Posted on 05/19/2013 12:21:32 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
Edited on 05/25/2013 2:44:13 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"Where were You, God?" The question arises daily as news of tragedies abound, and even from time to time as the tragedy involves ourselves. Servicemen die in a bungled military defense operation that should have been a cake walk, and no government official has credible answers. A son is shot dead in his prime by a wanton criminal. A wife dies decades too soon from a deadly disease. A busy mother dies unexpectedly from a sudden heart attack. Maybe you were emotionally abused when a child and have been saddled with a destructive habit that you acquired in an effort to escape from the torment by the only means you knew, and prayer -- once you realized you were in a trap -- seemed scant help or comfort. In these myriad situations the bitter questions often arise: "Oh Lord, where were You? Dear God, why did You roll over for this? Almighty Father, I've always heard that you are righteous and omnipotent, so why did You not act when it would have been so simple for You to stop it from happening? Oh, the heart-rending woe! Why did You lose, God?"
This is not a modern question, and it was not discovered by modern atheists, agnostics, or freethinkers. It arose many thousands of years ago to a man named Job (pronounced with a long "o") who kept a tender conscience towards God about what he did, and as a result displayed a very upright life, and was blessed with a large, loving family and many earthly riches. And yet without warning this man's world came crashing down upon him. It began with the destruction and theft of his great riches, and was topped by the loss of most of the lives of his dear family. Then, the trouble soon escalated with an inexplicable illness that covered him with sores. His wife, in an apparent hint that God was fickle and undeserving of love, in great disgust told him to curse God and die. His friends, who initially wisely comforted him in silence, then began to lecture him sarcastically about how he must have done something terribly wrong to provoke God's wrath, and his agony grew as a heated argument erupted and Job insisted he had done nothing to deserve the tragedy. Finally a wiser friend suggested that Job look to God's sovereignty, and then God answered Job from a whirlwind, challenging the limitations of Job's knowledge about what God can do. With a deeper appreciation of God's capabilities, Job stopped complaining, and soon God blessed Job twice as much as he had been blessed before.
There is a simple enough answer to the question, at least to the mind: by allowing the world and even our selves to fail so dramatically at times, God highlights His capacity to save, a faith in which we sometimes are sorely lacking, and even if we know it in our heads, our hearts are slower and lag behind that and need to be taught. For God is not merely solving complex intellectual problems. He is solving problems that encompass our entire beings that He has created and bestowed with capabilities that are an image of His own.
Lord I believe; please help my unbelief.
I have so closely felt You there in hours of joy or grief.
But now where is Your light? It seems stolen by a thief.
Lord I believe; please help my unbelief.
Lord I have loved You so in months and years gone by.
Yet my spirit has grown dull; I can hardly even sigh.
What is happening to my soul? Would You show the reason why?
Lord I have loved You so in months and years gone by.
Lord, Your holy word says that You never fade or change.
You have said these worldwide sufferings should not be held as strange.
You have promised your saving presence for as long as life remains.
Lord, Your holy word says that You never fade or change.
Lord, I give myself to You again this trying hour.
I know you are preparing me to receive Your wondrous power.
No more trace of evil, though the enemy tries to scour.
Lord, I give myself to You again this trying hour.
Lord, I weep for joy again at the long awaited sight
Of your face that smiles upon my soul; once more I see the Light.
Visions dear of angels pure and saints in heaven bright;
Lord, I weep for joy again at the long awaited sight.
(C) 2013 HiTech RedNeck
It’s kind of like talking about whether the light switch can generate a current through it. No it can’t. But it can permit the current to flow.
I do not wish to get into these technicalities.
If you'd be interested, I'd be happy to give you any or all of these books (easy to do if you have a Kindle) I've found helpful:
My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance at Life
(Read the forward by Anne Rice to this book!)
Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
Heaven is Real But So is Hell: An Eyewitness Account of What is to Come by Vassula Ryden.
I found each of these books helpful and would be happy to share them with you. Also, I haven't read this one yet, but it is likely the most transformational of them all:
It's Vassula Ryden's conversation with God and His mission for her.
Only a human would come up with this kind of God. But of course, only a God with this sort of personality could be responsible for this world we live in. That, or there is no one up there, and like an astrologist, you create patterns around the stars and then look for proof to support them.
It’s kind of like talking about whether the light switch can generate a current through it. No it can’t. But it can permit the current to flow.
Really, modern electrical theory is a pretty good explanation of the principle, though if pipes and valves had existed in olden days they would have sufficed too. The presence of the spirit at the heart is like electric potential i.e. voltage. The travel through which is saving faith is like electric current. I think it’s awesome how new analogies arise with new technologies, which of course themselves are revealed to mankind by God... Turn Your Radio On anyone? Eph. 6 would probably have included a walkie talkie illustration for praying if it had existed in Paul’s day.
Only a God could come up with you, but a devil could pervert you.
The claim is explicit: God made people in His spiritual image. There is no “frabozz” motive of God that is foreign to humans and would only be sensible to purple Martians.
I think your attempts led you into an abyss because you inadvertently idolized the explanations rather than using them as analogies that were useful as far as they could go but never were the real thing. I got the real thing. The Spirit approached my heart and illustrated what He was about by giving me joy focused on Him. I assented; it was all the easier since it was what I had hoped and prayed for and yet I didn’t know details of what it would be like till it happened. The spiritual current is now flowing. What, me turn the switch off now? Are you crazy?!?
Call me Pelagian or semi Pelagian or green Martianian or whatever you want. I don’t care.
Are you familiar with the Apostles Creed?
With the Nicene Creed?
They answer the question asked with the words, “I believe.”
Only if an external force acts on it to permit the flow of current, which again leaves unresolved exactly what it is man can do in a fallen, spiritually dead condition. Which illustrates nicely the reason why we must rely on Scripture and not imaginative illustrations from physical nature. We are not, at our essence, material beings, and materialistic explanations of spiritual reality are doomed to failure, apart from those sanctioned by Scriptural revelation, for reasons you have already cited concerning God's capacity for accurate self-revelation.
Im not scoffing,Im pointing out truths that you dont like to look at.Sadly there are inconsistancies in the Bible.And churchs have changed the rules many times to suit thier own desires to change with the times.
In my own lifetime ive seen churchs Go from forbidding even married couples to sit together to allowing women preachers.Many churchs in my neck of the woods have 2 doors on the front.Men entered from one door,women the other,and each sat on opposite sides of the church,even if they were married.Women were forbidden to speak or even teach sunday school.Now those same churchs,people sit wherever they wish and women preach the word.
Even Saint Peter was told by God to change the way he taught and tried to save sinners.So yes,God changes,and the church changes.
And so you can delve into labyrinths if you want. Some capability of accepting or denying spiritual flow exists in humans. You might as well ask why humans can do anything spiritual at all, even sin?
At any case, the original sin was not just a toggle operation but resulted in God removing the voltage... for a time. Of course that’s dead. The switch can flip in vain. Now God brings the voltage back. Will we say yes or no to enabling the path that God provided for it to flow. I say we can say yes or no, but to me a yes was virtually obvious. Pressing death/life analogies too far... with that same old demon you rail at, “human reason”... pushes them outside of their area of usefulness.
You are caviling at the elementary school level.
Your God sounds like Obama: in charge of everything, responsible for nothing.
If you want responsibility, you got it Lady...
Ultimately I don’t lean on any explanation, however. The scriptures are true to the extent they go, and attempting to extend them via our limited understanding is fraught with risk. We might or might not get a right answer. Any explanation is at best a crude, crude analogy whose actual implementation is in a domain that only God can see the gnatty details of. We have paradoxes. We do not have self contradictions. I’m saved, I thank the Lord for bringing me the opportunity (whether or not He forced it on me, and it sure did not feel forced, only very very very inviting). Let us get on with glorifying the Lord forever, together.
I also was baptized, did my First Communion, Confirmation, was raised in a devout household by parent with conscience, weekly and more attending services, and believed in God intellectually, but i had no spiritual life. I "said my prayers" but God was very external. Church is the family coming together but the church of the Bible preached Jesus, not advertizing themselves or substituting rote professions and rituals for relationship.
But years after, when i realized how empty i was, and that my sins separated me from God and that i needed to really repent, and did so sincerely and tearfully, and came to trust in Christ to saved me on His expense and merit, did i really have heart and life changes that extended beyond what i could change by God's grace, so that even nature was new to this rural young man.
Was i perfect, and would never fall away to some degree, or no longer seek greater holiness, no, but a fundamental and radical change took place, resulting in my wanted to serve King Jesus, whom i see working daily as we seek Him.
Read some of the Bible, like the gospel of Luke (the physician) Think about your sins of omission and commission, and be honest and with God, and decide you want Christ over your way, giving Him your sins and life, trusting and asking Him to save you who will never leave those who follow Him.
You can watch some well done video testimonies of souls who found Christ here if you want. and keep in touch.
You are pointing up things that are largely irrelevant. Confess it frankly, you won’t accept the idea of a God that asks different people to express faith in different outward manners at different times. And that, just “because.” You’ve already dug in your heels and won’t undig them. You’re basically hung up on “list of works” righteousness rather than works displaying faith and being a means of exercising faith.
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