Featured Self-defense

Exodus clearly states that if you kill someone breaking in you are not responsible.

 

We see a number of killings in Scripture that didn't bring God's wrath upon the killer. Moses killed an Egyptian in defense of another Israeli. David whacked Goliath in battle, as well as many others. Jesus told the disciples to have swords in their travel kit. (A Roman gladius sword had no other use than as a weapon.)

If I shoot a home invader & he/she dies, so be it. If I shoot the person, rendering him/her harmless, but not dead, & I shoot again, I will have murdered, although I'd get away with it under man's law.

I have a coupla .45's loaded with "Home Defense" rounds, and a perp is unlikely to survive a body hit with one of those.

While a cop, I made some enemies, as all cops do. I received the usual threats, "When I get out, I'll get you & your family!" One never knows when someone means it or not, even if he's talking through a bottle. So, I heed the Boy Scout motto, "Always be prepared."

Judges receive more threats than cops, & I don't know of a judge in the area who's not packing heat at all times. SELF-DEFENSE IS NO SIN !

 

The Scriptures state David had no heat. (1 Kings 1:1).

 

That was likely part of Dave's punishment for his past sins, especially his murder of Uriah & adultery with Bathsheba. He was likely suffering from CHF or similar heart/circulatory ailment. in those days, men often lived beyond age 70, but Dave was cut short due to his sins - although God still loved him. Of course, his punishment ended at his death.

He was NOT punished for killing Goliath & others in battle, nor ordering the deaths of certain people, such as the Amalekite who claimed to have killed Saul.

 

There's a thread in another sub-forum here about unlawful military orders. A US WW2 ship's crew was ordered to fire upon the surviving crew of a Japanese sub it'd had just sunk. The question was about the legality of the order.

We can get into what seems gray ground for a Christian when it comes to battle. First, it's no sin to kill enemies in combat. However, it IS murder to kill a surrendered enemy or POW without good cause such as an escape attempt.

I was deployed to Nam about a year after the My Lai massacre, & I heard many a soldies or Marine defending that incident with phrases such as "Kill 'em all;let God sort'em out", etc. I was not saved at that time, but after salvation, I studied that incident a little more & came to realize it was quite-wrong. If those civilians had been harboring any Charlies, it was against their will, but they had no means to resist them. (Or us.)

And both Japanese & Americans sometimes strafed lifeboats, etc. of the crews of ships they'd sunk, especially troop transports.

The use of snipers & surprise stand-off weapons is still combat, I believe. Ambushes were employed in Scriptural times.

Had I been saved at the time, even though I was a corpsman & non-combatant, I was trained to fight, & would have, had our camp been threatened with being overrun. However, I woulda balked if ordered to shoot surrendered, or wounded, helpless enemies.

 

You're just willing ignoring the problem. We are coming for your roads!

 

Reminds me of a little story I read years ago - An American Christian, in Germany during WW@, in the late winter of '44, early '45 after the Battle of the Bulge was over, had been assigned to scout ahead for a route around a German camp. From a hill, he saw a German sentry from behind. The man was wearing a bright muffler; it was quite cold weather. The American drew a bead on that muffler with his scoped sniper rifle, when the German began doing jumping jacks to warm up. The scout said to himself, "He's as human as I am, & there's no need to kill him as we can easily skirt that camp." so, he didn't shoot when the man quit jumping, but scoped out a way around the camp.

Years later, the former scout was touring Munich & saw a man wearing a muffler like the one he'd seen on the sentry. Knowing some German, he introduced himself & found it was indeed that former sentry! That man had become a Christian when the war ended. Both men believed GOD had acted to save the German's life for service to Himself, & both praised God aloud right there in the street for doing it !

However, while God might not consider such a killing as murder during wartime, such withholding of fire was uncommon for either side in WW2, especially in the Pacific.