Consequences - Truth In The Marketplace

WEBSTER, N.Y. — A gunman ambushed firefighters at a house fire in the Rochester suburb of Webster, N.Y., early Monday, killing two firemen and injuring two others before killing himself on a Lake Ontario beach.
Seven homes were destroyed as firefighters waited for police to secure the scene.
The gunman, who shot himself at the scene, was identified as 62-year-old William Spengler. He was charged in 1980 with beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer in her home next door.
Spengler served 17 years in New York State prison on manslaughter charges, police officials said.

The individual guilty of murdering two firefighters in this incident should not have been alive to kill yet again. He was found guilty of killing his grandmother in 1980. The 'culture' has decided that Truth does not apply.  As a culture we have abandoned Truth Absolute. The Scriptures, which are Transcendent and Absolute requires such individuals to be put to death -

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.  6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. (Genesis 9:5-6).

 The application of the Moral Authority found in Scripture applied to this man's case would have prevented the deaths of two fireman, two image bearers created in the Image of God. They died needlessly. Their lives were taken by a convicted killer. Their loss is not restricted to their families and loved ones alone. We all suffer from their deaths and more, from the loss of Marketplace Authority of the Scripture. Had this mandate been applied, these men would be alive.

Incarceration is not the solution. As a nation we spend millions of dollars on prisons and precious little on education.

Over the past 23 years, California constructed roughly one new prison per year, at a cost of $100 million each, while it built only one new public college during the same period. Nationwide, spending on prisons has risen six times faster than spending on higher education.

The Scripture calls for repentance - an honest admission by the guilty party of their crime, and, restitution, restoring to the injured party double what was taken. Had this been applied in the case of William Spangler he would have rightly been executed in 1980, the firemen would be living and we as a culture would be better served.

The issue is not decided by some smarmy emotional angst. It is rather determined by the Transcendent unchanging Moral Authority of Scripture. God is offended by murder. He has ordered governments to honor His authority by abiding by the consistent application of Truth.

Think on these things!