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A better translation of the 6th commandment is not "kill", but "murder". There is a big difference between killing and murder. Murder is always wrong, killing is sometimes justifiable. God carrying out judgment over mankind during the flood was not murder.
The answer lies in knowing why God saved people during the floods. God is sovereign. All that He does speaks of His sovereignty and at the same time reinforces it. If we can understand why He saved some people during the floods then we can also understand why He killed others...He is able to save and kill at the same time. The good news for you is that He has chosen to save you through His Son, Jesus Christ. That should make you begin to dance for joy and stop concerning yourself with the reasons why He (The Sovereign God) kills others! Finally, it may be prudent to add that God hardly lends Himself to "why" questions...I think it is because He is sovereign and He is not answerable to any mortal in all His deeds!
I agree with and appreciate Philemon's answer. The amazing question is not why did he save some but why does he save anyone? If not for the mercy and grace of God, all would perish. It is a hard thing, especially for those of us who live in a democratic society to relate to a sovereign God who is in control of all things. We proclaim "by the people for the people" yet to the Christian having a contrite heart and broken spirit we should agree with the Apostle Paul. "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:36) Isaiah 46:10 states "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:" Ezekiel 18:4 "Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Deuteronomy 32:39 "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." All I can say is there go I but for the grace of God!
Throughout the Bible, God is calling His people to holiness. God is holy and He cannot tolerate sin. He made Jesus to be the all time Lamb of God to give Himself up willingly to die for our sins and to be raised up to defeat the power of death and to return to dwell with God the Father until He returns to judge every person living and dead. That being said, God did instruct people to kill in the Bible. The most amazing story to me is where God instructed His people to have all of those on the Lord's side to go and kill everyone in the camp that was not on God's side including their own family, friends and neighbors. This is in Exodus 32:25-29. The Levites, God's people, obeyed and killed 3000. This was God's prescription for purging the sin from His people. Also in the Old Testament, there is a big difference between willful and unintentional sin. Those who unintentionally murdered had a place to go to be away from the rest, but not being put to death themselves. Deuteronomy 4: 41 Then Moses set apart three cities of refuge east of the Jordan River. 42 Anyone who killed another person unintentionally, without previous hostility, could flee there to live in safety. When Jesus came, he raised the standards of the 10 Commandments to include the heart condition of the sinner. Though a person may not commit murder, they are guilty if they are murderous haters in their heart. Though a person may not make a piece of wood or gold idol to worship, God knows their heart and knows if they are worshiping something or someone or even themselves more than Him. This is idol worship called idolatry. Though a person may think that they are not a chronic liar, God knows the unintentional or white lies that are just as much a lie to Him to make a person a liar. Jesus also showed us what God has to say about divorce, adultery and sex with lust being the same as adultery. All of us are guilty. That is why we beg Jesus to accept us as sinners and give us repentance so that we can have His forgiveness for even our murderous thoughts. Once we are born again, we will be confessing and repenting daily for not living up to His holy standards, and asking Him to help us forsake the sin and walk a different way where our thoughts and actions are transformed to be more like Him instead of like the world.If someone is not growing in Christ-likeness they should question to see if they are not born again but a "still-born". This is the difference between true conversion and false conversion. The flood represented God's purging of sin from the world by water. Jesus is the living water that purges sin from our souls. His water that cleanses our hearts, makes us want to obey God and to go and sin no more. Jesus referred to Himself as that cleansing, living water that purges sin and brings righteousness that enables us to have a vibrant, victorious relationship with God the Father. That is why Jesus is the only way to the Father.
God does not tell us not to kill; he tells us not to murder. In other places, he told his people to kill those who take another person's life Gen 9:5; those who would lead his people into idolatry De 13:6-10; children who are incorrigibly rebellious De 21:18-21; etc. Thus God is set against evil and tells us what our evil deserves. Nevertheless, he has not left each of us to take those matters into our own hands, but he has ordained government to punish evildoers Roman 13:1-6.
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5 KJV) God saw that man thought of nothing but wicked things. They constantly were imagining wicked thoughts as a result of Adam's fall and on top of that Gen 6:2 tells us that the sons of god(speaking of angels) went down to earth and chose wives among men and begott giants. So God thought it best to destroy the creation and start over with Noah's family, the only godly people left on earth.
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