Page 48 - The Road from Babylon to Zion

was well loved by this man’s small children, as well as his wife. This dog, as it got
older, did not want to be played with as much and it avoided small children that it
was unfamiliar with. On one occasion it had snapped at a small child that was
visiting, but had done no harm other than scaring the child. This man thought it was
an aberration, and didn’t know what might have been done to provoke the dog, so
he did nothing.

Some time later this man had another family over visiting and the dog bit one of the
children in the family, but again it was not a serious injury. This man wrote me and
told me that according to the Law, he had determined that he would have to take this
dog which was a family pet, and shoot it. He referred to some scriptures that related
to animals that did injury to humans. He told me that he planned to take the dog out
behind his house on some land they owned and shoot it.

When he declared these things to his family he was met with a great emotional
response. This dog had become as a member of the family to his wife and children
and they loved it dearly. It would have been greatly upsetting to his family to have
the dog killed. A few days later he wrote me once again and I saw that he had arrived
at a solution to his dilemma.

This man felt he had to keep the Law or he would be disobedient to Yahweh, yet he
also was conscious of his family’s reaction. When he wrote me he said that he had
determined that the dog didn’t actually bite the visiting child, but that the dog had
merely “pushed the child with his teeth.” Furthermore, he said that because the dog
did not draw blood that the Law did not require that he kill the animal. This
conclusion, he felt satisfied both the requirements of God’s Law and his family.

As I read of this event in this man’s life it became exceedingly apparent to me that
the path this man was walking was not that which God intended for His children
under the New Covenant. This man by profession was a lawyer, and in his
relationship to God he had become a lawyer as well. Every decision had to be
justified by some precept of Law and defended with cold logic. Yet God has called His
elect to walk by the Spirit, not by the reasoning of their minds. I wrote many things
to this man to show him these truths, but he would not receive them.

I asked him, since he was committed to keeping the letter of the Law as was
evidenced in his willingness to kill the family pet, was he also willing to take his
children out and stone them to death if they proved to be rebellious (Leviticus 20:9).
Would he demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in all cases of injury?
What would he do when the Law of God was in conflict with the laws of the U.S.? The
Law of Moses said that if a man commits adultery with a woman, both the man and
woman are to be killed (Leviticus 20:10). Yet the laws of the United States would
forbid such action.