Believe Or Die!

Q. Something is laying heavy on my heart and was wondering if you could give me an answer. I have always felt Christians had one up on Muslims because I always thought Christ taught that it is up to you join Him or not, whereas Muslims have to join and stay a Muslim under coersion and threat of death. Deuteronomy 13:10- tells a different story. If God never changes why did he threaten death to those who refused to follow Him? Sounds like the koran. How can I tell a Muslim my God would not force you to believe in Him when He did it here?

A. There are two things to remember here. The first is that God had a national covenant with Israel that depended upon them keeping His laws.  One of those laws was to worship Him and Him only.  Anyone who introduced the worship of another God was putting the entire nation at risk. The penalty was physical death.

But more importantly, although accepting Jesus as our Savior is a choice we make, rejecting Him still brings death.  John 3:16-18 explains both the salvation that comes from belief, which is eternal life, and the condemnation that comes from disbelief, which is spiritual death.

Things that were external and physical in the Old Testament often become internal and spiritual in the New. This is one of the principles that makes understanding the Old Testament so important to us.