Posted on 05/29/2008 12:01:26 PM PDT by EveningStar
Comments about God and the Holocaust made in a sermon 10 years ago by a leading evangelical pastor, John Hagee, have received a great deal of attention. They have led to Sen. John McCain severing ties with the pastor, whose support the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had originally solicited.
(Excerpt) Read more at dennisprager.townhall.com ...
ping
And, don't forget that "good" Republican, McCain.
God allows evil so that evil can be revealed.
When man on earth has fully shown what the ultimate result of sin truly is, God can then extinguish it.
I believe that man will not only show the ability to destroy mankind, but will either be on the verge of doing it, or have already done it to a large extent, before God will step in.
And one of the last acts that will make it necessary, is when the governments of the earth focus their intent on the few God fearing people who are left.
God has shown extreme patience, but He can restore those who were taken from us, and those who are deserving, He will.
It is up to us to make sure we are on the right side when the time comes. And if we pass before then, we need to be right with the Lord.
“How did it [the Holocaust] happen? Because God allowed it to happen.”
Wrong. God did not want the holocaust to happen, but because of mankind’s free will it did happen.
It was mankind’s free will in the shape of the Munich Accord and Chamberlain that gave Hitler a free hand to run roughshod over Europe and to commit the atrocities against the Jews and others.
Hey world! Stop blaming God and get your head out of your ass. History is slowly repeating itself in the form of Islam, Muslim oil, and our propensity to put on kneepads when dealing with them. The West is presently stuck on “stupid” and moving toward “beyond help”.
The statement was, "God allowed it to happen". You responded, "Wrong. God did not WANT the holocaust to happen".
You refuted a statement which was not made.
"Allow" and "want" are two different words which have two different meanings.
353FMG’s point remains - this nutbar said that the Holocaust was serving God’s plan in returning the Jews to Israel, that the Holocaust was part of the divine plan.
This “pastor” is sick.
I try to love God. And I believe John Hagee is sincere.
The potential for evil is the price of freedom. If God intervened every time someone was going to do something evil, free will would disappear, and people would be reduced to robots. Instead, the Biblical picture is that “what man meant for evil, God can turn into something good.” This is demonstrated again and again, e.g. Joseph, left for dead, then traded into slavery by his jealous brothers, becomes the instrument of their rescue from famine. That in turn is an amazing foreshadowing of the way Jesus, killed and left for dead by the Jewish leaders, becomes the salvation of all mankind who accept Him. Hagee seems to me to be entirely in line with Biblical principles. Evil human acts, tolerated in order to maintain free will, are used to bring about good things.
bump
Hebrews 2:10 - “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”
If the sinless Son of God was ‘perfected’ through suffering, what makes people think they will escape?
Job 40:8 - “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
People have judged God to justify themselves for thousands of years.
It’s nothing new.
A view shared by a number of important rabbis. God does not want man to commit evil acts, but allows them to occur, because if He didn't there would be no Free Will. The idea that He uses the evil that man commits to His own ends is neither crazy nor new. Read about Joseph in the Old Testament.
Oops, I should have read your most eloquent post before repeating the exact same points, LOL!
“If the sinless Son of God was ‘perfected’ through suffering, what makes people think they will escape?”
So true. But this whole argument started because someone claimed that the holocaust happened so that God could bring his people to their place of origin i.e. Israel.
I claim that the holocaust happened not because it was part of God’s grand design but because people were stupid, cowardly and complacent and allowed Hitler to perpetrate all the Nazi atrocities while they could have stopped him at Munich.
I also claim that the next holocaustt is just around the corner. It will happen again because this world has learned nothing from WWII. Again, God can only help those who help themselves. God cannot help those who jump out of planes without a parachute strapped on or who refuse to pull the ripcord at the right time.
Well, if anything that happens that is *not* part of God's divine 'plan', then God is not omniscient and not omnipotent. I used to debate SS teachers who would say, "Well, God had this Plan A first, then went to Plan B when Adam sinned, then Plan C for Noah, then Plan D for Abraham/Israel, then Plan D for Christians, etc, etc, etc.
People cannot conceive of the fact that God will let the righteous suffer temporarily on earth for eternal glory. That He does exactly that was the point about Christ and Job. Elohim knew that Satan would fall, that Adam would fall, that the Second Person of the Elohim would be required to redeem creation through suffering back when only He existed before *anything* was ever created.
And yet He chose to go through all of this anyway. Temporal suffering is nothing compared to eternal glory and the glory of those who are saved infinitely surpasses the suffering of those who are lost.
Humanity has its priorities mixed up, as usual.
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