Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / False Accusations. Innocent Death Penalties. Divided Beliefs. - Highlight Episode 342

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False Accusations. Innocent Death Penalties. Divided Beliefs. - Highlight Episode 342 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: What does the Bible say about the death penalty?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting today to see where we all land because, again, we don't really talk about these things beforehand.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when you look at the spectrum right, you'll see so many people who are for death on one hand and obviously you guys know I'm talking about abortion but so against death when it comes to the death penalty.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I mean the Catholic Church is a case in point in that regard.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Liberals are a case in point in this regard.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Again, I don't want to just say everyone who doesn't believe in the death penalty is liberal or theologically off.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: But you do see that, and I would say, especially as it relates to liberals, it blows my mind, ray, don't you think they're so against depriving women to murder their babies, but they're for limiting that?
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: They're violently against the death penalty.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: They'll kill you if you disagree with them.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: But yeah, they're for abortion with Pharisaic zeal.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Just got to have that abortion and it's such wickedness.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: And when it comes to the death sentence, they're against it with just as much violence.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: You positioned rightfully that there's sort of a conservative, liberal position in regards to the death penalty.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: But let me take it in-house a little bit and just recognize that Christians are.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: This is a tertiary issue, a secondary issue that Christians are divided, unless you're the person dying, unless you're the person dying.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: You are very clearly on one side, the death penalty.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: But throughout church history, pre-liberalism, augustine had argued against the death penalty.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: That doesn't mean that we should be for or against it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: The only point that I'm making here is that we, as Christians, can have charity towards other Christians who are reading the scriptures, thinking critically and wanting to come to a biblical conclusion, whose convictions are falling on a different side of the aisle hill.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: This is an area in which we need to think charitably about other Christians.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: You are right.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: There's liberals that have a backwards view of arguing against the death penalty, but that shouldn't take away from meaningful Christians who are reading the Bibles and struggling to understand the devil.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm definitely for the death penalty, but I'm against it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: And let me tell you why I'm of two minds.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Deuteronomy 17, 6,.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: He shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: And this is why I'm of two minds.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: You can see in Scripture where there were a lot of false witnesses, like you've got Jezebel, she got false witnesses to testify against Naboth and had him killed.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: And Acts 16, verse 13.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Acts 6, verse 13.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Stephen false witnesses testifying against him.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: He was put to death.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: And with Jesus false witnesses Matthew 26, 59 to 60.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Came and he was put to death, and that's my concern.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I believe in the death penalty, but a lot of people have been put to death who were innocent.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I took the time to go to Wikipedia and it just about made me cry, so many people have been put to death and afterwards someone came forward and said I did being put to death and afterwards someone came forward and said I did it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Yep, he didn't do it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: That has happened and and you can imagine being on death row, so I'm innocent.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: They say everybody says that, everybody says that and it.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Um, it'd be so easy nowadays to set someone up as a scapegoat.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: You want someone murdered, so you set someone up, you, you drug him, you put him by the body, you put fingerprints on the on the gun, go to his computer, you hack into it and search how to kill somebody.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: And so when he wakes up, all the evidence is against him.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: And then you can even bribe the jury, say there's money for you or we're going to kill your kids.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: And this sort of thing happens nowadays.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: So that's why, if there's overwhelming evidence, I'm for the death sentence.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: I mean absolutely overwhelming evidence.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: We've got a case in New York at the moment where this guy was filmed shooting someone and you see him getting away and then you see him having the gun made and you see his manifesto saying he's going to kill this guy.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And so there's overwhelming evidence.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: But on the other cases I'm just hesitant.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you guys this is why I love our conversations, like you know, we're able to bring out things that we could look at from a different angle.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's such a valid point.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Ray and Mark, you know we're often glib with stuff like this, or flippant or just kind of nonchalant about it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: We are talking about people's lives and I think, as Christians, we have to be careful to not just you know, oh yeah, I think this, I think that we need to think through this stuff.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: In a 2000 interview, john Piper was asked the question about capital punishment, where he stands, and his response was I am for capital punishment in principle, but how it works out in practice is a totally different issue.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Right, and Ray gave really great examples of what that looks like, and I think that the Deuteronomy 17 is a very good example.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Now here's the thing there's not always two witnesses, you know, I mean, who's going to go murder someone and want there to be witnesses, so they murder more people and there's no eyewitnesses.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: How do you deal with that?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Well, we have to trust in a sovereign God that they're going to get it in the end.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Right, we need to be careful with that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: It reminded me of Rachel Denhollander's impact testimony.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys remember this or not, but she was one.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: She was the first person, I think, to come forward for when Larry Nassar was sexually abusing all of those Olympic girls underage minors.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, I can't remember the number, but it was a lot.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: And man her.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Her impact testimony is so, if you haven't seen it.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: You should go online and watch it.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: She forgave him, right, it will bring you to tears.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes and right, um, it brought it brought me to tears and I went and read her book.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: What is a girl with worth?
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: It's phenomenal.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: But even if you just watch the impact story, so she stands up, he is guilty, it's done.
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: It's just a matter of you know, the judge is going to determine life or whatever the case.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: And all these girls, one by one, came up and how dare you?
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: And expletives, and you did this to me and my life has changed forever and I can't, and you, understand their pain.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, they want him to receive the fullness of the wrath of the court system.
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: Rachel Denhollander comes up there and she's like you deserve the fullness of the wrath of the justice system, but also I'm praying for your salvation.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: I want, like he.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: She points out like this this wrath is great, is merciful compared to the wrath of God and, uh, man, it's just.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: It's a prime example of forgiveness without losing sight of justice.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really enjoy, uh enjoy this scripture from James.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Let's deal with the New Testament a little bit.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Some people can argue well, that's all Old Testament.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: But James 2.13, which EZ obviously has memorized because he has a third of the New Testament books memorized but it says For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown mercy.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: But mercy triumphs over judgment.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Right, judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: And if God has established the rulers, the leaders, the judges, a judicial system, that God puts kings into place and stuff like things of that nature, I think, because of where we're at within our judicial system, that it would make sense.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: John Calvin, he said the execution of the law is not cruelty but mercy to the community.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And that's what I'm talking about, that there is a mercy and a grace to the community by getting rid of that person who is a scar to that community.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: You can resort to devil's advocate, then just put them away, remove them from a society.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think that once again lines up with what we're seeing here inside the New Testament.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Sproul, he said capital punishment is not simply a matter of retribution, it is a matter of honoring the sanctity of life, that we are honoring the beauty of life by removing lives that are trying to destroy innocent human lives.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, similar to CS Lewis's argument.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I think, guys, to sum it up, it's crucial that there is care involved in this.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: You do have those clear-cut cases where there's no question, even the murderer confesses.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine in California a murderer confesses to being a serial killer and then we still won't put him to death.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's no fear there that there could be a mistake.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: He's admitting it, we have forensic evidence that is unquestionable, and yet they still won't do it.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that the good points that we've covered are the fact that this is honoring the dignity and value of that person.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: May the Lord help us to continue to examine the scriptures, to think through these things, to talk about them, to discuss them and again to fall back ultimately on what the designer of man has said is best and what should happen.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: But let's not be glib, let's not take these things lightly and let's show charity as we discuss these things.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Friends, we value your time.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: So we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped, without the jokes and fellowship.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.