Death Sentence: To Them or Us too?

Guwahati India. Monday July 9, 2012. Around 10 PM. A 20-year old girl is molested, slapped, beaten, groped, and stripped outside a bar in full public view by a mob of twenty and more persons. The crime was caught on camera and uploaded on social networking site. Due to the outrageous and ghastly act, people are demanding a death sentence for all the accused involved.

Is the mob consisting of twenty and more people the only ones who are guilty of such a heinous crime? Are they the only ones who are to be sentenced to death? Are we not in the same league? Have we not committed the same offence?

Every male, who has attained puberty, has, in his lifetime, raped girls and women, with his eyes. Every male, including you and me, in our thought process and imagination, have lusted, molested and raped innumerable girls and women. Are we not guilty of the same offence of which these guys are guilty of? Should not the death sentence be pronounced on you and me who are guilty of the same offence?

Now that the Indians themselves have voluntarily demanded a death sentence for the accused and they themselves are not excluded from the guilt, they themselves are the accused, should all be acquitted or all be sentenced to death? If those twenty guys only be punished, then it would be an unjust judgement. It would be discrimination. It would be a partiality. The judgement would be tenable to appeal as it acquits us for the same crime and convict the other few.

Should all be set free because we ourselves are guilty of the same crime? If that be the case, then we accuse ourselves of lowering the standard (that we set ourselves-Death Sentence) since we are not able to meet the standard. It should not be that way. Just because we do not meet the standards, does not mean, we lower the standard. Bible says in Romans 6: 23, 'For the wages of sin is death.' We sin, we get death. That's God's judgement too.

Should all be punished? How could all be punished since the one who passes the order of punishment is also guilty of the same crime? Should a woman pronounce the judgement? Is she not guilty of the same offence? Is she not guilty of lusting, raping and sexual assault on men through her eyes, thoughts, imaginations and fantasies? Bible says in Romans 3: 23, 'For all have sinned and fallen short of the standard set by God.'

Is God capable of pronouncing the judgement, convicting us, the accused and sentence us to death? For Him to be capable of doing that, He has to be holy, pure and sinless. Bible says in I Jn 3:5, 'in Him there is no sin.' In II Cor 5: 21, it is written, 'He knew no sin.' In Isaiah 6: 3 and Revelation 4: 8, the angelic beings are always saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"


But God does not take delight in the death of the wicked. He does not want to kill us. In Ezekiel 18:23, God speaks and says, "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" Why would He not kill us? Because He loves us. Bible says in Jeremiah 31: 3, God speaks, "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

Since we all have sinned and are worthy of death sentence, since God is capable of pronouncing the verdict but He does not want us to die because of His immense love for us, He became man and bore the punishment of our sins on the cross and died as He Himself had commanded and forgave us our sins who accepted this wonderful work of God's grace towards us.

This man is Jesus. Bible says in II Cor 5: 21, 'For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.' When you accept the work which Jesus did on the cross, then, God looks at you through Jesus and finds you, innocent. Jesus acts as a prism, as a filter, as a mediator. Bible says in Jn 3:15, 'That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.'

You do not have to work towards proving yourself innocent. You do not have to suffer the pangs of guilt for the crimes you have committed. You do not have to suffer the ordeal of not knowing there is a way out. You do not have to walk through a dark alley not knowing that your sins, your crimes, your shame, your guilt has already been taken care of by God Himself through the death of Jesus Christ.

You do not have to make the treacherous trip to Amarnath. You do not need to go to Shirdi, Vaishno Devi, Gangotri, Ganges, Tirupati, Velankani, Mecca, Ajmer Sharif, satsanghs, meditation, self-realization camps.

What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that He alone is God. Ask forgiveness of your sins from Him. Accept Him as Lord and Master of your life. Turn away from all your sinful ways.

How will I live a new life? On the third day, Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. God raised Him from the dead. The power with which He raised Jesus from the dead is the same power He gives us to live a pure, holy, sinless, spotless and blameless lives. God's Holy Spirit comes to reside in our bodies who helps us creating a longing, a desire, a passion to live and lead a holy life. He helps us in revealing God's truth to us hidden in Bible. He speaks to us through Bible and Bible alone. All other teachings, preaching, books, articles, leaflets, audios, videos, and talks have to be verified with the Bible to ascertain if they are in accordance with Bible's teaching. If they are not they are false. They are lies. They are fraud.

Bible says in Jn 3: 16-18, 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus Christ), that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.'

The Corruption Within

In school, every morning I along with some hundreds of other students used to take a pledge. I am sure you remember yours. I do not remember it all but here is what I remember:

'India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage...I will strive to be worthy of it....I will treat everyone with courtesy. To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion. In their well-being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness. Jai Hind.

I believe, every Indian takes that pledge during their lifetime, in one way or the other.

But today, as we look around, we find the roads broken, potholed, load shedding, grid failure, transformer blasts, acute shortage of drinking water, near absence of sanitation, gutters overflowing, total collapse of transportation system, pollution, both mass under and un-employment, poverty, corruption, scams, and law and order failure.

We are hopeless as well as helpless.

And we blame our politicians, government, police, those in authority and in control. But we are one of them. They are our representatives. They are what we are. We chose them in a state of complete sanity in a democratic India.

Also, we blame our history, the Britishers, and western culture. We blame every one but ourselves.

Are they the only ones to be blamed? Are we not the ones who cheat in the payment of taxes, travel fares, pricing of products and services? Are we not the ones who are immoral and who don't care about India? Are we not the ones to be blamed, too? Can we say with honesty in our hearts that we are innocent, blameless and loyal?

We are the ones who steal, rob, cheat, betray, fraud, murder and rape. We are the ones who are liars, corrupt, and dishonest. We take what does not belongs to us. We bribe and accept bribes. We are so selfish that we consume resources, people, public property and every thing for our own gain.

We all have corrupted our ways. Our hearts are wicked.

The Bible say, "The heart is deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?"

Jesus said, "For out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness (lies) and blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man/woman."

The Bible says, "There is none who is upright, no, not one. There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way. There is none who does good, no, not one."

"All have sinned." God sees us as sinners. Yes, man is totally depraved.

His heart has to change for him to do any good. But God is a loving, gracious, merciful God who wants to forgive sinners. He does not takes pleasure in the death of any wicked.

But we can not change ourselves. We have to be born from above (born again).

So, God became man. He was called Jesus who paid the penalty of our sins through his death on the cross. Jesus became guilty of all the sins that you and I ever committed. He died and rose again to give you the power, the strength and grace to live a new life, if you'll trust Him.

Jesus is ALIVE.

To make your pledge true, come to Christ. Jesus said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing.'

Do you want to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord? Pray this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I am sorry. I am willing to turn away from my sins. I openly receive and acknowledge you as my savior. I confess you as my Lord. From now on, I will live for you and serve you. Amen.

I would be pleased to help you. Email me at isaacmani2006@gmail.com.

Written in 2000.