Ananias and Sapphira.
What about the Flood? Who sent that?
God cannot murder or be charged with murder because as our creator He has the right to decide when our earthly life is over.
Since many people are going to experience the second death when death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire, by your reasoning, God is a murderer.
NOW I ASK YOU TO REACH DOWN DEEP IN YOUR SPIRIT ON THIS - WHAT ACTUALLY CAUSED THE SNAKES TO ATTACK?
WRONG answer. You do not look *deep down within your spirit* for answers. You look at Scripture.
If you are looking within, you are being deceived and will be deceived because the heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. Truth can only be found in God's word, not within our hearts.
If God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit dwells inside me, I would think as my Guide and Counselor, He would know the answer to difficult questions. That is WHY we are given the HS in the first place, to lead us into all TRUTH which agrees with the Word since they are one and the same. BTW - Do you think God is bound by His own Word since he watches over it to perform it?
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:13 NIV
I don’t know about you, but I was cleansed of all unrighteous and spiritually (the heart) reborn when I asked Jesus into my life. If you have missed that Truth I refer you to the following:
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. Ezekiel 36:26 NLT - Believers get a new heart, spiritually reborn into God’s family.
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4:6-7 NIV — Before they were servants and friends. But now, when you are Born Again, you are a child of God! We have spiritual fellowship that Adam lost for all when he sinned.
“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:15-27 NIV — God is not going to dwell in a corrupt house. Only a spirit that has been renewed by faith in Jesus is acceptable.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. —— You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Romans 8:1-2, 9-11 NIV — I love this verse. There is NOW NO CONDEMNATION. God is not in some distance place. He is my Heavenly Father. We can have an intamcy with God that was not available until Jesus rose from the dead and placed his blood on the Heavenly Mercy Seat.
Also see all of Paul’s writings, heck read the entire New Testament which reveals what the New Birth is all about.
Do you want to rethink what you wrote about the heart? If you think someone is being deceived by their heart, they don’t have the Lord living in them as His Word promises. But if they have been Born Again, there is no deception in the heart. However, it is possible in an unrenewed mind. That is why we are to walk by faith (which resides in the heart), and not the mind or body. And renew our mind with God’s Word so that the spirit and mind and can be in agreement. Deception comes in the mind, not the renewed spirit.
So since you are now a solid proponent of the authority of the Word, is God a murderer, or is He a God of love? Did He send His Word to heal or not? Is 1 Peter 2:24 and Isaiah 53 Truth or not?
I ignored your first few statements because again, you are looking to prove God is evil, and I’m not going down that road as I said in my previous post. You claim that “Truth can only be found in God’s word.” God says He is love and does not change. Jesus says he does the works of his Father and they are one and the same. Is that Truth or not? I’m not trying to be difficult. This is an important point, if you claim that God’s Word is Truth. If God is personally telling you that HE IS LOVE and that HE DOES NOT CHANGE, that means He is either lying or something else is happening in these tough passages where evil is perpetrated. Do you believe a direct quote from God on His character and nature? If not, I think we may be done with this discussion because it will go nowhere if there is no agreement on this foundational point.
Please end the snarkiness. I don’t know if you are trying to provoke me or not. And if I have crossed the line, I apologize. On a Christian thread, I would think there would be much more we agree on than disagree.