Posted on 11/22/2004 11:12:20 AM PST by stuartcr
I read the Book of Job this weekend, and I have a question regarding the reasoning behind Job's trials. I believe that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, which includes knowing what we are going to do. Going on this premise, my question is why did God, knowing the outcome, subject Job to all that he went through? Why did He allow satan to do the things he did to Job? The only thing I can think of, was to prove a point to Job?
Yes, I agree.
It's irrelevant to Satan. He is in rebellion
I don't know.
Bear in mind that you must believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and use that premise for all other understanding.
We are born into sin because of original sin. When it is said that God created man in His own image, it means that man was created perfect and sinless. But man was tempted and made the choice to sin. All mankind carries the consequences of original sin.
I can't tell you why any better than I can explain why we need sleep, food, light and dark. I accept it as God's choice and omniscience.
I avoid "why" because it doesn't matter to me. I know in the depths of my soul that I am His child and I trust Him for everything that has gone and will come.
Not until after is happened. He couldn't look ahead.
While I do not believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, I have started reading passages from it, along with other religious tomes, as I hope that they may help answer some of my questions.
I suppose we need to trust you, huh?
To all, I have to go now, I will try to be back in 4 or 5 hours, if not tomorrow.
I would like to thank everyone for participating in my vanity thread.
At the end of the book, Job repents in dust and ashes. Of what - who knows. God disciplines those he loves, even those like Job, who, with sinful flesh, but may not express their sins as often as people like me.
Either that, or just believe me, I don't think it matters.
No. Please think through my simplistic example for a moment. Or, here's another. In Back to the Future, did Marty take away the black waiter's free will in the diner just because he knew that in the future the waiter would run for mayor and win? G-d is all knowing. He is present in all time. How does that deny your free will?
I highly recommend that you get your hands on a good Bible study guide and think about reading C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity".
Recall that in this life there are many extraordinarily complex issues that people express very definite opinions about while not having conclusive proof to verify those opinions. Socialism vs. Capitalism, Creation vs. Evolution, Strict Constructionist vs. Living Document, Liberty vs. the Common Good.
In the book of Job, Satan is, naturally enough, accusing God of lying in that he asserts Men only love God because it is in their own self-interest. (Rather like claiming religion is just a crutch for the poor and ignorant). Pure cynicism.
In the case of Job, God allows all the excuses for doubting God's assertions to be stripped away to reveal the nature of the universe, and specifically that part of it known as "man" is exactly as He says it is. (for surely there were other rich men on the earth whose performance would have supported Satan's contentions. nevertheless, the existence of one Job proves the point)
No matter what the situation looks like, in the end, God WILL be vindicated.
We don't have all the answers, so we place our trust in our God. Faith is beieving what we cannot see. That is what Job did and God rewarded him for it.
He does, and that is no doubt one aspect of his punishment. His only hope is to somehow, at some point, break the word of God, then he would have a basis for appeal against the sentence he's been given.
Think of the last election, Kerry's only hope for bringing Bush down was to prove Bush was doing something wrong. Consequently, Kerry adopted the position EVERYTHING Bush did was wrong, hoping something would stick.
The purpose of the story of Job is to let people find comfort in the crap that happens to them.... if it's good news, it's a blessing from God, and if it's crap, it's a test from God. God wins either way.
If God knows that you are going to use your free choice to make a decision, then God knows that YOU AND NOT HE are going to do something, and God is never wrong about YOUR CHOICES, then God knows ahead of time what YOUR CHOICE will be.
Here's something for you: With my predictive capacity, I can predict that someone assaulted by the basketball player "Artess(?)" is going to sue him.
Now...when that comes true, does that mean that I caused it?
Stan: Why would God let Kenny die, Chef? Why? Kenny's my fr-f-f-friend. Why can't God take someone else's f-f-friend?
Chef: [sighs] Stan, sometimes God takes those closest to us, because it makes him feel better about himself. He is a very vengeful God, Stan. He's all pissed off about something we did thousands of years ago. He just can't get over it, so he doesn't care who he takes.Children, puppies, it don't matter to him, so long as it makes us sad. Do you understand.
Stan: But then, why does God give us anything to start with?
Chef: Well, look at it this way: if you want to make a baby cry, first you give it a lollipop. Then you take it away. If you never give it a lollipop to begin with, then it would have nothin' to cry about. That's like God, who gives us life and love and help just so that he can tear it all away and make us cry, so he can drink the sweet milk of our tears. You see, it's our tears, Stan, that give God his great power. [pause]
Stan: I thnk I understand.
Yes, God knows all about us. Yes, he created us. However, he did not "create" our behavior. Our behavior is sinful. The Bible says that everything we do, not just sin but also things we think are "good", are like filthy rags before God. This is because we are "fallen". Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God in the garden by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had explicitly told them not to yet they disobeyed Him and ate it anyway.
That one sin taints all of humanity (and even all of creation) to this day and it, along with our own sin, separates us from God. You see, God his perfectly holy and he cannot tolerate sin. He hates it. Not only that, because God is perfectly just, he must punish sin. That is where his righteous wrath comes in.
The Bible says that we (every person) have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The bottom line is that we are sinners every one, our sin separates us from God who is holy and there is absolutely nothing we can do in and of ourselves to repair the relationship. In fact, we are so sinful that we don't even want to repair the relationship. We are lost.
But there is Good News!! God is perfectly just but he is also perfectly merciful. He has provided the means by which we can be reconciled to him! Not only that, he has provided it as a gift to us...for free. Why would he do this for us? Because he loves us. He loved us even when we, in our sin, hated him.
He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to live as a man. Jesus was born without Adam's sin through the virgin birth and, this important, he lived a perfect life. Jesus never sinned. Not even once. He is the only person who ever lived who could approach God on his own merits.
But Jesus didn't abandon us to go live with God. That was not why he was sent. He was sent to pay the price for our sin. That's right. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, it wasn't just the physical pain he suffered. God unleashed all his horrible wrath on Jesus' spirit - the wrath the we deserved for our sin. Jesus took our place and all our sin was put on him. It was as if he had committed the sins, not us. In order for Jesus to take our place, he had to be perfect and he was.
This means that for those who believe in Jesus and accept him as their savior, their debt has been paid. God has wiped the slate clean. Not just for the past sins we have committed but also for every sin we will commit - all of it. Not only that, we get the righteousness of Christ. As far as God is concerned, it is as if we lived Jesus' perfect life.
In the New Testament of the Bible, we find two letters that Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth. In the second of those letters, in the fifth chapter and the 21st verse, Paul explains Jesus' substitution for us this way:
"For our sake, he made him to be sin that knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
That is the good news of the Gospel. God saved us by sending his Son to live a perfect life and die in our place. We are saved by believing in Jesus (by faith). When we admit our sin to God and our need of a savior, turn away from our sin (repent) and accept the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, we are immediately changed and our status before God is immediately changed. Our sins are no longer held against us by God and the Holy Spirit of God enters us. The Bible says that, at that moment, we are new creations.
Because we have been imputed with the righteous of Christ and our sins forgiven, when we die, we are able to enter heaven and spend eternity with God.
Please let me know if you have any other questions. I would be happy to answer them if I can.
I'm reading this post and I remembered reading during the Rwanda massacres about how some pre-teen girls who had had their families butchered were found fearful...yet singing childrens praise songs to God. There was no seeming reason why God allowed these girls to suffer the horrors they did in the same way that Job was innocent and in the same manner...acknowledged his God and refused to curse him. Yet Job praises God and so did these little girls!
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