Men were silent, not God.
Men are silent today as well.
He wasn't. He sent the Americans.
God gave Man free will. Part of giving Man free will is that God allows man to do things that He doesn't want. For God to step in and prevent bad things from happening would be for Him to revoke his most precious gift. And such revocation would at least as great a loss to mankind as anything Man could do to himself.
God was not silent but spoke through Allied armies and navies and air forces. It seems strange that God spoke in part through the Red Army, but if He could use Judas to accomplish salvation He could use Stalin to defeat Hitler.
Sort of like George Costanza, we humans like to blame God for the bad stuff. But God merely left us to our own sin.
I understand the Pope perfectly. Some people have a hard time understanding anything he says because they have issues with the Roman Catholic Church.
I am sure the MSM laps this up. Why did God let this happen.
Something was done, not fast enough for those who died and suffered, but something was done, the good in man, that quality that God put in us defeated the bad, the stuff Satan brought to us.
The same could be said about the middle east today, why is God letting this happen, he is not, the Devil is.
We as children of God need to show our fortitude and not back done to evil but fight the good fight and do the right thing.
Where were you, pal? That's the big question.
not sure why there was silence, but i imagine this is why IDF exists
The question stuck me as at least partly rhetorical...
God was there -- in the person of St. Maximilan Kolbe, who took the place of condemned Jews in the death camps ... in those like the people who sheltered the Frank family, and the many others who risked their own lives rather than turn their backs on such evil.
Lev 26 14 " 'But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 " 'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 " 'If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
23 " 'If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27 " 'If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36 " 'As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers' sins they will waste away.
"(but if they repent...)"
40 " 'But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers—their treachery against me and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees.
("and even if they don't repent...")
44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.' "
(Israel's Crime was failing to recognize their Lord and thereby rejecting the promised new covenant)>
Luke 19:41And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, 42Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. 43For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, 44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
(A restored Israel will suddenly recognize their Messiah)
Zechariah 12 ...2Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. 3And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. ... 6In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. ... 9And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
There is no firm promise to us but salvation. The rest is just suffering, and any blessings are a bonus earned only by human efforts, ie. temporary.
God speaks gently into our hearts. If we don't take the time, we never hear Him. Those who do hear Him, have a hard time convincing others.
If I recall correctly, didn't Jesus Christ himself ask his Father "Why have you forsaken me?" And King David, a man "after God's own heart," certainly questioned God's will at times. Seems kinda natural. No-one can know the ways of God, but sometimes you still just gotta ask "Why?"
(I'm not arguing with you, just wanted to say my piece and didn't know who else to reply to.) :-)
They can. Form the beginning along with life gave the gift of free will. Man was placed in the condition of Freedom. God did not interfere anymore than to provide life and a place to live. The rest was up to man to make of this world what they would. Ultimately, it's the exercise of that individual Freedom that matters.
Matthew 12:32 "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
The German's took away both their Freedom and life which was a gift from God from the beginning. The individual decisions of men are what they are judged on. God didn't even interfere when they killed him.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately come to mind........God's plan? Thats certainly not for me to say but if it was, he certainly spoke his word loud and clear.
The reason is man gave up on God. This Pope calls on God, not as some invisible unknown beyond the veil of Heaven; but as Supreme LORD of His people. The supreme lord over most nations' leaders, then and now, is not God but man; and man is an arrogant, cruel creature who can only learn humility the hard way.
God is not silent. Peaple just don't listen.