Posted on 12/14/2005 9:33:52 PM PST by LieothVarthes
The following words are from a dead man. A child actually, one that had to grow up to fast, and lost everything... Before that though, I will tell you a little story... Now it has nothing to do with myself other then that John was a really close friend and a great person... That and I was part of it all, or at least, have the scars.
A few years about the time John was thirteen, we were walking to school... He asked me, "Steven, if you lost the only person you ever could love, what would you do?" I stopped... I knew who he was talking about... He had been daing a very nice girl, they were everything to the other... She hadn't been feeling well for sometime and I had tried to arrange medical help for her... When John asked me this, I knew it was to late. "John, I'm sorry." was all I could manage, his face drew in and turned pale... "Steven, if I go, would you still pray for me?" I nodded, the guy was like blood, I got along better with him then I had ever with anyone, even my own special someone... It was the kind of deal with, no matter who I was dating, they were jeleous of him because he knew so much about me, and I likewise in reguards to him. But he grew distant at that very moment... "John, what are you planning?" "I am going to go after her... I have waited long enough and I can live without her..." "Don't... She wouldn't want this and you know it." Well... It was at that time I knew GOD had forsaken this person who stood before me... Took everything that meant anything to him... not to say he hadn't seen it coming, but why would he take her, the innocent, when John and I prayed day in and day out... I mean, she had my prays, me on my knees begging before the almighty to spare her... I am not religious to such a point, but she was such a person as to make an atheist pray...(no offense intended by the comment)... A few weeks went by and I had seen less and less of my friend John... and when I did, there were scars, everywhere... There was not a bit of visible flesh that was not scared in someway... Whenever I approached him about it, he walked off... ---- Three days after the last time I saw him, he had killed himself out of greif... -------- So twice GOD took away people who praised him and were praying for his blessings... John and Ameila were the two most pious people I knew... Even the father at the church thought so... They were clean until that moment... It took about 4 weeks and the most god loving/god fearing people were dead and I had lost my mind... I prayed for them... But they say when you pray, something should happen... Well I guess GOD is busy, but I understand, the world calling out to him and all is pretty tough to handle... But still... he did nothing... Some said it was their time... They were children of Peter's Sake! I pray more often now, and still seem to get a busy signal... ---------- Now for the actual deal of the topic... 1Everyone looks for miricals... 2God put us here, then what? 3After the sins of Eve, what is the purpose of us remaining in torment... Hundreds perish, THOUSANDS perish... no, wait, time to stop being modest with the numbers... nearly 1 billion people die from causes that could be prevented... "Was their fault not GOD's" well where is the Lord when 9/11 struck, where was he/she/it when people were getting tortured or as children die in the streets... How about when his followers are persecuted wrongly? Has the Lord GOD Almighty pulled the phone out of the wall, or is the world just stuck getting busy signals...
You might try reading Job... the oldest recorded book in the Bible.
God does not forsake us, but sin separates us. His ways are not our ways because He can see the end from the beginning. We cannot bargain for a miracle or for God to make life turn out good for us. That is not how He operates. Try reading Job as was mentioned earlier. Talk to a pastor, rabbi or priest about the difficulties you are facing. God cared so much he gave His only Son to atone for our sins. The world looks bleak at times, but that will soon change. God is coming soon. Prepare yourself and make yourself acceptable in His eyes.
I'm so sorry for your losses. Losing loved ones is one of the most painful things a person can experience in life and I realize the wounds feel like they will never heal.
The age old problem of suffering is certainly a tough one to understand and I am no theologian. Sin, not God, is responsible for human suffering. I'm not saying your friends were sinful at all, but you might want to study the concept of original sin (read Genesis). St. Augustine had some interesting writings on sin and suffering too.
Also, there is the concept of redemptive suffering which serves a higher purpose. After all, God said "My ways are not your ways and My thoughts are not your thoughts". Know that this is inadequate, but hope it's a start. I hope you have a trusted Priest or Clergyman who can be of help to you. Please don't become bitter over this tragedy. God bless.
Original sin is worse than you think.
Be of good cheer, however, there is hope for those who perservere in the Lord.
My insticts tell me the letter you posted is a hoax. It sounds so much like the standard " If God Loves People Why Does X happen." And where things always go from bad to worse. Please realize I do not think you were trying to commit a hoax. The letter just does not ring true.
If you posted this because you are going through a time of diminished faith you have my prayers.
Welcome to Free Republic!
This is an old, old question. But the truth is, we are living in a universe where bad things happen, some by bad luck, some by man's willingness to hurt others. We may rail against it, but the truth is, God is not Santa Claus, his goals are not necessarily ours, and this is the place we have been put. We can rail against it, at some perception of unfairness, or we can use it to grow.
O Lord,
there are times,
after the storm,
the bomb,
the earthquake,
the sickness,
the accident,
the crime
people shake their fists
and say,
"If you loved us,
how could you do this to us,
put us in a world
where terror happens,
put us in a world
where disaster
rips out our hearts,
put us in a world
where sickness steals our love,
the evil that men do
empties our lives?"
How we long to blame
when hurt,
how we long to kill
the very thing
which stole our joy,
our lives,
our security,
and yet,
how does one take revenge
on the shaking earth,
or sue the storm,
or arrest the plague?
Help us, God,
you, who have also been through
the grieving process,
as the Son, betrayed,
beaten,
murdered,
the Son who saw friends and loved ones die,
who knew all those things
life brings that makes us want to rage,
strike out,
hit back.
O God, you the Father,
who saw what this world did to your son,
who saw the rejection,
who saw the murder,
and yet,
for love refused to strike.
O God, you the Spirit,
you who moved upon the face of the deep,
you who quickened and brought life,
who filled the hearts of those who would listen,
how often did you see
the message rejected,
the concept misunderstood,
the word twisted into personal agendas,
and yet you keep breathing your word
of hope and love
even in the midst of sorrow
and anguish,
and despair.
O Lord, you know our pain!
How often have your arms wrapped around us,
when we, like Job,
beat our anger against your chest,
in our frustration,
our grief,
our fear,
our loss,
until at last,
anger spent,
those of us who will listen
to your soft voice
come to see
that we do not have the answers,
except that the world turns,
and the sun rises,
and we are much smaller than the universe,
and we are not God.
O Lord,
in our smallness,
and anger,
and grief,
remind us that
You have given us the gift to grow,
and to choose,
and to accept or reject.
Help us choose the light,
even when it hurts, and blinds our eyes.
Help us choose to grow,
even when the growth comes after great pain.
Help us choose to love
Of good cheer? Origional Sin is worse then I think? So you have delved into my mind to know what it is I think about Origional Sin? Interesting, mind telling me anything else you found while digging in there?
-A word from my pastor...
"My son, we do not follow blindly the will of God..."
I mulled it over while he stood waiting for my response... What I managed was 'Father, son of the Holy Lord... Tell me, what do you go home to?'
"A loving family, a nice home." 'No, what I mean is what do you see as you go home.' This seemed to prove harder for him to answer as I walked off...
Today, tommorow, whenever... Look around, note the good and the bad... I ask not for miricals, my friends are dead... People who followed without thinking the will of the Lord... But it is to my understanding by that which I was told that if you think, you sin... So, to be blunt, aren't we all screwed?
As far as the Book of Job, I shuffled about it, as I have with many of the Holy Writs and Texts.
BUMP
Yes, we all would be screwed except for God became man and that God-man took the ultimate punishment that everyone of us deserves. This is the joy of Christmas, the gospel, the good news, that God became man and even though he lived a perfect life he layed it down for those who put their faith in him. For those who do not put their faith in him there is no hope. For those who put their faith in him, endure a portion of the hardship that Christ himself endured, there is the assurance of life in a new world and a blissful participation in the life of God.
Thanks for the Bumpage... Now to the point
-I would like to thank you all, the few that popped in for taking a moment to read my tell... It is, I asur eyou all true... But aparantly I am right back to what my clergyman fought... Lost... But I thank you...
"Steven, if you lost the only person you ever could love, what would you do?" I stopped... I knew who he was talking about... He had been daing a very nice girl, they were everything to the other..If your friend had remained faithful to God through Christ, it might also have been his meaning that this is exactly the same feeling of God the Father to His Son when in His Perfect Integrity, He had to judge His Son on the Cross.
His perfect judgment and his integrity demanded the death of His Son to remain perfectly righteous and holy in His integrity. Nevertheless, this resulted in an enormous sacrifice by God the Father to Man.
Now, if you are wondering why God has not intervened and granted your wish like some kept genie, you may want to consider that He still remains perfect in His decisions and His plan. The death of every person is a decision of God and has been perfectly made since eternity past. It is the utmost of arrogance to believe that somehow anybody has been wronged when they die. There might be other persons whose volition coexists with God's by His divine decree, and some might sin and go against the will of God, and commit a murder or stumble into manslaughter, but in the grand scheme of things, such actions never out trump the will of God.
You have also stated: "1Everyone looks for miricals(miracles)... 2God put us here, then what? 3After the sins of Eve, what is the purpose of us remaining in torment... Hundreds perish, THOUSANDS perish... no, wait, time to stop being modest with the numbers... nearly 1 billion people die from causes that could be prevented... "Was their fault not GOD's" well where is the Lord when 9/11 struck, where was he/she/it when people were getting tortured or as children die in the streets... How about when his followers are persecuted wrongly? Has the Lord GOD Almighty pulled the phone out of the wall, or is the world just stuck getting busy signals..."
Let's take this step by step.
1) Everybody looks for miracles.
If all people sincerely looked for miracles, the greatest miracle of all would become manifest. Namely, the miracle of God's Incarnation in His Son and the Son being provided as a sacrifice for our sin, thereby allowing each and every one of us to have a personal relationship with God through faith in Him and He remains perfectly holy throughout the process. We have all inherited an old sin nature in our flesh, and have also sinned or disobeyed His will and have already stood condemned to a state of separation spiritually from God's holiness prior to our faith in Him. His miracle provides a mechanism by which we may have faith in Him and then be given a regenerated spirit by the Holy Spirit. Once regenerated, we still may sin, and fall away from Him or out of fellowship, yet when we confess our sins and repent, He is sure and just to forgive us those sins and we reenter into fellowship with Him (1John1:9).
"God put us here, then what?"
Then, unfortunately, we sinned and in our state of separation we were surely separated. What's next, first salvation by His protocol, then for us to remain in fellowship with Him so He may continue to sanctify us. This means daily confessing our sins to Him, turning away from sin in our thinking and actions, and remaining in fellowship with Him in all things.
"3After the sins of Eve, what is the purpose of us remaining in torment... "
One needs to first confess their sins to Him, known and unknown, place their understanding in His hands and let Him guide you appropriately. Later, in your spiritual growth, only made possible by God the Holy Spirit, one doctrine might become understood involving the nature of punishment, torment, righteousness, and disicpline. To those who perish or remian out of fellowship with God, the most miserable existence is self-induced when they fail to return to Him, suffer His chastisement, and wallow in torment, rather than returning to Him.
One can undergo the most severe physical punishment of the flesh and still remain faithful to Him. No other example need be made, than our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus Himself who bore stripes of wounded flesh, yet remained faithful to the Father in His spirit. That faithfulness was counted as righteousness and indeed is the same righteousness that is available to us in our volition. If we become arrogant, thinking only of ourselves, then even the least wrong thinking can be perceived as the greatest of torment, yet while we remain faithful to Him, the most intense physical agony does nothing to remove us from His love.
"Hundreds perish, THOUSANDS perish... no, wait, time to stop being modest with the numbers... nearly 1 billion people die from causes that could be prevented..."
Well, ....let's not be so deceiving as to so greatly understate the magnitude of how many people die from causes that could have been prevented! More accurately, every man on the face of the planet including Christ Jesus Himself, could have remained alive in one fashion or another had certain decisions been made otherwise. For every man other than Christ Jesus, each could have remained in fellowship with God had theynot sinned and removed themselves out of fellowship with Him, yet, they still have an opportunity to return to Him through faith in Him through Christ. In the case of Christ, He also could have remained, although He chose to remain faithful to the Father and even after judgment and separation of his body from soul and spirit from body and soul, the Father and Holy Spirit were just to raise Him from the dead with eternal life. This was because of the Son's faithfulness to the Father counted as righteousness, even after he was imputed the sins of the world and found guilty and suffered our death spiritually from the Father.
The entire nature of sin is that it could have been prevented had we simply remained faithful to Him.
""Was their fault not GOD's" well (will?)"
If that fault referenced is sin, the answer is no. God never promotes sin, never tempts, never has anything to do with sin. Evil is different than sin. God's policy is grace while the Adversary's policy is evil. God's Sovereignty (His will) and our volition coexist by eternal decree. Just because we sin doesn't mean He must be dragged down in our stupid decisions. He remains perfect with perfect integrity and has perfectly decided in eternity past wen each of us will suffer the first death.
"...where is the Lord when 9/11 struck, where was he/she/it when people were getting tortured or as children die in the streets... How about when his followers are persecuted wrongly?"
He remains perfectly holy, with an essence of perfect righteousness and perfect judgment throughout in His perfect Integrity. Our Lord Jesus Christ, our High Priest remains at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
Our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus has paid the price for our sin. Sin may have caused many of the calamitous consequences, but his death didn't remove evil from the world. The conflict of good and evil must be resolved in time. Our thinking, decisions, and behavior are also a testimony to the angels of the perfection of His plan and decisions. Those who are selfish, may tend to wallow in their misery and then believe all suffering in life is God's fault. Keep in mind that as part of our advancment, we will be tested. When we remain faithful to Him, we win. When we become selfish, we lose and merely fail to advance.
For every suffering, where we remain faithful to Him, there is a blessing. The real trick is to insure we trun ur cursings into blessings through Him, and not allow our blessings be turned into cursings when we fall away from Him and become subject to His discipline.
"...Has the Lord GOD Almighty pulled the phone out of the wall, or is the world just stuck getting busy signals...""
Neither. For those who have fallen out of fellowship with Him, there is nothing in His perfect integrity that demands He cowtow to a clanging symbol or a spoiled rotten child clamoring for more childish whims or attention. On the contrary, if He did always react to our childish behavior, we would merely become spoiled rotten. It is first our duty to repent and confess our sins to Him, and He is sure and just to forgive us those sins. That way we have righteous faith in Him and remain in His fellowship.
In His perfect plan, remain in fellowship with Him through faith in Christ, and rejoice when the cursings arise through Him. If every inch of flesh is ripped from our bodies, Thank You Lord! If every thought is challenged from without, Thank You Lord! If no blessing is obvious, Thank You Lord! Even more blessed are those who persevere and remain in love with Him in all things than those who prevail in the world in this temporal existence.
When we get 'busy signals' or no signal, this is an indication that perhaps either we are being tested or that we really aren't in fellowship with God.
In the case of 9-11, nothing will remove us from His love. We all are going to die anyway in the first death where the body is separated from the soul, but for believers, when we are separated from the body we are face to face with the Lord. In a sense, our physical death is a promotion determined by the most perfect Judge and performed at the exact perfect time and place in His plan. For maximum rewards, just remain faithful to Him so that we are where He planned for us to be in eternity past in His perfect plan.
LieothVarthes, if you are truly seeking answers to your questions then this post by Cvengr is a good start.
I found this particular paragraph a sort of accounting of my personal experience:
One can undergo the most severe physical punishment of the flesh and still remain faithful to Him. No other example need be made, than our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus Himself who bore stripes of wounded flesh, yet remained faithful to the Father in His spirit. That faithfulness was counted as righteousness and indeed is the same righteousness that is available to us in our volition. If we become arrogant, thinking only of ourselves, then even the least wrong thinking can be perceived as the greatest of torment, yet while we remain faithful to Him, the most intense physical agony does nothing to remove us from His love.
Cvengr, when I was first saved I actually prayed to God, "I could die for You, but please don't let me have to suffer for You, for I am afraid I would deny You!" In my 11 years as a Disciple of Christ I have been brought through unimaginable trials of physical, emotional, and spiritual torment...all to show me (for my Father already knew) that His Grace is sufficient for me, that nothing could separate me from His love, that He who keeps me does not slumber and He will not allow my foot to be moved; He is near to all who call upon Him in Truth; He who called me is Faithful and He will accomplish the victory. He will never leave me or forsake me, and truly by His stripes I am healed. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation!
...the most intense physical agony does nothing to remove us from His love.
Yes! Our Master's Love for us will Never Cease, because it is Eternal, as He is Eternal. LieothVarthes, you Must Hide yourself in His Comforting Love, because this is a World of Pain, because of the Fall of man. Our Only Refuge is God Himself, Who Created the Present Age, and All Things that Exist, for His Glory and Praise.
The Lord and Ruler of Time and Eternity is Worth Any Price, Any Suffering, and He Enables His people to Love and Reverence Him Even in the Midst of their Trials. Just Think of the Millions of people in Revelation 7:12; they had Come Out of Great Tribulation, Knowing the Most Intense Sufferings and Martyrdoms Imaginable: but Look at what they Say:
Blessing, and Glory, and Wisdom, and Thanksgiving, and Honor, and Power, and Might, Be Unto our God Forever and Ever, amen!
All the Things they Endured were Now Past, and they had a Whole Eternity Before them to PRAISE Him Who Sustained them and Kept them During their Trials. In Verse 15-17, we See that our Lord Promises to Comfort them and Refresh them throughout the Ages of Eternity to Come.
We are in a Brief Microcosm of Time, LieothVarthes; these Things we See All Around us will not Always Be. The Sovereign Holy One of Heaven will 'Make All Things Right,' and He will Wipe the Tears from the Faces of His Beloved children.
...I have been brought through unimaginable trials of physical, emotional, and spiritual torment...all to show me (for my Father already knew) that His Grace is sufficient for me, that nothing could separate me from His love, that He who keeps me does not slumber and He will not allow my foot to be moved; He is near to all who call upon Him in Truth; He who called me is Faithful and He will accomplish the victory. He will never leave me or forsake me, and truly by His stripes I am healed. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation!
Amen, dear Carbine! His Faithfulness Spans One 'End' of Eternity to the Next! Blessed Be the Name of our Lord God Forevermore!
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