MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Eric Robert Rudolph has agreed to plead guilty to
carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and setting off
three other blasts in a deal that allows the anti-government extremist to
escape the death penalty, the Justice Department said Friday (April 8,
2005).
Eric Robert Rudolph avoided the possibility of execution by agreeing to
plead guilty to four bombings in which over 150 people were injured. One
was at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta which killed one and injured
over one hundred. He carried out two others attacks in the Atlanta area in
which fifty were hurt at a “family planning clinic,” and five injured at a
“gay nightclub.”
Rudolph’s last bombing was of an “abortion clinic” in Homewood, AL in which
one man was killed. He avoided capture for several years, hiding out in the
mountains of North Carolina, but was finally brought in about two years
ago. Mr. Rudolph belongs to an organization he calls “The Army of God.” He
was known to give this group credit for his vicious work.
Dear Christian reader, you know that to kill someone does not fulfill the
will of God. The Bible teaches that we should hate and eschew evils like
abortion and sodomy (Psalms 97:10; 1 Peter 3:11), however, to injure and
murder in order to show your hatred is evil too. Even if this hatred isn’t
repented of, the one guilty of it will spend eternity with those whom he
hates. The place of a Christian is to be as the Father in Heaven who hates
evil but is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). It is our responsibility to “persuade men” to
turn from iniquity and serve the living God. We should look at every soul
as a potential faithful Christian.
We are certain that Mr. Rudolph believes that he was doing God’s will. Do
you recall that Jesus warned his disciples that there would be some who
“shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2)? Have you
ever thought, “I’d just like to... him or her.... That’s just what they
deserve.” Please, for the sake of your own soul and the souls of those
around you, turn your anger and hatred toward sin, both yours and theirs,
and begin to pity the poor sinner who is lost. Do what the Lord teaches,
try to win their soul.
We never want to find ourselves embracing the course that says, “let us do
evil that good may come.” The apostle Paul became very angry at the false
accusation that this was his philosophy (Romans 3:8). Dear Christian,
follower of Jesus, don’t ever fall for the Devil’s lie that, “the end
justifies the means.”
