Posted on 06/30/2012 9:15:59 AM PDT by vpintheak
We need some prospective here. The disasters we’ve seen recently don’t even measure up to some doozies when we were supposedly a more moral society. Anyone remember The Depression? The Civil War? The Galveston Hurricane? 9-11? There has been massive death and devastation before in this country and, when it came, it destroyed the godless and the godly alike (in this world, that is).
The Bible teaches that God judges nations and it also teaches that individual souls are saved however that doesn’t guarantee His people protection from His wrath or the evil of others, only that our souls do not die.
Some of the greatest men in the Bible suffered terribly both for their own sin and for the cause of the gospel. To believe God promises us an easy life is to be terribly ignorant of His word and His plan.
I do not know if the recent disasters are direct judgements from God. I do know that they pale when compared to the judgements that are to come and we may be seeing the first early signs as a call for repentance as a nation.
My personal belief is that God created time and God is not ruled by time. The entire history of the planet is like a snapshot in His eye which is how we can have both free will and predestination because God already knows all that has happened and will happen because he is beyond this time and has executed His plan, much as the characters in a drama don’t know what awaits them but the Scriptwriter already knows and has already planned the results.
Our jobs are to live, as best we can, sharing the love of Christ and leading others to Christ. That’s it. We can’t control our nation and we can’t control what disasters arise. We can pray for His mercy and His forgiveness but we should not expect that we will escape punishment in this life nor that we won’t suffer the consequences because of the sins of those that lead us.
God has His plan and He is faithful to complete it, whether we individually choose to participate or not. Yet the more we respond in faith, the more we will see His hand in motion. May God bless this nation for as long as it lives.
“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself hath ordained.”
From George Washington’s first inaugural address at Federal Hall in New York.
Great book!
As if there had never been any severe thunderstorms during a summer heat wave in the mid-Atlantic ever before yesterday. /sarcasm.
Now if a severe thunderstorm and suddenly appeared on a cool sunny day and only over the White House and Supreme Court building alone, pounding only those buildings with bolts of lightning, high winds and hail, you and other “Rath of God” theorists might be on to something.
Otherwise, think about all the damage over a widespread area not limited to the White House or Supreme Court building. Think about all the good hard working, some of them God fearing people without power and some with trees crashed down on their houses. Yea, that serves them all right, even the people who had nothing to do with, some who probably even opposed the SCOTUS ruling. Yea, that will teach ‘em good.
I’ve lived in this area all my life and have seen my share of severe T-storms this time of year. It’s to be expected. While severe, it’s not at all unusual.
Lots of people thinking, worrying about what you are thinking. Here’s a post I did this morning (got a little worked up on the subject):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2901201/posts?page=63#63
Just as if your spouse committed murder and was caught and jailed, you would escape the final judgment but you would NOT escape the consequences of your spouses actions.
I do NOT repent for my nation. I repeat. I do NOT repent for my nation. Screw collective guilt. I repent for my own personal sins.
This reminds me of this old joke.
A city is experiencing a terrible flood. A man is sitting on his front porch watching the water rise and a jeep drives up. “Get in! Everything’s going to be underwater!” “No thanks. God will save me. An hour passes and the water Has risen in the house. A boat comes by. “Get in! You’re going to drown!” “No thanks. God will save me.” The water rises over the house. The man is now on the roof. A helicopter flies overhead. “We’ll lower a line. Grab it or you’ll die!” “No thanks. God will save me.” The man drowns. When he gets to Heaven and meets God he says, “God! Why didn’t you save me?!”
“I sent a jeep, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?”
We have the ballot box. We have the tools to fix our country. It's not fixed because the majority of people, including freepers, are either lazy, unorganized, or have the political knowledge to fix it. It's our job to do it and it takes hard work with our God given abilities and free will. Complaining on the internet won't get the job done.
Yes. There comes a second.
America has become worse than Sodom and Gemorrah and the 0bama regime is working tirelessly to remove GOD from Our Country, so why should anyone think that GOD would continue to Bless America?
We are only one God inspired plasma storm away from being turned back to the stone age. IT’S COMING and WE DESERVE IT when it comes.
God have mercy on your children who call You by name.
amen and AMEN
God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).
...the living God...has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy (Acts 14:15-17).
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth...he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations...so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.' (Acts 17:24-28)
“The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.
“But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" (Ezekiel 18:19-23)
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14)
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” (Matthew 13:24-29)
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. (Matthew 13:36-43)
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. (2 Peter 3:9-11)
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. (II Thessalonians 1:6-10)
You deceive yourself.
Wow, that sounds merciful, loving and full of grace to me. Very Old Testament.
It's sophistry. It denies their personal own roles, their own personal failings, their own selfishness while having stood idly by while the culture decayed and the next generation was lead astray.
Yes, but there's another side to that. God can't punish collectives, or nations, in the next world. He has to punish them in this world. Individuals may be saved, but during their time in this world, they're going to be hit with the punishments administered to the collective. Natural disasters, epidemics of "new" diseases (AIDS?), tyrannical political leaders, and so on.
If I get caught up in God’s punishment of mortals, I’ll just have to endure and keep the faith. The bible is full of suffering mortals who reap the eternal rewards of faith.
There is NOTHING more than that.
“God is punishing the good because some are bad?
What a load of crap.”
We all suffer for the evil of others. You don’t think there are some “good” people in North Korea? Yet they are suffering terribly. No “good” people in the gulag? No “good” people in Nigeria at their church service? Were there no “good” people in the twin towers?
Of course there are/were. But they suffer, suffer terribly, when evil men do their thing.
We are suffering (mildly, most of us) right now because of the evil of some of the people in power over us. Myself I have had an overall good life. Babies in the womb, not so much. Recipients of “assisted suicide,” no, etc. All because “some are bad.”
You make a good observation. Voters have never, that I can recall, supported legislation promoting homosexuality. For argument sake we are excluding local laws in cities like San Francisco. However, voters place legislators into power who appoint judges who ignore the will of the voters and permit laws supporting homosexual behavior. People also vote for presidents who by executive fiat implement laws forcing us to accept homosexual behavior. And, these same legislators pass laws making defining our objections to this lifestyle as hate speech. Even though Christians can be called anything and it’s considered by these legislators as free speech.
Finally, how much of the Christian vote did obama get in 2008? It was significant given his hostel record towards us.
>>Wow, that sounds merciful, loving and full of grace to me. Very Old Testament.
The Old Testament God is the same as the New Testament God. He just gave us a means of grace in the form of Jesus. He still doesn’t like being told that worship has to fit in between the morning jog and kickoff. A big part of our problem is that we’ve convinced ourselves that God exists to serve us. A father can still love you and take you to the woodshed from time to time.
Let’s tell the full truth here. ‘We’ did not erase religious freedom from the constitution, the socialist elitists did. ‘We’ did not cleanse the Christian based culture of America, the socialist elitists did. ‘We’ did not ban prayer in schools, the courts did. ‘We’ did not find the right to murder babies in the constitution, the socialist elitists did. Since I was a child ‘we’ have fought against all this.
In truth, Christian Americans have been the victims of targeted and systematic cultural cleansing by people in high places. The only real power we had to derail this horror show was civil war. Should we have committed civil war in the name of God...And if we did and we wiped out the socialists, you would blame ‘we’ for that sin.
God will handle this conquerer of Christians because it is stinking to high heaven. At this point, pray for His protection and guidance of Christians. Serve the protection of persecuted Christans because it is going to get dang ugly real soon when Obamacare implements it’s mandated microchips and no one can do any business without a chip.
Hebrews 12:4-8 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh to you as children, My son,despise thou not the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth,He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
Our Father is a real “hands on” teacher. Those who refuse to learn pay the price.
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