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.
We all fight the evil one in our lives.
What we really need is to become aware of all the times the Holy Spirit is with us.
One of my sons came to my house to fix something yesterday, and I totally credit it to the influence of the Holy Spirit. I think they (he and his wife) may have upset with me because I cannot go to their house as long as they have cats inside. I’m terribly allergic to cats — and it was allergies that threw me into my latest episode with atrial fibrilation. I was able to talk with him yesterday and hopefully explain it.
By the way I admire the spiritual insight of your tagline. It is true! A life laid wholly on Jesus will incur NO more blame from heaven. Not a mite, not a speck. God assumed the entire metaphysical burden, as it were, of guilt of the saved at the cross. And inasmuch as we may care about other blames, it is because we are moved to illustrate God’s love to the world (and therefore DO try to make amends etc. as God empowers us to do so).
I can speak a lot on faith; I am less versed in some bible particulars. However HarleyD gave you a beautiful answer.
You have given us YOUR interpretation of scripture and that raises the important question: Why should we believe that you have divined the truth? I mean no insult.
I am sorry to hear about your illness and I pray the Lord will help you with it either through doctors and medication (and maybe diet) and/or through direct Holy Spirit ministry.
I have cats and I have suffered from bouts of atrial fib in the past, but I don’t believe the two are connected in my case.
The Apostle Paul is from the Tribe of Benjamin.Without whom we wouldnt have most of the New Testament.Are you now saying God didnt bless the tribe of Benjamin?
Well, one needn’t get it perfect to get it useful. I see a sincere effort in you to at least try to comprehend. Do be careful about calling people damned or not based on petty details, however. People don’t need to pass the screening of a human “God committee” to be saved. They just need to meet up with the Lord and engage spiritually with Him on a journey of being restored and forgiven (which is, in the technical jargon, repentance and salvation by grace through faith).
What kind of Craft are you interested in more of?
How is this a serious problem? Individuals (St. Paul) can be blessed even if from a place that incurs a divine chastisement for doing wrong. A bar on such a thing was never announced. Sounds more like you’re cheering for the “horned guy in red tights” so to speak....
More atheistic ignorance or miscontruance which inventions would justify their rejection.
First, rape of a betrothed women was a capital crime:
"But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die:" (Deuteronomy 22:25)
Second, unlike today and the mess it has resulted in, the Bible places a priority upon virginity until marriage, and marriage, and if a man who forces a women not engaged then he had to marry her and he may not put her away all his days.
Gill, who spends much time on Jewish tradition, comments,
"if her father and she agreed to it; and in such a case the man was not at his liberty to refuse, be she what she would, agreeable or not, handsome or ugly; he must, as the Jews express it, drink out of his pot, or marry her, if she is lame, or blind, or full of ulcers (Misn. Cetubot, c. 3. sect. 5.)
And note that marriage in Israel was a social contract, and as seen in Gn. 34, mistreatment of a sister could be severely dealt with.
Third, the Bible cast the incestuous rape of David's daughter Tamar by Amnon (2Sa. 13) in a very bad light, and which resulted in Amnon's death.
However, it is my experience that atheists cannot tolerate any refutation of their fallacious charges.
That's not at all what Jesus thought! If you go back to what the rich dude asked he said, "What must I do to inherit the kingdom of God?". He then proceeded to describe all the reasons why he deserved it. Regarding the commandments, "All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”. The point is that we CAN'T earn our way or deserve or merit heaven. Even if we gave all our money to the poor, it wouldn't buy us eternal life. This is something God gives us by GRACE and we receive it by FAITH.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
Lady seems to be hung-up on the issues of slaves and the relatively newfangled idea of “spousal rape.” Slaves weren’t an ideal situation (and biblical slaves might be prisoners of war but not arbitrary kidnapees), however the modern counter to the idea of slavery which is based in the “I own myself” philosophy is also unhelpful because that means becoming a spiritual island.
I didn’t get to this one until just now. You’ve pointed up a fairly good, if bland, intellectual case. The big problem for many of us (me especially) is getting the heart to embrace the actual truths of spiritual reality around the Lord. That’s where following the bible accounts as given in the bible is very helpful. The bible is a purpose-written spiritual work.
My. What a bitter, self-centered, and destructive answer. If all that is left is bitterness and burden, then there is no point. Hope springs eternal to those who love YHWH.
I fell ill a little over 10 years ago. Went from hale and hearty to screaming agony in about two weeks. Doctors never did find out what it was, and for seven years I was almost wheelchair bound / bed-ridden. I can nearly count on one hand how many times I left my 12x15 bedroom during those first seven years. I lost my health, nearly all my friends, my business, and finally my family (to divorce). Everything I had worked for... twenty-five years of toil, all gone. It was a terrible and lonely time, very dark and foreboding, to the point that my faith was reduced to a fitfully flickering pilot light.
When healing finally came, it was not the doctors who provided it. It started with a particular prayer and anointing oil, and literally over night pain was significantly reduced. Then came a weird thing with a Christian Cheyenne medicine man. Then came another weird thing with a woman who understood naturalistic healing using nutrition. Then came a guy I didn't know at a public office waiting room who knew everything about me, who left me with a message that profoundly changed my thinking... Then came an opening to buy a house, and the financing to buy the house, and the project of repairing the house to make it liveable.
Sure, and it took me a year to remodel the home, something I could have done before in less than 90 days. Sure, I still have episodes, but they are just episodes, and I know they will end (which is wonderful to know). Sure, I am not able to walk off into the forest and go hunting or fishing (yet), but I can consistently walk 2 1/2 miles at a time - And measuring miles is a delight when one considers that I used to measure in feet.
Am I perfectly healed? No... Not if one measures healing physically. That is most certainly a work in progress, with profound and measured improvement (my doctors are completely boggled). But what this testing has done for me spiritually and mentally is without price. Even if I wind up back in that blasted chair, I will praise God for what He has given me.
So in a word, be quiet. You don't know what you are talking about. The bitterness you impart is not helping anyone, least of all, yourself.
Our God is an awesome God. He reigns.
wastedyears, I have been there and done that. Seek peace. Seek His face. Praise His name. Do not stop hoping and praying for relief and healing. Turn your attention outward, help others, don't worry about yourself. But turn your spirit inward toward the throne. Psalm 23. "He restoreth my soul." Healing does not begin in the body. It begins in the soul, a place (if you are like me) that you have probably neglected fearfully in your trials - Believe in Him. Believe He leads you, and then follow. If you do, I have no doubt you will be amazed at where you will wind up, and the crazy way you got there...
The story of Israel is mirror image of how God blesses and man refuses to accept His blessings. God creates laws, protects and guides. But we refuse to be obedient, wander away from the protection to seek refuse in worthless idols, and want to assert our will over His. It shows God constant grace, mercy and love in His calling, and it shows man’s utter contempt for the things of God. Eventually Israel was cast out of the land, though God in His mercy brought back a remnant-although they didn’t deserve it.
Though our Father has given to us a new heart to be obedient to His commands, the story of the nation of Israel is a reflection and warning of the evilness of our hearts to stray from God. We are constantly dependent on Him alone.
Yup, a rather cynical answer from a Lady who, if she tried at all, has never explained how she tried or what she hoped for as she tried. If she’s only passing on secondhand naysaying, that’s particularly cynical.
Yet, Jesus told Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:27-29)
In Christianity, it's not "seeing is believing, it's believing is seeing"!
In the WORD.
Athiest answer: just off yourself and put yourself put of your misery.
Believer's answer: there is hope in the midst of all trouble and God will be found when you seek him with all your heart.
That makes sense, since “all scripture is useful for... instruction.” If the saga of the Israelites meant nothing to modern Christians then this would not be true. Now some segments of Christendom (and I count myself among them) hold with a view that actually says the literal Jews are coming back into the limelight. Some call it dispensationalism. I don’t necessarily buy into everything that proponents of that view have propounded, but it answers a lot of questions including the question of how could God be woofing to those Israelites and only meaning figurative, spiritualized-out promises and not further literal ones like the literal promises they knew for thousands of years?
In a way it’s experimental perception... just as we now know there is such a thing as radio waves and a whole lot about how they behave. But nobody ever saw a radio wave. So nobody’s asking you to craft some make believe picture. Instead they’re asking you to exercise your spiritual sense.
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