Posted on 01/11/2011 2:25:38 PM PST by WilliamIII
Bottom line. God never wastes a hurt, all things work together for his Gliry and our good, so stop trying to figure it out and wait patiently and pray. Ask him when you see him if it’s not revealed by then. I do know that every event like this brings many to salvation......
I would say...you don't know the Scriptures very well then. I would ask you what you know about God...and His Word? His Covenants. His Blood Covenants more pointedly.
I will repeat....God had NOTHING to do with what happened with the Congresswoman.
Who is the god of this world? Can you answer me this?
Though He slay me,
I will hope in Him.
Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.
Job 13:15
Rather than read mans answers I will go to the Word.
“Free will.”
You nailed it, in just two words.
Also, God never wastes a hurt that man or Satan put into
The world.
That man CHOSE his actions under free will. All indicators pointnto
Him not believing in a higher power. That man is responsible, not God, but God will, without even trying, use his worst act for good.
Remember
For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
This will make NO sense to any athiests in here but
GOD DOES WHAT HE WILL AND NONE CAN STAY HIS HAND!
There is no 'right or wrong' in the animal or plant world below the animal level of humankind. We don't even know if there were homosapiens before Adam and Eve walked int he Garden God planted especially for them.
Consider the following in light of what the Bible teaches on man having been given 'free agency'/free choice:
The Will of God is absolute --when God thinks something it will come to pass;
if satan were able to hook God into reacting to evil --as in 'why did God allow this to happen, He should not allow this sort of evil'-- then in being tied to reacting, God would be removing the realm of free agency;
What happens in the course of time fits into the plan God is bringing to pass or else it will not be allowed;
until Adam fell, right and wrong were not real on this planet, thus there was ntohing happening except it was being allowed by God's plan and there was no way satan could hook God into preventing wrong because there was no worng just what is.
With the advent of Adam and Eve, the realm for our free agency had as axiomatic that right and wrong could be chosen, thus satan then had a means to try and hook God into reacting. God will not be manipulated into deviating from His plans, and He has told us what is the end coming for satan and any satan can drag down with him ... and God has made for us a way of escape so simple that smart folks and rich folks have a very hard time 'getting it' and accepting His Grace in Christ Jesus.
You would think the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the observer problem would be strong enough clues that Salvation is by faithing in His work already accomplished rathet than our meager works ...
“And God doesn’t have to answer. And he doesn’t. “
I think He does answer, in the beginning of Genesis. Death and evil enter the world when Adam and Eve fall into sin.
The whole rest of the Bible is elaboration on that, and development of the great plan of salvation.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 NIV (Jesus speaking)
In the beginning, man was given dominion over the earth, but through sin, was disconnected from God. If he accepts Jesus as his Savior, he is reborn into God’s family, reconnected to God by the Holy Spirit. If he has not, he is spiritually connected to the thief (satan). There is no middle ground or “lawful neutral” options.
Once you get some revelation from John 10:10, everything else in life and the Bible gets much easier to understand. The bottomline is who is your spiritual daddy? Who is the Lord of your life? There are only two possibilities.
Who do you think was the spiritual father of the Tucson shooter? Even if he had been saved at some point in his life, he was obviously greatly under the influence of evil. How do I know this? Because God is love. Love does not kill. Love does not hate people. Love forgives. Love looks for and expects the best out of people.
I know God and His angels are constantly working behind the scenes to warn and protect people because life is precious to Him. I’m sure there were people interceding for loved ones without knowing exactly what was going to happen. - I have experienced this grace firsthand in my life with my mother’s prayers that saved me more than once from danger. But how many people received warnings from the Holy Spirit and ignored them or dismissed them?
What fascinates me is how quick people blame God for violence, and the devil never gets any blame at all.
"Do you believers ever stop to wonder if your god is simply incompetent?
You people forgive your god a lot more than it ever forgives you, and for much bigger things too. How do you compare a lustful thought against a quarter million people lost to a tsunami, against a little girl killed by a nut?"
Folks, that perspective is symptomatic of our age, as we have allowed God to be shuttled off into a corner where we can glace His way if it suits us.
Well and truly stated! The either or is part of God still creating, but He is allowing each of us individually to choose which is to follow for us, individually, so that we may go on to a greater reality that God is bringing to pass! It's like a fork in the road don'tchaknow: you can go one way or the other, but you cannot go back.
If bondage to sin dooms us to have no free choice, we can never escape that bondage by choosing to accept God’s sacrifice for us. Someone without free will cannot turn to God.
God has given all of us free will. He allows us to exercise this free will, whether we use it for good or evil. Once Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, then it was all bets off. If the writer is so concerned about evil-doing in the world, then why not ask about the slaughter of millions of little ones in the womb year after year? That’s an evil that seems to have gone on the back burner.
The dead-soul writer doesn’t consider the slaughter of so many alive unborn children as ‘evil’. Satan has given them another word to cling to as they rationalize their complicity with evil ... they call it choice, not evil.
Why does God allow people to become old and die? Why does God allow 0bama to pass a health care law with the beginnings of “mercy killing” in it?
Uhmmm, try again. Start with Isaiah:
“That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”
God is sovereign. Sorry if that doesn’t fit into your box.
God created evil, it was in the world before the fall, and what was Adam supposed to do, let Eve leave and get another wife?
Thank you so much for sharing your testimony and insights, dear brother in Christ!
There are worlds and ages, confusing as it might seem, depending on one’s theology, but this world, what I believe to be a recreation of a previous world, had sin enter into it through one man, according to scripture, and that would be Adam. Now getting back to the concept of a real God creating a real creation with real beings complete with choice and free will to make real decisions, God need not be the author of evil. ...C.S. Lewis did an excellent essay on the subject, but it’s been maybe thirty years since I last read it. As I recall, his point was that when the layers of evil are peeled back to the first motives, we find good. As for Adam’s choices, I suspect he could have been the kinsman redeemer, but because he made the wrong choice, that became the purpose of Jesus Christ, also known as the second Adam.
Well, Julia, it’s called free will. Ever since Adam & Eve thought it might be better to do what God said “don’t”. The LORD did not make robots, he made people. Same reason we slide into socialism. Godless, amitious tyrants promise goodies from the treasury to win the admiration of lazy godless people who don’t catch on until it’s too late.
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