Posted on 06/12/2011 2:07:34 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
... why does he let the creeps succeed?
An outright fraud like Barack Obama gets elected, keeps spreading his lies and destruction, and keeps living the high life, with no penalty - on the contrary, all he gets is widespread praise for being so great. Bill Clinton gets worldwide "respect and adulation" as some sort of elder statesman, laughing all the way. Sandy Berger is a brazen thief, yet suffered no penalty. And on and on, every day....
Meanwhile, good people like Sarah Palin are routinely trashed and ridiculed, while their attackers endure no consequences, and are even rewarded - Joy Behar has her own show, for Pete's sake! Olberman is allowed back. Weiner gets a free pass for his creepy behavior. And Herman Cain will get trashed, with his attackers again getting off scot-free.
Where's the damn justice? And don't give me the line about "it'll be settled in the afterlife", these moral violations occurred in THIS world, why aren't they squared up in this world too?
Does this mean God isn't fair and just? Or maybe there's really no God at all?
I WANT to beleieve, but after what I've seen in the last few years (and continue to see now) I'm so confused and angry. Have I just been lied-to all these years??
Speak for your self.
but I’m so thankful for God’s grace.
Yeah, good luck on that one.
That has become a standard on this forum.......
You only say that because you haven't met me. I'll take your word for it that you are a sinner.
I prefer the "Judge not that ye be not judged" approach.
Check your Old Testament.
This world is not just by our choice.
If you really want to get a good perspective on this, I'd recommend reading through two passages from the Gospels about Jesus Christ's time here on earth.
The first is the temptation of Christ by Satan, which is recounted in most (if not all) of the Gospels. The third temptation is of particular interest, for this was the one where Satan took Christ to a high place and showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world," and offered to give all of these things to Him of Christ would just fall to the ground and worship Satan. What's most telling about this Gospel passage is that when Christ responded to Satan, He never told Satan that they weren't his to give. In other words, Christ implicitly acknowledges that Satan retains some form of "ownership" of this world.
The second Gospel story of interest is the well-known story of the final hours of Christ's life before the Crucifixion, particularly his arrest and his "trial" before Pontius Pilate. What I've always found so fascinating about this story is that Christ comes across as completely deferential in this scene, as opposed to the open anger He often showed to the Pharisees. He recognizes the civil authority of the Roman government, but does so knowing full well that His kingdom "is not of this world, but the next." It's almost as if Pontius Pilate and the Romans have jobs to do in a civil context, and He expects them to do this as they are trained to do. There's clearly no resentment in this case, as evidenced by the fact that so many of the people who accepted Christ as described in the Gospels were Roman soldiers.
Just some food for reflection.
I'll offer one last item for consideration, which is a quote from a particularly wise gentleman who has often wondered the same thing you are asking about right now:
"When St. Benedict was building monasteries all over southern Italy in the sixth century, do you think he ever really gave a sh!t who the emperor was?"
I can attest to this.
I was working on an extremely complex and vitally important problem that others had been working on for nearly two years, and which had been present for years before that. I had been going around and around in circles in my mind for weeks.
Finally, I took a deep breath and meditated on this prayer for a while:
"May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor."
And I quietly prayed in my heart for clarity of thought, wisdom and insight, for respite from my distress, for blessing and success in my endeavor.
I struggled for hours that evening with a terrible sense of crushing soul-wringing inadequacy - who was I to think that I could solve this problem? What hubris to think I was smart enough, clever enough! Perhaps this is what it feels like when you're a fallen soul suddenly steadied by the hand of the Almighty.
And the next day, with unusual serenity and calm, I began unraveling the threads of the problem. As I studied hundreds of pages of documentation striving to learn enough to be able to understand all the different pieces of the puzzle, one line of text in a technical specification caught my eye day after day, and drew my mind back.
Once I was able to perceive the shape of each puzzle piece, they clicked together in my mind and all the avenues of investigation undertaken by other experts over the prior 18 months fell away. I was left staring at the proverbial dead moth stuck in the relay contact, centered on that one line of the technical specification.
The next step was to figure out where the moth came from, and I partnered with an exceedingly clever software engineer for that effort, in cooperation with the compiler and OS vendors who I had been able to persuade to take just one more look at this years-old problem that they had grown quite sick of hearing about.
After careful, painstaking analysis, we found the origin of the moth, and the solution ultimately came down to a single assembly-language instruction in a single function in a ten-year-old operating system library that had been bundled with an old compiler. This solution may have saved countless lives, but we should all fervently pray that we will NEVER have to find out.
Remember, G-d did not part the Red Sea until Moses strode forth and lifted his staff, and stretched out his hand.
"Why do you cry to Me," G-d asked Moses, "Tell the people of Israel to go forward!"
Go forward!
You missed it. If our name is in the boom of Life, we will be indeed judged by the blood of Christ. We get a free pass. If our name is not in the book of life, then the other book is opened and we are judged by our deeds. No one survives that judgement.
Christ told us what God is up to in parables. Like a farmer, God is growing a crop. Evil people are weeds mixed in with the crop, which is made up of good people who have repented and are producing good fruit. It’s self evident that this world is part of God’s plan, that it’s a necessary part of producing the crop that God wants. Otherwise, God would end the world now or would have never created it in the first place.
This is what is revealed to me. God wants a certain type of people, and God’s people are often strengthened by adversity. Think of the difference between tomatoes grown in a hot house and those grown in a garden exposed to the environment. Don’t garden tomatoes taste better? It’s vitally important to get right with God before the harvest, so that one is good fruit and not chaff.
And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
The Judgment of the Dead
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelations 20
This might best be expressed that “God is a firm believer in natural selection.” Natural selection blankets the world and acts continually in everything from a cat catching a mouse, to which dachshund a breeder decides to breed and neuter the rest of the litter.
What is confusing is that nasty old “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Were it not for people appreciating the ideas of good and evil, it would not matter if they were led by Ronald Reagan or Pol Pot. Might would make right in everything: a big, strong, mean and ugly guy might have eight wives with pure brute force and violence, and smaller, friendly, intellectual guys would have none.
But people call the big guy “evil”, for taking more than his share of the women. Yet are puzzled why assigning this label to him changes nothing. Is God unfair?
Labels are not magic. Knowing that good and evil exist changes nothing unless people *do* something about it. But even then, though good might seem to triumph over evil, it’s not really the case, because natural selection has again won the day.
And at times, good and evil can also be relative. While the big guy might be labeled as “evil”, with his eight wives they might make a whole bunch of progeny that are better and stronger, thus helping the entire tribe in the long run. Even if it was “unfair” to the little guys.
God cares not for the fate of nations, but souls. Man has free will. When he chooses evil, he suffers. America turned from its Christian roots when abortion was legalized.
Why does He let creeps succeed?
Why did He let the original creep succeed?
Had God put down the rebellion in heaven,
the created beings would have worshiped Him out of fear.
(as an aside, Lucifer’s sophistry was so subtil, he was joined in his rebellion by one third of the heavenly host; beings who had experienced close congress with the Almighty God...just something to meditate about)
Since worship not arising from a full heart of love is unacceptable to Him,
He let Satan’s rebellion play out on this earth in full view of the universe.
The death of His only begotten Son more clearly revealed than any other thing could - the results.
Speaking of “just”:
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,
I don’t disagree with you in general. The question is, why is it necessary, and that goes to heart of what he’s asking. As I said, the real question to ask is, why did God decide to create at all, and that is something no one can answer...
>>That’s because the Truth was already created. Besides, in my experience, that’s also the only thing liberals create.<<
Sadly true...
Romans 1
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Every time I sin, I practice Eve's self idolatry and worship and serve the creature (my entitled self) more than the Creator. Amen?
This is the judgement of those who were not found in Christ. Only if you do not have Christ are you judged on your deeds. They were part of the first resurrection
V 12 states books plural. If your name is not in the book of life you can only be judged by your deeds. You have no One to cover for you. There is a big difference between the judgement of the church ( judgement for rewards) and the judgement of the unsaved ( the great white throne judgement) All those at the second judgement are unbelievers and there is no other basis for judging them. If you are in Christ you are eternally secure and need fear nothing, not even standing before your Father.
If God smacked us all down right after doing something wrong, we’d never have a chance to grow, repent, develop patience, see God for how good He is to us despite our continual failings.
The fact some people may never get it will eventually catch up to them. God assures us nobody’s going to get away with anything. That alone, from God, should at least help you not fixate too much on the fact they are getting away with it now.
Think about it. For those who hate God and think they can do anything and are untouchable, this life, right now, on this messed up planet, is the BEST they will ever have it. This is the closest to heaven they will ever get. For us Christians, even though we mess up and fail too, because we trust God and know this world is not our final stop, that this is the worst we’ll ever have to experience, this is the closest to hell we will ever be.
And you havent heard it all. Sandy Berger's lawyer in that situation is the current Fast and Furious gun-smuggler-in-chief.
Your testimony too no doubt will help someone else. There are always reasons we can’t understand. Thank God it did not turn you away from Him, but that it drew you in closer.
God can turn bad things into good things for those who love Him. I know you sure as heck miss your boy. I am also sure you must have contemplated how God the Father felt when He had to for the first time ever, separate Himself from His Son, and punish His innocent Son for us.
Because Christ is risen, so shall we.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.