Sometimes I can be pretty cold hearted. I think mean thoughts. Yes, and sometimes those mean thoughts escape my lips. There are times when I don’t think our justice system is fair, but don’t mistake me, I don’t mean in an “ahhh we should rehabilitate those poor rapists, pedophiles, murders,” kind of way. What I mean to say is that sometimes... sometimes torture, death and dismemberment doesn’t seem all that wrong.
You see the little black hear that dwells within my chest? Not pretty is it?
Before judging me to harshly consider the case of Kenneth Freeman who raped his then ten-year-old daughter, filmed it, and posted it on the internet. What kind of a freakin’ sick, SOB is this? After posting his little home movie online he fled to China in 2006. Freeman was apprehended in May of 2007 and returned to the US. He pled guilty and was sentenced to fifty years. Considering that he is forty-six years old, this is a life sentence.
As the news reported his sentence I cried out, “It’s not enough!”
And it’s not.
The things that I can think of to do to this man are ugly. They are cruel. They should be outside a nice Christian girl’s way of thinking (I suppose that means that I am not a nice girl). Only two thoughts give me peace about this travesty of justice: One, that the woman who was once the victim of this horrid crime knows that beast is locked up. She’ll never have to worry about passing him on the street or hearing his voice on the phone. I pray this fifty year sentence will further her healing and allow her to live the rest of her life in peace.
The second, and perhaps most important, thought is that God is a God of justice. This criminal may spend the rest of his life in prison on the tax-payer’s money, but Freeman’s day of reckoning is coming. The judgments of God are sure and true and even though I can think of many heinous and horrible things to punish Freeman with, only God has the right and the power to truly punish. Just thinking this sobers me. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.
There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. -- He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defense from the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces. They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down? - Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) from his sermon entitled, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Read the news story here
4 comments:
Are you kidding me? That. Is. Sick.
God help us.
That is just horrible.
My religion teaches that the death penalty is wrong and that all life is sacred from conception to natural death since we are all made in God's image by His hand. I don't have a problem with any of this except I definitely struggle with not supporting the death penalty at times, especially when there are truly evil people such as that out there in this world.
Man apart from God is capable of the most awful deeds. Don't let anyone fool you with that drivel of the inherent goodness of man. We all need a Savior.
Susan
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