Explain why David was so cruel. Has not the Roman Church a right to do likewise? The mere fact that the record of David's wars and the results of those wars are in the Bible is not an excuse for David's conduct. David may have treated the children of Ammon more cruelly than he ought. He simply followed the customs of those days. Ammonites were enemies of God, and enemies of the children of Israel, enemies when there was no reason why they should be enemies, and God gave him victory over those enemies, and David treated them as he did. The record neither excuses nor accuses him. It is well to remember this,—that David lived under the theocracy. It was God Himself who ruled the people, and David was simply one under God. God uses men the best He can for the time, and the best men He can get, but the men He uses are not perfect. Samson was anything but a perfect man, yet God used him. We must not take the imperfections of men as excusing ourselves. David's greatness consisted in his loyalty to God, and in his doing all the will of God as he saw it, and when he sinned, in taking the reproof which God sent, instead of trying to justify himself. One other thing in this warfare of David: it was not a matter of religion. He was not warring against people because of religion. He was simply warring against the enemy of God's country. The Lord did not interfere with the religion of the peoples who were outside of Israel's domain. They were allowed to go on with their idolatry and meet all its awful results. David did not make a war against people because they did not believe as he did, and no religious body on the face of the earth has the right to do this. Jesus is our example. He said, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." No Christian church, Catholic or Protestant, has the right to go beyond the Master.