our courtsystem, and I've seen it as a
policeman, is that juries get itwrong sometimes, and judges get
it wrong, right?
So that scares us when we havethe death penalty on earth
(17:19):
because human beings are makingthe decision.
By the way, are you against thedeath penalty?
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
I remember in what grade was I in that I had to do
a persuasive speech, and youtold me, I don't know, you
didn't tell me, but I definitelyremember your influence of being
for the death penalty, and thatwasn't very popular.
It wasn't.
I remember that.
The teacher being surprised, thefriends, maybe it was like sixth
grade.
I mean, I was young, where Ihadn't really like formed my own
(17:46):
thoughts.
But I would say a lot ofChristians now would say it's
not up to us to take life fromwomb to tomb.
It's not up to us to take life.
So that would be one view of it.
Are you still pro-death penalty?
SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
Sure.
For the right case, for theright cases.
The problem is we could talkabout this a lot, and I think
it's interesting, but the thethe problem is in logically, it
is fair for people to say, howcan you say you can't take their
life in the womb, but you cantake their life here?
I understand the the dilemma.
If you hold to it's a right tolife, only God can take a life.
(18:22):
That kind of to me, it's quiteeasy to understand.
The baby in the womb has donenothing, has had no chance to do
anything wrong.
And the people who get the deathpenalty, and I and I just
challenge anybody, go online andread the stories of people
sitting on death row.
You won't sleep well.
You won't sleep well.
They're rough stories.
Now, are there innocent people?
Of course.
Of course, because again, wedon't have perfect judges and we
(18:44):
don't have perfect jurors.
Okay, but imagine this anybodywho gets judgment, who gets
killed by God, or gets judged byGod deserves it because he's a
perfect judge, knows the wholestory.
Okay, third one God doesn't,this is an important one.
God doesn't lose his temper orfly off the handle when he's
talking about judgment.
(19:04):
He doesn't do that.
God is totally wonderful,totally merciful, loves people,
loves all of us, love Korah andthose that he had to take their
life.
He only judged those whoabsolutely rebel against him.
Okay?
SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:19):
You ready for number four?
Number four.
Christ, this is a beautifulthing.
Christ, his own son, had to diefor sin, and this is the
ultimate proof that God believesin the justice of the death
because of sin, because he evenput his own son to death.
(19:40):
You see what I mean?
So it's not like he just putsbad guys to death.
His son carried all of our sinon him.
And so the wrath of God, insteadof being poured out on
individual humans, was allpoured out right on Jesus
Christ, and he put his own sonto death.
And the Bible says a strangething.
It says it pleased him.
It pleased him to kill his son.
(20:01):
Now, what is he saying there?
He just loved people so, so muchthat it brought joy to think
that even at the death of my myson, as horrible as it was, and
it was beyond terrific.
Teaching God is giving us isthat's how great his mercy is,
that he was pleased.
Why?
That Jesus died, and Jesus, itsays how to get through, who for
(20:21):
the joy set before him enduredthe cross, despising the shame,
probably hanging there naked ashe was brutalized and murdered.
And and yet he forgives the guyswho died.
This is the beautiful picture.
Whenever you want to think aboutGod's judgment, always remember
that the judgment was applied tohis own son.
And it was applied for you andI.
(20:43):
What do you think?
SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
It's a pretty crazy, pretty crazy thought.
I think that's one that takessome, you know, contemplating it
should take some contemplatingand then to think he didn't stay
dead, you know, he rose again sowe can have life.
It's pretty powerful.
I think that's a reallycompelling way to think about uh
deadly force and what what Godis willing to do to save his
people uh all through time.
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
Yeah, it's listen, I I you know, I kind of talk fast
and I'm making light of it.
Look, I don't understand theKorah and his guys either.
I don't understand why he got itand others didn't.
You know what I mean?
Like I just watched something onForensic Files last night, this
horrific child murder.
I'm like, man, that guy he hewas executed, but I thought he
should get killed ten times.
I mean, that he's so evil.
(21:27):
But the truth is, me picking whodies and who lives and dies,
it's kind of tough because Idon't, I'm not righteous, I'm
not perfect like him.
So anyway, okay, five.
If these are true, uh here, herethis is really I think could be
helpful for you.
If this is true, what I've said,everybody deserves justice.
God is totally righteous and theperfect judge.
(21:49):
He deals with sin, the wages ofsin is death.
He uses his own son to die.
Then the real question doesn'tbecome, we don't become
surprised that he killed a fewpeople.
What we really get surprised isthat any of us survive.
God could kill anybody he wants.
He's God.
He could do whatever he wants.
But somehow, in spite of thefact that I'm rebellious to God,
in spite of the fact that I'mcertainly not deserving, he
(22:10):
keeps giving me breath.
SPEAKER_01 (22:11):
That's what it's like when you look at all he's
capable of, all he's proven hecan do, who God says he is, and
what he says he can do, and whatyou've seen, the perspective and
the posture changes to likegrace and mercy that I'm here,
that I've given breath, that Ihave another day, that he has
chosen to save me, that I dohave the opportunity to accept
Jesus as my savior and followhim.
It's it shifts what you'relooking at in the equation of
(22:34):
who God is, from why that andwhy that person to why not me,
why not my.
SPEAKER_00 (22:40):
I think that these uh these other things to see
here is that when these murdersor not murders, uh deaths,
deaths happened, um in in uh incivil society, the ones I saw as
a policeman or whatever, um,there is not always a linear
track to change that there wassomething happened as good as a
(23:02):
result of it.
We don't have that.
We we do not have that.
We can't have any proof that thecapital punishment, you know, is
effective for this.
Probably a lot of reasons forthat.
It's interesting in the storiesI've read, and I have not read
all of them or studied themenough to be sure of this, but
in most of those cases, theywere examples to the rest of the
Jewish people or the newChristians, like if you take in
(23:23):
Acts 5 when Ananias and Sapphirawere taken home or taken, their
lives were taken by God.
In those stories, it was donewith the idea, with the impact
that the whole church waschanged as a result of this.
And the same thing happened atthese deaths in the Old
Testament, where it generallyelevated the holiness of God, it
(23:44):
elevated reverence for God, andhe used it to change lives.
So let's just think if he'swilling to lose his own son for
humanity, would he be willing totake one bad guy so that a bunch
of others could repent?
And for generations, they'd knowthe story of Korah and they'd
always say, That God isrighteous and just.
I'm not messing with them, I'mgonna get right with them now,
(24:06):
just like anybody watching thisright now should do the same
thing.
unknown (24:10):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:10):
Your deal should not be to lay in bed at night and
judge God and evaluate God.
Oh God, now you're on thejudge's robe, you got the
judge's robe, and God sits atthe defense table and you choose
whether or not God did right orwrong.
I wouldn't spend two secondsdoing that.
What I would do is I wouldevaluate, evaluate instead my
own heart before God, and thatGod, every breath I've taken is
(24:32):
by his mercy.
And what I need to do is makesure I am right with him.
And that would requirerepentance of your sin.
On his fall on your face beforehim and ask him for mercy, and
our savior will come, and hesays, He who calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved.
And Kor could have been saved,and all the guys that lost their
lives, if they'd have done thatexact thing, they could know for
(24:54):
sure they're going to heavenwhen they die.
SPEAKER_01 (24:56):
Yeah, it's it's like you see God's grace and mercy in
our life, and then you also seehow much we shouldn't mess with
God in the time he's given usbecause it is like it's actually
quite serious obeying God, notto not uh you know messing with
what God desires and asks of us.
It's not worth it, you know.
(25:16):
Not that he's gonna strike youdead today, but just that his
ways are worth worth followinghim in his ways because
certainly, certainly shouldelevate our view of God and his
power as well.
That could be um, you know, theHoly Spirit within us, living
with him with grace and mercyand his justice and all of that.
(25:37):
Or you see the flip side oflike, no, God's power and wrath
is is a real deal not to bemessed with.
SPEAKER_00 (25:44):
I've had this happen police work uh where I've talked
to guys that the policeman orthe prison guard or whatever
sees the bad guy doingsomething.
I remember this uh guy who's nowa pastor, he was on the prison
yard and he was stabbing a guyto death like this in a prison
guard in jail.
And the prison guard shot fromthe from and uh he just missed
(26:06):
him, but they were able to grabhim and stop him from killing
this guy.
When he was in the cell just afew minutes later, he had the
blood all over him, he'sstanding there.
The guy who fired, the theofficer fired, walked up to him
and said, I don't know why, butGod wants you alive.
Somebody moved my hand when Iwhen I was about to fire and and
and it spared your life.
(26:27):
Now, here's the question uhinmate and that prison guard now
he looks at that guy and hesays, He could have killed me,
but he didn't.
He could have killed me, but hedidn't.
And so now he he loves or heappreciates that prison guard,
the same one who he hadanimosity for five minutes
before.
In the same way, if you changeyour thought process and you
(26:50):
realize this God could kill me,he could take my life, but he
didn't.
And so you have this greatrelationship with God because in
fact, he is the merciful one.
He could have, but he doesn't.
And he's given me this greatlife and he's renewed me and he
gives me love for the Bible andso on.
SPEAKER_01 (27:07):
We'll be back for more on the Cops, Criminals, and
Christ podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (27:10):
Okay, talk to you then.
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