God and Violence

“And another, a red horse, went out. And power was given to him sitting on it, to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. And there was given to him a great sword” (Revelation 6:4 MKJV).

Some say that while Allah of the Koran is violent, the God of the Old Testament is even worse. Words like “barbaric” and “psychotic monster” are used by atheist authors and others to describe Him. Many conclude that all mention of a holy and righteous God is inflammatory and should to be shunned, if not ridiculed. Nominal Christians and evangelicals alike feel justified in distancing themselves from God’s Words and deeds as recorded in the Old Testament, being taught that He changed after Christ came. This adds to the confusion and revulsion, as though God was morally challenged or, worse, schizophrenic.

The Koran, meanwhile, claims Islam is superior, and calls on its adherents to gain the rule over this world in the name of their god, Allah, who, it is claimed, is the God of the Old and New Testaments clearly and finally revealed (to straighten out all the confusion) by his prophet, Muhammad.

Of course, the claims of Islam are a giant lie. Jesus Christ revealed and reveals God in totality, without confusion, because He is God. And God has not changed. Only now His heart and mind have been made known directly through Christ, for those whom He gives eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to comprehend.

God came in the flesh in Jesus Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That can be said of no man except the Son of God, Who is also known as the Prince of Peace. God came to deliver men from their ungodly violence towards Him, the Truth, and towards each other.

Muhammad and his religion of Islam are plainly fraudulent, because they claim to have a greater revelation than God Himself, Jesus Christ. With a lie as its foundation, the whole structure is illegitimate. Trying to nail down what the Koran truly preaches is like trying to hang on to a slippery eel, “lest you should meditate on the path of life, her tracks are movable, you cannot know them” (Proverbs 5:6).

However, we have exposed the false claims of Islam with many proofs, and will now more particularly expose another fraudulent claim that God, as revealed in the Old Testament, is evilly violent, no different, if not worse, than Allah, and is to be altogether disregarded because of what He said and did.

Ironically, this claim, by which atheists lump together God and Allah, legitimizes Islam in a backhanded way.

“If God is no different than Allah, then Allah is no different than God. Is that not what we have been saying to you?” say the Muslims. However, we know the difference, having been brought out of death into Life Himself. We separate the Truth from error and confirm the teachings of the Old Testament, of which Paul the apostle wrote:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV).

Is the Koran the testimony of the all-powerful Creator, a book bringing peace to mankind; or is it a lying, contradictory and diabolical tome of self-justification concocted by an insecure, vengeful and greedy creature for personal gain? At The Path of Truth we have shown that the Koran fits the latter description, while the Bible fits the former. One is the Word of God, recorded by men inspired by His Spirit, who laid down their lives for the world; and the other is the words of a man, reported by men without the Spirit, who have taken the lives of others to gain the world for themselves. One represents God and the other represents the real ogre and author of man’s miseries, himself.

As an invention of man, the Koran does not agree at all with the Bible. Rather than being held accountable for any discrepancies, however, the Muslim explanation for these differences is that the Bible has been corrupted, and wherever it disagrees with the Koran, the Koran is always the proper and pure revelation of God, and the Bible is in error. How convenient! However, there is not a stitch of truth backing this claim. The Bible is widely acknowledged by means of many proofs to be virtually unchanged over thousands of years.

That does not mean that corrupt men have not perverted what is found in the Word of Truth, the Bible. In fact, perversion requires Truth; otherwise, it is not perversion. There must be something to twist and reconfigure. The more Truth into which error is mixed, the more deceptive the perversity can be, and more dangerous in luring its victims to death by an appearance of godliness. It is written in the Bible that Satan comes as an angel of light. Many come in the Name of the God of the Bible, quoting the Bible, while serving the prince of this world. Did not the prince of this world come to Christ, quoting the Bible to Him?

Not all that appears good is good. The converse holds true as well: Not all that appears evil is evil. Who can deny that not all violence is the same? Killing a repeat murderer in order to stop his carnage is not the same as the crime the murderer planned to commit on his next victim. You cannot judge the act by itself, but only in context with motive. When we consider the Old Testament in proper context of what God is doing, we see that He is not the guilty One. Man is. Man is the great destroyer, while God is the great Savior. Man cannot do right, while God cannot do wrong.

God Has Not Changed

Let’s put away the mistaken notion that Jesus Christ changed things in such a way that the Old Testament became somewhat obsolete. The New Testament does not say this. On the contrary, it says that all Scripture is profitable for teaching and instruction in the ways of God. In those days, that primarily meant the Old Testament, all of it. Neither Jesus nor His disciples believed the Bible had lost any truth or relevance.

Jesus certainly gave no indication that He considered God an ogre for Whose behavior He needed to apologize. He often quoted the Old Testament, putting His imprimatur on It. He showed great reverence for the Word of God, as recorded and spoken (the Word of God is living, not confined to paper and ink). That is how men live, He said:

“But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the Mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4 EMTV).

Indeed, Jesus was violent (“acting with or marked by or resulting from great force or energy or emotional intensity”) in His zeal for God, driving the moneychangers from the Temple with a whip. As for the Old Testament Itself, Jesus said He had not come to do away with It, but to fulfill It:

“Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, Till the Heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled. Therefore whoever shall relax one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:17-19 MKJV).

So much for any changes in the Nature, Ways, or Laws of God.

Jesus Christ also demonstrated, as God in the flesh, that physical violence was not the way He or His followers convert the world to the faith of God. He never threatened or bullied anyone into “converting” to His cause. He was zealous, but in the righteousness of God. When He wept over Jerusalem He said:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you shall by no means see Me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the LORD!'” (Luke 13:34-35 EMTV)

Conversion is a matter of faith, which is a gift from God through Jesus Christ, and not something to be compelled or forced upon any. “They that live by the sword shall die by the sword.” And, “My Kingdom is not of this world,” He said.

By faith we see God in Jesus Christ and those He sends in His Name, and thereby we will know His mind and intentions, which are good.

Without faith, men cannot truly understand the Bible. You may understand the words, but not the intent or meaning of the One inspiring those words. The Bible is a unique Book, which speaks not from man’s viewpoint, but from God’s viewpoint through those men to whom He chose to reveal Himself. The Bible speaks of the relationship of Creator and creature, wherein each could not do what is happening without the other, but in which God is the Lead Partner, Who initiates and calls the shots. The buck starts and stops with Him.

One cannot judge God, and those who know Him justify Him. This we do here.

A Contradiction of Atheism

A note to the atheist reader: If you simply deny the existence of God altogether, you are already confessing that man is entirely to blame for his brutality and the destruction of the world. You cannot blame God. You cannot blame the Bible or any religious book, because men have robbed, raped, and killed without those, as well as with them. Clearly, in your view, man is the culprit and agent of his own destruction. That is what the Bible, in fact, says. You are already in agreement!

Having such a good start, why throw out the rest that has so many more good things for you? Indeed, the Bible presents the Key to the answer for every problem, which is the Word of God made flesh. Because, unlike any man-made document or philosophy, the Bible contains the promise of a better way that is delivered only through Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of all men.

Here is where atheists go wrong: You say God does not exist, yet you blame Him for what men do, and credit men with what only God can do. You are partially right that those who claim to believe God and the Bible are responsible for much misery in this world. That is because few of those who profess actually believe. If you read the gospels, you will see that those professing belief in God are the ones leading others into violence against Him; they crucified His Anointed. Yet that is how Christ became the Savior of the world. Men meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

The upshot: All things are under His control and are serving His purposes, even the violence of evil men. As for the violence of righteous men, we must look at the motive to know whether something is good or bad. Jesus said:

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24 EMTV).

If you do not know the motive, you cannot judge anything properly.

The Bible Is Different: It Is Truthful

The Bible, as the unique Book It is, pulls no punches in describing man’s condition, nature, and activities. You will not find man’s condemnation of sinners or adulation of saints there. It is written from God’s viewpoint. The Bible speaks of the violent nature of man, declaring it is not changed until God does something about it. In the same Scriptures that seem to depict God as the villain, it is written that He will bring all of mankind to a peaceable condition, wherein they will know and see His glory:

“And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4 MKJV).

“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14 KJV).

The Bible, as the revelation of God, tells us what is really happening in our lives on earth, who is at fault, and what can be done about it.

In the beginning it is written that God made all things as they are, and that He saw that all He made was good. Man was the primary beneficiary and recipient of this goodness. God gave instructions to the man He made in His image so that he would maintain this condition, but the man did not obey them.

There was the possibility (and inevitability – it had to happen) of screwing things up, which an entity known as the serpent, or Satan, presented to the man’s wife. It was a very attractive offer of independence and desirable benefit. The man and woman would be able to know and determine right and wrong by their own powers, becoming like God, by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, from which God had commanded them not to eat. The woman was seduced by the serpent to eat, and her husband followed her rather than God.

After this, the man and woman hid from God, doing what they thought was right, but which was wrong. They were in wrongness and didn’t know it. They had been effectively self-disconnected from the Source.

The legacy for all peoples, who inherit this disconnection from God, is that they really do not know right from wrong, though they think they do. This deceptive state God called “death”:

“But you shall not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17 MKJV).

The man and woman went out from the presence of God. The rest of the Bible is about the Way and journey back from death to life. Man is to be restored to the Garden to now consume from the Tree of Life, Jesus Christ, and inherit eternal life.

The Cost of Independence

When man is the final arbiter of right and wrong, he can easily set the bar to the level where his wrong becomes right. His conscience may even tell him he is wrong, but he can override it. God can tell him he is wrong, and he can override Him, too. This is what happened in the second generation of Adam when the terrible cost of independence from God, “death,” was more fully realized by the first murder, a religious murder, the kind that set the scene for much trouble to come.

The firstborn son, Cain, had been warned by God that his sacrifice was not acceptable, and that his attitude towards not being accepted was wrong. He did not listen or repent, retaining his anger and independence. He reacted by killing his brother, whose sacrifice and attitude was acceptable. The one whose works were not accepted by God murdered the one whose were. The one rebelling against God brought bloodshed to the earth.

Following the counsel of the serpent brought murder, and not just upon anyone, but particularly directed towards the one who followed the counsel of God.

After this event evil multiplied, like a cancer spreads throughout a body. Here is what God saw:

“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart” (Genesis 6:5-6 KJV).

The Record shows that the evil was done by men, not by God. Now, if the Bible was written by men, and there is no God, why does it take God’s side and blame men? That doesn’t make sense at all. If men write a book it will, inevitably, be in their favor, not against.

“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Genesis 6:11-13 KJV).

Who can argue against the fact that mankind today has once again filled the world with injustice and trouble, which is the broader meaning of the violence God is talking about? Is anyone justified in rejecting or blaming God because there are those such as Cain who make sacrifices in order to get what they want, and when they are rejected, they shed the blood of others?

Many reject God and the Bible as evil on account of the evils committed by the religious. Are you, critic of God, not committing evil by attributing to God what men do? Are you pure from all evil and hypocrisy that you can judge not only your neighbor but your Creator? Why have you not removed the beam from your own eye, that you might help your neighbor rather than condemn him if not because you are too selfish to do otherwise?

God’s Strange Act

Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac is given as an example of a bloodthirsty God, or at least a very cruel One. What kind of God would subject those He loves to such a cruel temptation? What is the point? What kind of God would ask for the death of His servant’s son in sacrifice? But who are you, a mere creature, to judge the motives and ways of God, the Creator of all life? Obviously you do not know or understand what He is doing.

Abraham was called God’s friend. It was not an enemy from whom God required the life of his son, but from His friend. How was Abraham God’s friend? By putting God before anything else, even his beloved son. One cannot be God’s true friend, the Father of spirits, if anything in this world comes before Him. Why is that? Because life is only found in the Creator and Giver of life, not in the created things.

By this one act through His friend Abraham, God demonstrated the Way of life that He would Personally accomplish on our behalves:

“For so greatly did God love the world that He gave His only Son, that every one who trusts in Him may not perish but may have the Life of Ages” (John 3:16 WNT).

What God did with Abraham was for the whole world. By this act God paved the way by which He would reverse the sin and death of Adam and Eve. What man could not do for himself, God would accomplish on behalf of man, through the Son of Man, the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. God would reverse the violence man had unleashed on himself - death, murder, greed and untold sorrows. He said of Abraham:

“And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3 MKJV).

As man entered death and left the Presence of God, so it is through the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection from the dead that man re-enters life and His Presence. Only this time through Christ, he now knows the difference between good and evil, light and dark, the prince of this world and the King of the next, unlike in the Garden where and after man fell. Whereas in the beginning he was a son of the earth, now he is the son of Heaven that God intended him to be. That is why all these things have happened, because they are the very means to bring about God’s will that mankind to be joined to Him.

God Suffers Men’s Violence to Redeem Them

So we see God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, bearing the violence of men and going to His death by their hands to bring us His life:

“He was despised, and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease, and as one from Whom men hide their face: He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely our diseases He did bear, and our pains He carried; whereas we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded because of our transgressions, He was crushed because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our welfare was upon Him, and with His stripes we were healed. All we like sheep did go astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has made to light on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, though He humbled himself and opened not His mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:3-7 JPS).

“For the love of Christ constrains us, judging this, that if one died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that the living ones may live no more to themselves, but to Him Who died for them and having been raised” (2Co 5:14-15).

God will have all men turn to Him through Jesus Christ and thereby enter into true life, ceasing to fight against Him and over the created things on which their hearts are now set:

“You are burning with desire, and have not your desire, so you put men to death; you are full of envy, and you are not able to get your desire, so you are fighting and making war; you have not your desire, because you do not make request for it. You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure” (James 4:2-3 BBE).

The blessing that God promised would come through Abraham to the nations came through Jesus Christ, Whom God ordained for death in order to reconcile us to Himself by the shedding of His blood. Through His blood we receive forgiveness. We have all been guilty of rejecting Him and in need of God’s forgiveness, as Isaiah prophesied. The sin was not God’s but man’s, and mankind has been absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Only with the forgiveness for sins that was bought by His initiative, through His own blood, has our enmity with God been put away once and for all. Through Christ we are delivered from the perpetual war within us and against our Creator. The sacrifice of Isaac could not do these things (which is why he was not actually sacrificed), but pointed to Him Who would do it.

There is no other way God could deliver us but through the Son. Mankind cannot lift himself by his own bootstraps. He cannot live in or create perfect peace. There are not many paths to God. There is only one Way, Jesus Christ. God did not deserve or earn our mistreatment, as we have earned our own, which is why only He could pay the price of our redemption, whereas we could not:

“Now one of the criminals who had been crucified insulted Him, saying, ‘Are not You the Christ? Save Yourself and us.’ But the other, answering, reproved him. ‘Do you also not fear God,’ he said, ‘when you are actually suffering the same punishment? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving due requital for what we have done. But He has done nothing amiss’” (Luke 23:39-41 WNT).

There you have it. Men are guilty and suffer their just desserts. God is not guilty, and proved it when He suffered as a man, with men, for men, and raised His own body from the grave. He has proven that we are helpless to do anything about our condition that has brought violence and destruction to the world, which we must learn, at great price, has no remedy except through Him. Instead of complaining to Him about our just judgments, we should fear (reverence) Him, seeing He suffered unjustly on our behalves.

“The fear of man proves to be a snare, but whoever puts his trust in the LORD is kept safe” (Proverbs 29:25 HNV).

Islam has proven to be a snare because it puts trust in man. That is why it uses the “stick” of threats and intimidation of men to make converts when the “carrot” does not work. Islam asks you to put your trust in a son of man, Muhammad, but denies you the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The rallying cry of the Koran is “God has no Son!” denying all who would listen redemption through the Savior. For the Muslim, there is no love of God, only the hatred of man to nourish him in his jihad that despises life. Islam, in the guise of revelation from God, calls God and every saint that spilled his blood to bring us the Good News, liars. If that is not doing violence to humanity, what is?

By His one act of laying down the life of His Son, God has not only redeemed us from evil, but has redeemed the evil itself, including the violence through which men have destroyed each other and the earth. It has all been purposed to work for good through Christ, Who determines all things:

“[God] has in these last days spoken to us by the Son, Whom He has appointed Heir of all things, through Whom also He made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2 EMTV).

“[The Son] is the image of the unseen God coming into existence before all living things; For by Him all things were made, in Heaven and on earth, things seen and things unseen, authorities, lords, rulers, and powers; all things were made by Him and for Him; He is before all things, and in Him all things have being” (Colossians 1:15-17 BBE).

Not only is ultimate redemption positive, but the nature of that redemption makes everything that ever happened positive as well! Glory to God!

An Example of Righteous War Contrasted with Unrighteous

Let’s speak of another act of father Abraham, when he pursued the plunderers of Sodom who had captured his nephew Lot and his belongings. With his servants and friends, Abraham attacked these thieves and put them to flight, retrieving not only Lot and his possessions, but all the others who were taken and their belongings.

Some will point to the father of the faithful as setting a bad example here. Did he?

The ruler of Sodom offered Abraham all the goods that he had recovered, asking him to simply return the prisoners. But Abraham kept nothing for himself. He replied:

“I have taken an oath to the Lord, the Most High God, Maker of Heaven and earth, That I will not take so much as a thread or the cord of a shoe of yours; so that you may not say, I have given wealth to Abram: Give me nothing but the food which the fighting-men who went with me have had; but let Aner and Eshcol and Mamre have their part of the goods” (Genesis 14:22-24 BBE).

Compare this to the well-documented history (by his followers, and not his detractors) of Muhammad, who, for selfish gain, pillaged at will, without him or his company having been defrauded. Muhammad presented himself as deserving of authority and obedience, a law unto himself, and, if rejected, declared that his heinous deeds to follow were due justice, thus setting the example for his followers. He required a portion of all confiscated and stolen goods that were pillaged in his jihad against all infidels (those who do not receive his “revelation”):

[8.38] Say to those who disbelieve, if they desist, that which is past shall be forgiven to them; and if they return, then what happened to the ancients has already passed.
[8.39] And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah; but if they desist, then surely Allah sees what they do.
[8.40] And if they turn back, then know that Allah is your Patron; most excellent is the Patron and most excellent the Helper.
[8.41] And know that whatever thing you gain, a fifth of it is for Allah and for the Apostle and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if you believe in Allah and in that which We revealed to Our servant, on the day of distinction, the day on which the two parties met; and Allah has power over all things.

[59.6] And whatever Allah restored to His Apostle from them you did not press forward against it any horse or a riding camel but Allah gives authority to His apostles against whom He pleases, and Allah has power over all things.
[59.7] Whatever Allah has restored to His Apostle from the people of the towns, it is for Allah and for the Apostle, and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, so that it may not be a thing taken by turns among the rich of you, and whatever the Apostle gives you, accept it, and from whatever he forbids you, keep back, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; surely Allah is severe in retributing (evil)....

Abraham, however, did not enrich himself by plundering his neighbors, even when he could have been morally justified to cover his costs when retrieving what thieves had stolen. He showed kindness to the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, though they did not act in kind towards others. This liberation served as a warning and wake up call to repentance and doing right, which the Sodomites did not heed. Their evil grew so great that God returned years later to see if things were as bad as He had heard, and, if so, He would destroy them. Abraham then asked God a series of questions:

“And Abraham came near, and said, Will You let destruction come on the upright with the sinners? If by chance there are fifty upright men in the town, will You give the place to destruction and not have mercy on it because of the fifty upright men? Let such a thing be far from You, to put the upright to death with the sinner: will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:23-25 BBE)

The last question is rhetorical. God answers that He would not destroy the city if fifty upright men were found. Abraham works the number down to ten, to which God says He would have mercy on the entire city for the sake of ten, and Abraham is satisfied, asking no more. So we see that God is tolerant and willing for the sake of a few to spare many even those in evil and contrary to Him and His will. That is why He waited so long. This is not the way of Allah.

As it turns out, however, the only righteous one in the city is Lot, who is told to evacuate with his family because God would destroy that place. Despite being solemnly warned, Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. Who can blame God when He had given warning? We cannot hold Him responsible for warnings we fail to heed or laws of nature we choose to flout.

God Commanded Annihilation; Yes, He Did

But the most famous portion of the Old Testament that has been used by Islam as justification for its slaughters and subjugation of those whom they call “unbelievers,” and by others to discredit the Bible and God, is the taking of the land by the children of Israel, as commanded by God:

Deuteronomy 7:1-26 BBE
(1) When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you;
(2) And when the Lord has given them up into your hands and you have overcome them, give them up to complete destruction: make no agreement with them, and have no mercy on them:
(5) But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.
(7) The Lord did not give you His love or take you for Himself because you were more in number than any other people; for you were the smallest of the nations:
(8) But because of His love for you, and in order to keep His oath to your fathers, the Lord took you out with the strength of His hand, making you free from the prison-house and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
(9) Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; Whose faith and mercy are unchanging, Who keeps His word through a thousand generations to those who have love for Him and keep His laws;
(10) Rewarding His haters to their face with destruction; He will have no mercy on His hater, but will give him open punishment.
(16) And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods; for that will be a cause of sin to you.
(23) But the Lord your God will give them up into your hands, overpowering them till their destruction is complete.
(24) He will give their kings into your hands, and you will put their names out of existence under Heaven; there is not one of them who will not give way before you, till their destruction is complete.
(25) The images of their gods are to be burned with fire: have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:
(26) And you may not take a disgusting thing into your house, and so become cursed with its curse: but keep yourselves from it, turning from it with fear and hate, for it is a cursed thing.

There are several things to note here:

1) God very specifically commanded and did these things. Permission was not given to Israel to destroy at any time, in any place, any people that were not in agreement with their beliefs, as found with Islam in the Koran:

[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

[9.73] O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.

[9.123] O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).

[17.33] And do not kill any one whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause.

These are subjective, open-ended commandments or suggestions, which the wicked use to justify whatever murders they do in the name of Allah, even as we see in the world today. If people have been able to pervert the Law of God to do whatever they want, how much more the law of Muhammad, which is there to serve man’s lusts?

But here is a crucial point: God did not leave Israel the Law without a Guide and Interpreter; He was with them and led them in the wilderness. An example of His specific guidance against warfare where it might seem justified was with the Moabites, who met the children of Israel in force and would not let them pass on their way from Egypt. By God’s commandment Israel did not fight or resist, yet generations later Moab came against Israel to dispossess them of the land God had given them. This is what was said of that situation:

“And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom You would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy-- behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of Your possession, which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not execute judgment on them?” (2 Chronicles 20:10-12)

And so God did, and was faithful to His Word and people. Not one person or peoples on earth can claim that their judgment has not been just. God sees the hearts and motives, and judges accordingly. That is how He guided His people Israel, and it is how He guides us that believe today, by His mind in Christ.

2) The people of the land were conquered because they were sold out to wickedness. Even 400 years before Moses, when God first promised the land to Abraham (and his progeny), He spoke of the iniquity its inhabitants, which, He said, had not yet come to the full. Until that time came, He said, the Israelites would not dispossess them. As with Sodom and Gomorrah, God did not punish the righteous with the wicked. Only when the wickedness of the wicked was ripe were they ejected from the land; Israel was God’s tool to displace them.

3) God, for the love He had for Israel, warned them to be diligent in following His orders, or they themselves would end up cursed like those they dispossessed. The outcome of allowing evil to remain in their midst would bring them down, as it had the inhabitants of the land. If they did not believe Him, they would learn the hard way the terrible cost of tolerating the leaven of evil, which raises the whole lump. “There is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11).

4) God is just, longsuffering, and wise. Who will tell Him what to do? Yet men, not knowing what is in themselves, do not perceive the hearts of those being judged, and the evil for which they are judged. They do not believe or receive God’s testimony or judgments, but rather judge Him, taking the side of evil because they are evil themselves, and do not want to confess it or change. All of this must run its course in order to be dealt with and reversed in due time. There is no escaping the judgment of God; all will learn the lessons they must learn. That is why we are here experiencing these things.

God knew that the Israelites ultimately would not obey Him. He knew they would have to learn the hard way that disobedience ends in disaster. There is only one way that works, and that is God’s way, all the way. The Israelites would fail in order to learn that what God said is true and that trusting in themselves and others is sheer folly. Through their rejection of Him and fall, He would bring salvation to the nations through Christ. Who can understand the ways of God, or judge Him in His works? Only a fool who does not understand.

A Testimony Against Us

Answer this question: If you wrote a book about the superiority of your religion, would you put the following words in God’s mouth, describing your forefathers?

Deuteronomy 9:3-8 BBE
(3) Be certain then today that it is the Lord your God Who goes over before you like an all-burning fire; He will send destruction on them, crushing them before you; and you will send them in flight, putting an end to them quickly, as the Lord has said.
(4) And after the Lord has sent them in flight from before you, say not in your heart, Because of my righteousness the Lord has given me this land; when it is because of their evil-doing that the Lord is driving these nations out before you.
(5) Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to His oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
(6) Be certain then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land as a reward for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.
(7) Keep well in mind how you made the Lord your God angry in the waste land; from the day when you went out of Egypt till you came to this place, you have gone against the orders of the Lord.
(8) Again in Horeb you made the Lord angry, and in His wrath He would have put an end to you.

Deuteronomy 9:13-18 BBE
(13) And then the Lord said to me, I have seen that this people is stiff-necked:
(14) Let me send destruction on them till their very name is cut off; and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they.
(15) So turning round I came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two stones of the agreement were in my hands.
(16) And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go.
(17) And I let the stones go from my hands, and they were broken before your eyes.
(18) And I went down on my face before the Lord, as at the first, for forty days and forty nights, without taking food or drinking water, because of all your sin, in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and moving Him to wrath.

You will not find this kind of frank depiction of the shortcomings and sins of Muhammad and the Muslims in the Koran or any other religious books and manifestoes regarding those affiliated with them. Only the Bible is honest about what is in man and declares that any righteousness to be found is by something God does with a person, as with Abraham, Moses, David, or John the Baptist.

Because the Bible is honest about what is in man, some reject it outright for a variety of reasons, some of which I answer here. Others who disagree with God’s verdict on mankind’s depravity, particularly their own, find ways to have their cake and eat it too. I speak of the religious who acknowledge the Bible and profess to believe in God. They choose deception and are deceived into thinking that they are righteous and that they are made so in their own power. Thinking themselves to have sight, they are doubly deceived because they do not receive what the Bible says about them. These are the congregations and kingdoms of men.

It does not make sense that men would invent a God Who castigates them and proves they are the source of their troubles. So if the God of the Old Testament is Real, and He is, and if He is such a bloodthirsty tyrant, as some claim Him to be, why doesn’t He just kill all the wicked and get it over with? He did that once already, at the flood. But afterwards He said this to Noah:

“With these words I make My covenant with you: I promise that never again will all living beings be destroyed by a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:11 GNB).

This means no more extinctions, period, because God is not leaving Himself an out: “I didn’t say anything about asteroids.” Has He not been good to His word (though mankind is destroying the earth himself)? Considering His omniscient power, has He not been very forbearing and longsuffering regarding the evils of men and the blasphemies men have committed in His Name, and against Him? How long would you put up with the things men do? Would you wipe them out, or would you give everything up and lay down your life for murderers, thieves and blasphemers? You would do the former, which is part of why God did the latter.

God has a plan; everything is in order and working perfectly, yet perfectly hidden from the wise of this world and its mockers and scoffers.

The Severity of God’s Law

God disciplines those He loves in order to save and deliver them from the evil that destroys a people. He gave His people commandments by which they were to keep themselves and prosper in the land they were commanded to liberate and inhabit. As great as the blessings He promised Israel in keeping His commandments, He also warned the curses would be terrible should they not walk in His ways. Read Deuteronomy 28.

But some deride God’s ways, which He taught Israel, as barbaric. Here are some examples of what they loathe, not considering that by doing so they prefer the curses:

Deuteronomy 13:5-11 BBE
(5) And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put to death; for his words were said with the purpose of turning you away from the Lord your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; and of forcing you out of the way in which the Lord your God has given you orders to go. So you are to put away the evil from among you.
(6) If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife of your heart, or the friend who is as dear to you as your life, working on you secretly says to you, Let us go and give worship to other gods, strange to you and to your fathers;
(7) Gods of the peoples round about you, near or far, from one end of the earth to the other;
(8) Do not be guided by him or give attention to him; have no pity on him or mercy, and give him no cover;
(9) But put him to death without question; let your hand be the first stretched out against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people.
(10) Let him be stoned with stones till he is dead; because it was his purpose to make you false to the Lord your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.
(11) And all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and no one will again do such evil as this among you.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 BBE
(18) If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment:
(19) Then let his father and mother take him to the responsible men of the town, to the public place;
(20) And say to them, This son of ours is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, he will not give attention to us; he gives himself up to pleasure and strong drink.
(21) Then he is to be stoned to death by all the men of the town: so you are to put away the evil from among you; and all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear.

It is amazing how lawless man despises what is good for him. Israel prospered as long as they walked in the fear of God and followed the Law Moses gave them. In time, however, they forgot how God was with them and had given them all that they had, and by what means their favorable state had come. They began to make to themselves idols and to serve the works of their hands. The severity of the Law became anathema to the very people who had experienced the benefits of Its rule. The children forgot what the fathers had learned and suffered on their behalves! Because of this, they loathed the medicine that was necessary to keep them healthy, and the seeds of destruction were watered and grown to harvest.

Today we see a “Judeo-Christian” West that has an ever diminishing respect for the Law of God. The attendant lack of restraint has brought a multiplied crop of evil. Thus the cure becomes much more costly than the preventative and necessary medicine ever was!

What am I saying? Tolerating wrongdoing rather than embracing the Remedy, the reality depicted in the Law of God, causes the wrongdoing to grow like cancer, spreading to others. Everyone is affected in a society that collectively bears the costs. It is not only the Bible that tells this story, but all history books do as well.

The Laws of God that are pointed out by atheist critics as evidence of the alleged atrociousness of God point out their own shortsightedness instead. What they fail to see, in their foolishness, is that these are laws, not threats with malicious intent. Laws are laws because they cannot be broken. If you jump off a bridge you will fall. Is it wrong to warn you of the consequences of disregarding the law of gravity? If you stick your hand over an open flame you will burn yourself. Is teaching the law of fire a mark of brutality, or is violating that law brutal to your senses?

As men do not need to enforce the laws of nature for consequences to come to those who violate them, so it is with the Law of God. Just because these Laws are not enforced by men does not mean the consequences of breaking them do not happen as spelled out in the Law. They surely do; that is why Jesus said that those who did and taught the commandments of God would be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. That is why He vowed that not one iota of the Law would disappear, unless you could first remove Heaven and earth.

Consider also these words of Paul regarding what happened to Israel when they went against the commandments of God and its relevance to us today:

“Nor let us commit fornication, just as some of them fornicated, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, just as also some of them tempted Him, and were destroyed by the serpents; nor murmur, just as also some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to those people as examples, and they were written for our instruction, to whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:8-11 EMTV).

The Law of God is the Nature of God, which never changes. It is the Way of Life, summed up this way by the man given wisdom from God:

“For the Commandment is a Lamp; and the Law is Light; and Reproofs of Instruction are the Way of Life” (Proverbs 6:23 MKJV).

Those who reject these things are broken without fail. A people without the fear of God, which is reverence for His Words and Ways, are inevitably destroyed. History proves it over and over again. That is what is happening all around us today. God’s Law tells us the reality of how things work and how they do not work. Because men do not understand, He sends us (those He instructs) to instruct you in this Way. Blessed are the ones who listen.

Why do men not have peace? Why are they destroying the earth? Because they do not love God or His Law – it is one and the same thing. Brutality comes by the hands of those who ignore, if not mock and denigrate, that which protects them and others from harm.

Twisting the Law for Selfish Purposes Is Not Lawful

Whereas God teaches by His Law that man was not put on earth to serve himself, the god of the Koran consistently justifies a carnal, selfish, vindictive man, Muhammad, in getting what he wants, whether it is physical goods, his son’s wife, or the heads of those that oppose him. For example:

[33.37] And when you said to him to whom Allah had shown favor and to whom you had shown a favor: Keep your wife to yourself and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; and you concealed in your soul what Allah would bring to light, and you feared men, and Allah had a greater right that you should fear Him. But when Zaid had accomplished his want of her, We gave her to you as a wife, so that there should be no difficulty for the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished their want of them; and Allah's command shall be performed.
[33.38] There is no harm in the Prophet doing that which Allah has ordained for him; such has been the course of Allah with respect to those who have gone before; and the command of Allah is a decree that is made absolute.

In other words, Muhammad came home and told his several other wives that Allah was making him marry this beautiful woman that his adopted son divorced so he could have her, it being known to the son that Muhammad found her desirable. Even for Muslims permitted multiple wives, this kind of proposal comes with the caveat that Allah has only granted this permission to his prophet; in other words, “Don’t try this at home.”

The Law of God is valid and good for all, but Muhammad found a clever way to justify whatever he did in violation of the Law, using “Allah” as an excuse. He put himself above the Law and appealed to the lawless instincts in others in order to support his activities by enticing them with various goodies so that they would go along with him. They would share in the spoils of conquests for goods and women in this life, and virgins and wine were promised in the next for serving “Allah,” a.k.a. Muhammad.

To self-serving demigods such as Muhammad, the Law is unacceptable for them, though useful in keeping others in line and disciplined for service. In the Koran, Muhammad presents a perverted mockery of the Law, a form of righteousness that covers over sin. Pray towards Mecca, go on pilgrimage, fast during the day, eat at night, and then go kill the infidels and pillage their goods, or subjugate them and make them pay taxes to Muhammad. It is deceitful - a blatant denial and travesty of God and His ways. The Koran is utterly opposed to the Nature of God made known to mankind through Jesus Christ. It is the very opposite of submission to God, Who laid down His life for you; it is submission to Muhammad, a taker of men’s lives and charlatan who usurps what belongs to God and His Christ.

There is no justification whatsoever given for such evils perpetrated by Muhammad in the Bible. And the Law of God is absolute in demonstrating the severity of the fruits of disobedience. There is no escaping the consequences:

“For there is no partiality with God. For as many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law, and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law” (Romans 2:11-12 EMTV).

It is written as warning to believers to consider both the goodness and severity of God in what happened to His nation of Israel. There is goodness in obedience and continuing with God, but severity in deviation and lawlessness.

For those whom God loves, license is not given to do as they please in the flesh, but they have the greater responsibility of not only walking according to His Holy Law, but also of laying down their lives. His people are not called “disciples” without good reason. They are called to be as He, Jesus Christ, is in this world. They are a Light to the world, bringing His salvation to all men and reversing the curse of disobedience on mankind. How will people escape the curse of disobedience if not by honoring the Law of God? So it is written of Christ:

“It pleased the LORD, for His righteousness' sake, to magnify the Law, and make It honorable” (Isaiah 42:21 HNV).

God spoke these words of promise to Israel:

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I took you, as on eagles' wings, guiding you to Myself. If now you will truly give ear to My voice and keep My agreement, you will be My special property out of all the peoples: for all the earth is Mine: And you will be a kingdom of priests to Me, and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:4-6 BBE).

Are the priests of God sent out with swords to conquer the world and to steal its goods, as the people of Muhammad do? One need only compare Christ’s works to Muhammad’s to see the difference between God’s way and man’s way. Jesus Christ came to make us priests, not executioners, of God in order to fulfill His agreement with Israel. By Him we raise Israel from the dead.

God Stakes His Claim to Bless the World

But what about the taking of the land of Israel, which came through much bloodshed? God said He would make Israel a kingdom of priests, yet He required them to war on the occupants of the land He gave them. This has supplied God-deniers and haters everywhere with great ammunition, or so they think, to vilify Him and those reporting the matter.

God gave Israel word, through His servant Moses, that He would drive the people of the land out before them:

“When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you; And when the Lord has given them up into your hands and you have overcome them, give them up to complete destruction: make no agreement with them, and have no mercy on them: Do not take wives or husbands from among them; do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons. For through them your sons will be turned from Me to the worship of other gods: and the Lord will be moved to wrath against you and send destruction on you quickly. But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire” (Deuteronomy 7:1-5 BBE).

It was not a question of whether these people could remain there, because God had already determined to destroy them, as He had with Sodom and Gomorrah. That was not Israel’s determination to make, nor did they make it. They did not want to take the land in the first place. Had they had their wish, they would have returned to Egypt. But God led them despite their complaints and unbelief. He is sovereign and able.

The objective was not the destruction of the people per se, but of their false gods. “Make no agreement with them.” The hearts of the inhabitants said, “Over our dead bodies will you take our gods from us,” and so their wish was granted. God was demonstrating through Israel that mixing what is pure and holy with the religious inventions of men is strictly forbidden because it is a deadly mixture. Those who are His priests will minister the pure Word of Truth, and not a poisonous mixture, to the world. The inhabitants of the land and the world perish because of false religion. The commandment to the people of God is not to be unequally yoked with such, but to ruthlessly extirpate false worship from their “land” or midst. Otherwise, they will fall as Israel did:

“But if you will not drive out the people of the land from before you, then it will be, those of them whom you let remain shall be goads in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land in which you live. And it shall be, as I thought to do to them, so I shall do to you” (Numbers 33:55-56 MKJV)

Not only do we fall if we fail to pay heed, but the world loses the Light of God if we extinguish it by our disobedience. But now is the day of the victory of God through Jesus Christ to be made be manifest to all, by Whom it has been determined that the false gods are to be removed from “all the land,” because the world is His and He has come to take it back from the enemy. That is what we are doing on The Path of Truth, for those with eyes to see.

What was demonstrated by Israel in the physical now takes place in the spiritual, though there are also physical causalities, as those judged by God are destroyed in their sins. It is indeed a bloody thing to the lukewarm and uncommitted. This is a fight to the death; hang onto your gods and die, or die to your gods and live.

We have the faith of Christ to fight these battles till every enemy including death is put away, because the Lord has come to rid the world of false religion and its bondage. The Prince of Peace has come for war and to conquer in the souls of men, delivering mankind from the carnal violence hidden within, which men have been sowing and reaping to this day. Look up, world, for now your liberty is at hand. What appeared to you as freedom brought bondage, and what now appears as bondage brings freedom. Believe.

And who thought it would be easy? Will men welcome the Prince of Peace when war is in their hearts? Since when have men not been willing to fight to retain their false gods? Since when have men been willing to lay down their lives for Truth, except as Jesus Christ’s and God’s?

Will you critics of God justify self defense and violence against criminals like Hitler while denying God the right to send His people to do violence against the root of Hitler and all other evils that come on mankind?

The Bible Is Not a Cover for Man’s Greed

What do we have in the words of God spoken to Moses? Are they a cover-up for a Muhammad-like justification of theft and pillage invented by Moses to enrich and aggrandize himself? We say no, and back that answer with facts, something the virulent accusers of God do not know and have not cared to find out.

When the sons of Korah rebelled against the Lord, rejecting those to whom He gave authority over Israel, namely Moses and Aaron, certain Israelites Moses called on to participate in the dispute refused, saying to him:

“Is it not enough that you have taken us from a land flowing with milk and honey, to put us to death in the waste land, but now you desire to make yourself a chief over us? And more than this, you have not taken us into a land flowing with milk and honey, or given us a heritage of fields and vine-gardens: will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up” (Numbers 16:13-14 BBE).

Muhammad required that he receive so much, by orders of “Allah,” and he made sure he got it, along with the women he desired, but here is what Moses said to God about these complainers:

“Moses became angry and said to the LORD, ‘Don't accept their offering. I haven't taken anything from them, not even a donkey. And I haven't mistreated any of them’” (Numbers 16:15 GW).

Not only was Moses angry, but his anger reflected the mind of God. These rebels, in their stubborn refusal to listen to what Moses was telling them, were coming against God. Here is what God said and did to them:

Numbers 16:20-33 BBE
(20) And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
(21) Come out from among this people, so that I may send sudden destruction on them.
(22) Then falling down on their faces they said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, because of one man's sin will Your wrath be moved against all the people?
(23) And the Lord said to Moses,
(24) Say to the people, Come away from the tent of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
(25) So Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the responsible men of Israel went with him.
(26) And he said to the people, Come away now from the tents of these evil men, without touching anything of theirs, or you may be taken in the punishment of their sins.
(27) So on every side they went away from the tent of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: and Dathan and Abiram came out to the door of their tents, with their wives and their sons and their little ones.
(28) And Moses said, Now you will see that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and I have not done them of myself.
(29) If these men have the common death of men, or if the natural fate of all men overtakes them, then the Lord has not sent me.
(30) But if the Lord does something new, opening the earth to take them in, with everything which is theirs, and they go down living into the underworld, then it will be clear to you that the Lord has not been honored by these men.
(31) And while these words were on his lips, the earth under them was parted in two;
(32) And the earth, opening her mouth, took them in, with their families, and all the men who were joined to Korah, and their goods.
(33) So they and all theirs went down living into the underworld, and the earth was shut over them, and they were cut off from among the meeting of the people.

Violent? Undoubtedly. You say, “Not justified”? Are you, accuser of God, capable of judging Him? Do you really understand what these men were doing, and why God did what He did? No, you do not. Those who should have known much better than you also condemned God for this act:

Numbers 16:41-49 GW
(41) The next day the whole community of Israel complained to Moses and Aaron. They said, "You have killed the LORD'S people."
(42) The community came together to confront Moses and Aaron. When they turned toward the tent of meeting, they saw the smoke covering it, and the glory of the LORD appeared.
(43) Then Moses and Aaron went to the front of the tent of meeting.
(44) The LORD said to Moses,
(45) "Get away from these people, and let Me destroy them in an instant!" Immediately, they bowed with their faces touching the ground.
(46) Moses said to Aaron, "Take your incense burner, put burning coals from the altar and incense in it, and go quickly into the community to make peace with the LORD for the people. The LORD is showing His anger; a plague has started."
(47) Aaron took his incense burner, as Moses told him, and ran into the middle of the assembly, because the plague had already begun among the people. He put incense on the incense burner to make peace with the LORD for the people.
(48) He stood between those who had died and those who were still alive, and the plague stopped.
(49) Still, 14,700 died from the plague in addition to those who had died because of Korah.

If God’s own people blame Him for His ferocity against them in their sins, how can it not be expected that those who have not known Him or His acts would find these things troubling, to say the least? Nevertheless, God will open the hearts and minds of those whom He chooses, and they will know that there is good reason for all that God does. Those who believe will find hope, not despair; comfort, not anxiety; and glory, not shame to the Name of God.

God is after the heart of man, for his good and prosperity of soul. The Word of God through Moses was not a commandment to willy-nilly slaughter those who did not believe in the God of Israel, so that Moses could possess their goods. God is not a man, that He would act from carnal lusts or capriciously. He had determined to remove a wicked people who had doomed themselves to destruction. The land was deeded to Israel when He promised it to Abraham. The boundaries of that land and what was to be done there was spelled out by Him, not man.

The Scriptural record of the conquest of the land of Israel does not describe the ways of those given to rapacious conquest and plunder. Men will take whatever they can get, but with Israel we see that God did not give them carte blanche permission to take or do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to or could. What happened with Israel was supernatural. It is simply not realistic to expect men to conquer in such a disciplined manner, contrary to the nature of man, which we see in the Koran and Islamic conquests from its inception to this very day.

Israel’s first conquest in the land is an example of God’s direction and discipline, which goes contrary to man’s nature. At the overthrow of Jericho, the Israelites were told by God not to take a single thing for themselves. Everything in that place was accursed. One man, however, disobeyed God, coveting some goods, which he kept and hid for himself. As God warned, this disobedience was followed by a curse. On account of this sin, Israel suffered defeat in their next battle. Joshua, the leader of the people, not knowing about the trespass, fretted and complained to God about this outcome. Here is what happened next:

“Then the Lord said to Joshua, Get up; what are you doing with your face to the earth? Israel has done wrong, sinning against the agreement which I made with them: they have even taken of the cursed thing; acting falsely like thieves they have put it among their goods” (Joshua 7:10-11 BBE).

Contrast this with the edict of Muhammad in the Koran and the Islamic way of securing booty (especially for Muhammad), which carries on to this very day:

[8.1] They ask you about the windfalls. Say: The windfalls are for Allah and the Apostle. So be careful of (your duty to) Allah and set aright matters of your difference, and obey Allah and His Apostle if you are believers.

[8.41] And know that whatever thing you gain [in Jihad], a fifth of it is for Allah and for the Apostle and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if you believe in Allah and in that which We revealed to Our servant, on the day of distinction, the day on which the two parties met; and Allah has power over all things.

[8.69] Eat then of the lawful and good (things) which you have acquired in war, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Muhammad is the supreme example of the carnal man, who conquers to satisfy his needs and lusts. Adding to his sins, he perpetrated a scam by using the holy Name of the God of Abraham as a cover for the atrocities he committed. He followed in the footsteps of the example of the “Holy Roman Catholic Church,” which also seeks to rule the world by whatever means possible.

God, however, is not to be condemned for man’s disobedience, or for the hoaxes and thefts done in His Name; He is justified in all His works.

God did not send the Israelites to loot, but utterly condemned covetousness by His commandment regarding Jericho, afflicting the nation of Israel through the sin of one man. The lesson is that the body is one; the whole body is affected if there is disease in one member. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Stopping the Spread of Disease Is Better than All Dying

To demonstrate the graveness of sin and the threat it poses to all, the Lord commanded Israel to put to death the offender, his family, even his animals, and to burn all that he possessed with fire. No one would thereafter possess that which was tainted by his covetousness, which would bring further wrath from God on them. God spared them by His instructions. Greed and disobedience are great destroyers. Open your eyes and look around you.

What is worse, one person or family dying, or a whole nation? What is worse, having to put away the wicked influence, or having the whole society go under through the spread of lawlessness, because individuals do not take on their God-given responsibility to put away the wickedness in their midst? Which is the greater evil, cutting off an offending member or letting the evil spread throughout the whole body? There is a violence that heals and a sparing of violence that kills.

The effects of this putting away of evil, as God did and taught Israel, are with us to this day. The Western countries influenced by Judeo-Christianity, as much as there exists perversion and lukwarmedness regarding the teaching of God and Christ, do not engage in the wanton pillaging seen in other places without this influence. Islamic countries, for example, are subject to wanton looting.

These lessons of God, planted as seed in His people Israel, have infused the world as leaven infuses dough. It is not that Western people are better than others, but they have had better than others, namely the advantage of the teaching of the Law of God. How foolish are those who ridicule and despise It!

This is affirmed by Paul the apostle, who is often mistakenly said to have abandoned the Law of God, but who said this:

“What then is the superiority of the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1-2 EMTV).

What God illustrated through Israel, as recorded in the Bible for our sakes, is that He knows what He is talking about, and it is damned foolish of anyone to not listen to Him. He took aside a people and gave them their own land to demonstrate this. And note: He did not command the tiny nation of Israel to expand and conquer the world by subterfuge and arms, forcing people to convert or submit to their rulership. Yet how great an influence has tiny Israel had on the world, through which came the Savior of all men, Jesus Christ!

What Happened and Will Happen with Israel

The Israelites were given a specific piece of land where they were to live according to the Law of God, as an example and demonstration of the goodness of God to bring His blessing to all nations. They were a light to the nations. Israel of old failed to fulfill this calling, yet this was also part of the predetermined will of the Creator (as prophesied in the Bible), Who would come in the flesh through Israel, as a Jew, in the Person of Jesus Christ, to fulfill it Himself, as only He could.

Through Israel’s fall and rejection of their Messiah, God brought some of the Gentiles (other nations) into the knowledge of Him through Jesus Christ, eventually to bring Israel back to Himself. Things have come full circle!

After the taking of the Promised Land, the Bible recounts the fall of Israel through unbelief and idolatry. As the Law foretold, enemies came on Israel after they abandoned Him and rejected His ways. (The Muslims are part of the chastening sent by God on His people and on the world, because they have not believed on Him, the Son of God and Messiah.)

What other Book foretells and recounts the author’s demise by their own wrongdoing? None! What other Book also promises an eventual restoration of those dispersed by the One they rejected? None! There is no Book like the Bible, which speaks the Truth and tells you what will happen before it happens.

Today, the nation of Israel has been raised from the dead, restored to succeed where they had once failed. Israel will yet save the world. God has raised them to do so, and it will be done, not in their own righteousness, of which they have none, but by His grace and mercy, which He will show them. Seeing how much the Jews have given the world in their state of death; think of what is to come in their life?

“For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:15).

We, as spiritual Israel, have been raised up, not to enslave others in a rigorous and unbearable religious system but to lead men out of such into truth and reality! Mankind is in the mess it is in because of false religion, which is reality avoidance. Those who profess to believe have given lip service to God while following their own gods into destruction. Death, violence, heartbreak, sickness, and suffering are the symptoms and results of false religion. God gave Israel instructions to remove the cause from the land. That is why He told Israel to smash their idols and pull down their altars.

Today the world is full of idols and altars to many gods. The Path of Truth is smashing those and pulling them down. The world is also full of violence. It is no random, meaningless coincidence that idolatry and violence (in all its manifestations – unjust gain being a primary one) are rampant. These are two sides of the same coin. Each man serves his gods and fights because others with their gods interfere with what they he wants.

And what do we see the nation of Israel doing today, which God raised up from the dead? Threatening to take over the world by war? Some liars would have us believe that. Or are they threatened and surrounded by hostiles intent on their destruction, while being pressured and sold out by their friends to “negotiate” with inveterate enemies? And who are those enemies? They are the followers of Muhammad.

Is not Israel and the Jew rejected by men as a burden rather than receiving them as a blessing? They have been attacked many times, with those attacking planning to do so again as opportunities arise. If the root of Israel, the God of Abraham and His Law, had taught Israelites to be barbarous conquerors, how come they are the only nation in history that wins defensive wars and gives back land? Yes, the liars and faultfinders have their answers, but who has a legitimate answer to such a conundrum? We do, and we are giving it to you. Read Israel and the Jew.

It Is All Working for Good

God made man, and He has not left him without help, but has set him in circumstances to teach him there is no help but in God. Good and evil have been a necessary part of this education and training. Without evil we do not know what is good. No one can blame God for his or her own evil, yet no one would experience these things if God had not, by His sovereign power, created and subjected them to evil and the lack of Light. So if you want to blame Him, go ahead, but know that He is doing it for good, and you are yet in your evil when blaming or ignoring Him and His call to listen and do right.

It is true that God, the One Who speaks and makes Himself known in the Bible, is totally sovereign, over every detail of everything that happens. He declares what is, and what will be, and makes it so. So who are you to argue?

Now that we personally have been delivered from our sins, we see that it is all working for good. God is in the process of reconciling and redeeming everything through the Son. That is why He paid the price He did, not only joining men in this life, but laying down His life that all might do the same and be made alive in Him. Do you think He will not have His way? Think again. It is all working for good, without fail; even your rebellion gives a contrast by which God is glorified! How is Light known except in contrast to darkness?

Blasphemy that Promotes Great Evil

The Koran does not affirm God’s sovereign power through Jesus Christ, by Whom all things are restored, but preaches a whimsical god who consigns vast blocks of people to everlasting hell. Muhammad adopted this confounded doctrine of eternal torment from the carnally-minded, heathen-based Catholic Church. How contrary it is to the Good News of Jesus Christ’s complete victory over death and hell! What is so good about the news that Islam, borrowing from Catholicism, brings to mankind – declaring you are dependent on your good works, which you are never sure are good enough for your capricious god, who decides in advance what will happen to you anyway? How comforting is that?!

Do not think that this is just a religious doctrinal dispute that does not affect you. The doctrine of eternal torment leads religious men, under the delusion of serving God, to do what they will in this life, without fear or remorse. Why should they worry about what they do to you when that is nothing compared to what their god will do to you in his eternal hell, where you will find no release ever from the torment he will inflict on you? How can men value those whom their god will treat worse than the greatest cruelties on earth they can imagine? So they justify themselves in killing God’s saints:

“And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all those who had been slain on the earth” (Revelation 18:24 EMTV).

But the Word of God says that Christ died for every person, and in due time each will be made alive in Him, in his or her own order:

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all will be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at His coming. Then will be the end, when He hands over the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when He abolishes every ruler and every authority and power. For He must reign till He puts all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death” (1 Corinthians 15:22-26 EMTV).

Muhammad, in the Koran, tells you that God says Christ did not die or overcome death. Muhammad would keep you in your sins and death, with no hope of forgiveness or life. Now will you “peace-loving” Muslims threaten us, because we declare that your prophet is a liar, who denies the only Name given to men whereby they must be saved? As the father of Jesus said to the giant blasphemous Palestinian three millennia ago, so we say to you:

“You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the Name of the LORD of Armies, the God of the army of Israel [the Lord Jesus Christ/Yehoshuah HaMashiach], Whom you have insulted. Today the LORD will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and cut off your head [by the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God]. And this day I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals. The whole world will know that Israel has a God. Then everyone gathered here will know that the LORD can save without sword or spear, because the LORD determines every battle's outcome. He will hand all of you over to us” (1 Samuel 17:45-47 GW).

So it is. We come to you not with weapons of men to persecute you, but in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ to destroy the claims of your prophet and his arrogant presumption of the Name of God Almighty. This day you will know that God is with us and not with Muhammad.

The Day of the Lord

As for the light and treacherous false Christians who cozy up to each other while retreating from the Word of Truth and His cross, your time is up. The charade is over; the Light of all men has come. Your mocking will be short-lived because God is finished winking at your wickedness:

“But, above all, remember that, in the last days, men will come who make a mock at everything--men governed only by their own passions, and, asking, ‘What has become of His promised Return? For from the time our forefathers fell asleep all things continue as they have been ever since the creation of the world.’ For they are wilfully blind to the fact that there were heavens which existed of old, and an earth, the latter arising out of water and extending continuously through water, by the command of God; and that, by means of these, the then existing race of men was overwhelmed with water and perished. But the present heavens and the present earth are, by the command of the same God, kept stored up, reserved for fire in preparation for a day of judgment and of destruction for the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:3-8 WNT).

Yes, it is a time of great violence to the enemies of God, such as never was before or ever will be again, because our God, Who is a consuming Fire, has come to put evil away.

“Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up. Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong. Come quickly, all you nations round about, and get yourselves together there: make your strong ones come down, O Lord. Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as Judge of all the nations round about. Put in the blade, for the grain is ready: come, get you down, for the wine-crusher is full, the vessels are overflowing; for great is their evildoing” (Joel 3:9-13 BBE).

Great has been your evildoing, inhabitants of the earth; therefore war has been ordained for you.

“And I heard the angel of the waters say, Righteous is the Lord, Who is, and was, and Who will be, because You have judged these things, since they have poured out the blood of the saints and prophets; and You gave them blood to drink, for they were deserving” (Revelation 16:5-6 MKJV).

There is no safety in neutrality today, either. There is no spiritual Switzerland where you can go to avoid the violence - business as usual. Passivity does not work in this great Day of the Lord, and never did. Jesus said, “He who does not gather with Me scatters” and, “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”

God has appointed the sword at every level for judgment, as He commanded Elijah:

“The LORD said, ‘Return to the wilderness near Damascus, then enter the city and anoint Hazael as king of Syria; anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king of Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Anyone who escapes being put to death by Hazael will be killed by Jehu, and anyone who escapes Jehu will be killed by Elisha’” (1 Kings 19:15-17 GNB).

There is no safety except in the Lord. You either have your trust in man or in God. With God there is mercy, but of man, David said: “...let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for His mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14 JPS).

In Summary: God Is Always Right

God is vindicated in all His judgments and acts as recorded in the Holy Scriptures. The nature of His works are diametrically opposed to those of man-made Christianity and religion, particularly Islam, which is a byproduct of false Christianity.

If there is fault, it is never with God and His actions. The fault is always with men, in their works and understanding, which come from, and trust in, a corrupt nature. The revelation of this nature by the Light of all men, Jesus Christ, brings repentance and hope, because He illuminates what has been contorted, misunderstood, denied and dismissed, cutting through the clutter and obfuscation to reveal the Truth. Glory to God!

The illumination of the facts and truths of the Scriptures enable you, dear readers, whoever you are, to thankfully and with great reward turn to the Lord your God, shedding the scandalous and destructive lies that have kept you in the dark. Instead of misunderstanding, hating, and despising Him, you will abhor yourselves and repent in dust and ashes. You will come to know and reverence Him Who holds all power and your very life in His hands. You will lay down your arms, the right to your sovereignty, acknowledging that His right precedes yours and is on your behalf. While you have destroyed yourselves, He will yet save you by His judgments. Then you will beat the swords of your tongues into plowshares, as the day of His peace has come:

“And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4 MKJV).

“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14 KJV).

Paul Cohen