Posted on 01/20/2010 7:14:19 AM PST by Patriot1259
A few days ago an established writer wrote on a Christian website and used the Genesis passage to discourage any Christian who would say God was mad at Haiti, and encouraged Christians to “get out of the prophet business”. Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t believe God did it and I don’t believe God is mad at Haiti. I believe God poured out His wrath on His Son while he was on the cross and he is not mad at mankind, but I do know He allowed it because it happened.
“Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t believe God did it and I don’t believe God is mad at Haiti.”
If God didn’t do it, who did?
We really can't speak for God either way on this circumstance. Maybe He did and maybe He didn't. Pain inflicts the just as well as the unjust, but it's not our job to determine that. Our job is to react in ways that please God, so it's a mute point that isn't relevant to us.
In the grand scheme of things, I object to the concept of heavenly intervention, on the principle that it is a psychological “crippling crutch”, and that it is an offense, of sorts, against “higher powers”, a blanket term I will explain.
It is an essential principle of paganism that through subservience and ritual, their gods will reward and punish their followers and non-believers. This both anthromorphizes and debases their gods over time, so they end up looking like stunted and fickle, petulant children, who argue and fight among themselves, while cruelly abusing their followers.
Monotheistic God has no competition. There are no other gods to challenge God. It is a singularity, and cannot be compared to, or described in comparison with, any other thing. This is why there is such a strong prohibition against graven imagery. It debases our understanding of God.
The thing that God does is to state that God exists. “I AM THAT I AM”.
According to the old Hebrew tradition, God created the universe in a “hole in God”, solely to see if there is anything at all that is “not God”. It is a mirror, that when complete, ceases to exist, and everything again becomes God.
So how does man fit into any of this? How does man do anything? This question has bugged the heck out of philosophers since ancient times.
Obviously man can do things, and many mysterious and powerful things, but they are all in the realm of man. This is our playground, with rules that apply to us, and pretty much anything we want to do we can.
We live, we make children, and we die. But we are far from being in charge of the playground. We do not rule the sea, or the air, or the ground we walk on. There are a vast number of species of life that also live here. So we have a little part of the playground which is mostly in our control, to some extent or other.
Or at least we think it is. And because this is freely given to us to play in, we assume it is ours, and constantly complain that we want more, and better, and importantly, we think we can persuade whoever is letting us use it, to give us more and better.
Yet it’s our playground. If we want it, we need to make it ourselves.
Please note that those who try to make it themselves often succeed, but those who want it to be given to them seldom do. And being gifted with all these great abilities to do things, doesn’t it seem a little rude to still want some higher power to do them for us?
If you are a normal, healthy 20 year old adult, what would your parents say if you asked them, begged them, every morning to still tie your shoes? What kind of parent would never eventually say, “No. Tie them yourself!”?
God brings peace, prosperity and life everlasting.
The enemy skulks about looking for those he can devour; the enemy exists only to STEAL, KILL and DESTROY.
Very simple to me - read what the Bible says; the enemy is the one who steals, kills and destroys. Not God.
What is grievous is not only the utter reluctance by supposed evangelicals (who are supposed to be going by the Bible) to allow that God does judges countries for their sins, but their censure of reasonable believers who rightly affirm that.
While bad things can happen to Job type persons, for purposes of refinement, when such happens to them they are to examine their lives as to see if unrepentant sin or a practice of such is the cause, or in the case of David, it is the just fruit of such. And God does judge believers (thus self-judgment is advised) so they they will “not be condemned with the rest of the world.” (1Cor. 11:32)
The fact is that God does judge sin, and “we are sure judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.” (Rm. 2:2)
When a city such as New Orleans, which is known for celebrating iniquity is hit with a Katrina, or a hurricane parks itself on sin-city Cancun for 40 hours or countries which persecute and kill Christians and wrongfully oppressed others, due to idolatry, gets hit with the worst of a tsunami, or a nation which is increasingly forsaking the right ways of God gets hit by terrorists, then it is not unreasonable, and in fact it is Biblically warranted, to understand this as act of judgment. This real problem is not whether this judgment is warranted, but how other places and persons can assume they are not worthy of such, for as Jesus said,
“Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? (3) I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:2-3)
Notice Jesus did not say this was not because of sin, but that lack of repentance brings such.
God’s eyes are still upon the sinful kingdom to destroy it in His time, (Amo_9:8), and His warnings to that He does send “sore judgments” for sin (Eze 14:21)as well as His exhortations to repent, transcend covenants.
Jeremiah 18:9-10 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; (10) If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
Mat 11:21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
And God still looks for men to stand in the gap, like Moses, that, if possible, He should not destroy it. (Ezek 22:30).
What was said to Israel of old applies ot us today:
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (32) For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye. (Ezekiel 18:31-32)
My friend, you are looking at life through a different lense than the Bible. Perhaps you don't take the Bible literally, which would explain your belief that God is not the author of any type of destruction in the world, but that was not the case in the utter destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and in many other cases. God does bring judgment on the wicked as well as suffering to the righteous. We really are no judge of what God does behind the scenes and it shouldn't concern us either.
What people fail to understand is that ANY religion worth it's salt does not try to explain away the Problem of Pain, but in fact embraces suffering as a means to understand that there is more to life than the material universe. It's only from the humiliation of the human ego that a true understanding of a person's role in the universe can be understood. God has a part in pain.
Perhaps this is true, but then again, only God knows that. Please don't pretend to know what God knows. Remember that ALL have sinned, so even the smallest sin makes a person worthy of Hell and Hell is WAY worse than any calamity imaginable in this life. No one is worthy of the breath they breath. And furthermore, how do you explain the Christians in N.O. who suffered because of the earthquake? God brings pain to the Christian as well as the Hedonist.
Gaia did it.
I did explain it. Both judgment of lost sinners and chastisement for repentance and refinement are Biblical. The former can work to bring repentance, though it can also be the terminus of impenitence, while the latter is to work repentance, or refinement. Which class our suffering are for will be revealed as we seek God in the light of His word, and by faith and obedience to Him and will work it out for good. I need to do better at that.
Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted...Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.
(Psalms 107:17,19)
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
(2 Chronicles 36:16)
But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. (Romans 2:2)
For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. (Proverbs 1:29-33)
But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
(1 Corinthians 11:32)
Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. (Psalms 119:67)
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Hebrews 12:7-8,11)
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 1:6-7)
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. (1 Peter 5:10)
Well, the Bible makes it fairly clear that yes, God issued judgment (Sodom & Gomorrah, for example). However, it’s also fairly clear:
John 10:9-11 (English Standard Version)
I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
1 Peter 5:8-9
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
I certainly wish I knew the amount of scripture you do.
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