Not many days left so live them I will.
You did mention free will to do as we choose. Doesnt that conflict with the murder of those who chose a different path then Moses had in mind for them when he came down from the Mt.
Since this thread is an excellent opportunity for non believers to get some answers I have a question I could not get answered when I was a kid going to Sunday school. One of the Commandments said Thou shalt not kill. But when Moses came down the MT. he killed all the Non believers. Is it ok to kill non Christians but not Christians. Did the Ten Commandments not go into effect just yet until after the non Christian cleansing The standard answer I received 50 years ago was just have faith my son.
-The 6th commandment is thou shall not murder (kill is not the best translation). The Hebrew word is restakh/ratsach/raca, which is an illegal killing, not used in justice or the killing in war. Man is in the image of God. He is as much as God can look like as possible. When you murder you are disobeying God and disrespecting God, killing His creation. Only God can kill or authorize anyone to.
What is interesting to answer your question is that the people (Israelites) choose to worship a false idol. They choose to disobey and not honor the one true God. All after the miracles of the Red Sea and the wilderness, the shoes that never wore out, the manna from Heaven and so forth. When we choose to serve another God and bow down to 'it' then we lose a 'Divine Protection'. We are then free game to this world and to God. Our only protection is the Lord. Moses came down and said whoever is for the Lord, come to me (Exodus 32:26). If you are not for the Lord, then you are against Him. There is no grey area or fence. You either serve Satan or God. Jesus says that a man can not serve 2 masters, because he will love one and hate the other (Matthew 6:24). The 3000 people that were killed (legally-authorized by God-Exodus 32:9-10), were people that the Lord had retracted His grace from (most likely non-believers). The Lord's anger builds slow, but it does build. When our inequities reach a point, it fills His anger cup and it overflows. He is a patient God but His patience doesn't last forever.
When the Lord kills someone, it is ALWAYS justified. That is hard for some people to believe, myself sometimes, but His ways are higher than mine. You have to have faith in that. There are some questions that can not be answered and the priest who told you to have faith when you asked them that question just did not know or want to spend the time with you. Very inappropriate answer for a Christian. That is a major problem with the Catholic church, they rely more upon traditions than the Bible. We are to build one another up.
The New Testament is the same as the Old Testament. If we do not believe in Jesus (as Lord and Savior, not just as a 'good' guy), then we are not promised Heaven. That is not my doing, it is God's judgment. No man can go to the Father except through me (John 14:6).
Another interesting thing is that the Lord and His people are also very concerned as how non-believers see Christians. Moses tell God in Exodus 32:12 that if you kill all of the Israelites, the Egyptians will basically mock and question your motives as to delivering them out of Egypt. In 2 Samuel 12:14, Nathan, speaking for the Lord, tells David now that you have had an adulterous affair and killed the husband, this gives the enemies of God great occasion to blaspheme. By the way, David paid very dearly for that sin; he lost 4 sons and violence never left his house.
RTViper, I am no expert in Christianity and I hope that I have answered some of your questions. If you have any more, shoot away, I will do my best. And you are right you do not have many days left. NO ONE does. We are not promised tomorrow, nor the end of this day. There are many babies and teenagers who die EVERY day.
And one last thing, I try not to consider anyone, a believer or unbeliever. There are many who seem to be believers but are damned and many who people consider unbelievers, yet they are going to Heaven. Remember the thief on the cross. He was an 'unbeliever' for 99.98% of his life, a dreg of life, but he believed in the Lord at the end and therefore became the ONLY person in the whole Bible who had the assurance, by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that "Today, you will be with me in paradise."-Luke 23:43. The Lord only sees people as saved or unsaved. The whole life of the thief, God saw him as a believer, as His child. God is not governed by time. He created time. And we definitely need faith to believe that one
