A Discussion of the Cause of the Flood

[skyblue888]

Post # 18 The Flood (Concepts Revised part 8)

I thought of a number of people who, year after year, entered the competition for the best front garden in town. One man of unusual skill took the prize time after time until he came to think it was his by right. Yet, each year, he put forth the utmost effort to ensure that none outclassed him. The time came when, to his consternation, a new face entered the contest and it became apparent as the months went by, that this newcomer was an exceptional gardener whose efforts showed every prospect of taking off the first prize.

The usual prize winner became convinced that unless something was done, he certainly would not be the number one man this year and perhaps never would be again. Desperately, he worked harder on his own plot but he was never able to outstrip the new man. He saw at last that he could not win the contest by fair means so he determined to win it otherwise. In the dead of night, he let loose some animals to rampage through the property of the other, with the result that the beautiful garden was destroyed. When the judges came the next day, he received the prize as usual. No one knew, of course, that he was responsible for the devastation of the real prizewinning garden and he was most careful not to reveal this for he knew with what indignation such an action would be viewed.

Furthermore, the revelation to all concerned of what he had done would have turned the judges against him. Not one of them would have awarded him the prize. They would have agreed that the man whose garden had been ravaged was the real prize winner. Once it is clearly understood that the Lord had agreed to submit the principles of righteousness to any kind of test and declared that they would stand on their own merits without the interposition of arbitrary power, it will likewise be seen that should God at the last moment resort to the use of destructive power to wipe out the efforts of His competitor, then no one will believe in Him. He will be literally giving the case away to Satan.

God would give His enemy every just right to charge Him with unfairness, duplicity and deception. Satan would ask how he could ever fairly demonstrate his claims, when the Lord lets him go until he is on the very brink of success and then, because He is the possessor of omnipotent power, uses that to wipe out all Satan has achieved. Satan could rightfully complain that he never would have any real chance of proving anything. God would have no defence against this argument and it would actually serve to increase the spirit of rebellion in the universe. No fair-minded person would stand on God's side once these issues were clearly understood.

When I came to understand these things, I was thrown into quite a state of perplexity. Fortunately, my faith in the justice and honour of God's character and the veracity of the Scriptures was such that I was well prepared to hold on till the problem was solved. I believed that the Lord would answer my earnest and honest searching. Frankly I recognized that I was confronted with two contradictory pictures and with equal strength of conviction I knew that there was no such thing as a contradiction in the Scriptures but only in our understanding of them.

To be continued

[skyblue888]

Post # 19 The Flood (Concepts Revised part 9)

For a number of days, little else but this problem weighed upon my mind. Every opportunity I had was devoted to studying the Bible and to prayer. I knew that there must be a solution which would fully reconcile what God did at the flood and the eternal principles to which He was committed.

I knew that the standard evaluation of God's behaviour there could not be reconciled with the new truths I had learned about His character and law. Therefore, I became more and more doubtful of the popular view. I could not accept the idea that God, who knows all things from the beginning, would commit Himself to a position which would later get completely out of hand, forcing Him to introduce methods He had originally declared would never be used. If God did this, He would have to be rated as an impractical idealist and we need a God superior to that.

When God committed all the resources of heaven to ending the great controversy, He knew already the coming numerical imbalance at the flood. It did not catch Him by surprise and He had made full provision to meet the emergency. Therefore, when He promised the ultimate triumph of truth and predicted Christ's coming to the earth as an essential part of the plan, He was well aware how narrowly the scheme would come short of failure in Noah's day. Knowing all this in advance, did not perturb Him in the slightest. He made no provisions for it outside of His eternal principles of truth. He still committed Himself to fair and open contest.

Yet, while the traditional view of God's conduct at the flood had become suspect, I found at first, no alternative to take its place. Then suddenly, after several days of intense mental preoccupation, the solution came to my mind. All the things I had learned fell neatly and harmoniously into place and the problem was resolved. From that day to this, no argument raised by anyone has caused me to doubt what I saw that day.

I saw that God had not sent the flood to obliterate Satan's forces. On the contrary, He had done His very best to keep the flood from coming for as long as He possibly could. When it finally came, it was not because He had sent it, but because He could no longer prevent it.

The key to the problem lay in the application of two principles. The first is that God will never force His presence where it is not desired, and the second is that every power in nature is directly and continually dependent on God's creative power to keep it on station fulfilling its appointed task. Therefore, in the era leading up to the deluge, the sun and the moon, which were critical factors in the coming of the flood, were dependent on the presence of God's power to keep them burning at exactly the correct heat level and stationed at the proper distance from the earth. Let the Lord's hand be removed from the control and direction of those two orbs of fire, and the flood had to follow.

Under Satan's determined and relentless influence, men increasingly desired total separation from God. They wanted nothing of His ways or principles. God, knowing the dreadful consequences of such a course, sent message after message pleading with them to correct their drift, but they steadily insisted on His departure.

Because He will never force His presence where it is not desired, He had no choice but to depart. In doing so, He gave them what they wanted, the control of the heavens and the earth. The moon, being nearer to the earth, was the first to feel the effect of God's departure. It went out entirely. The sun, much further away from men and much larger than the moon, took longer to diminish completely. Before it could do so, the wicked had perished and suddenly the situation was reversed. Whereas the majority had been against God, now the changed situation placed the majority on His side. They were only eight in number but still the majority.

These, of course, desired the Lord to fill His office and do His work of sustaining the powers of heaven and earth. Thus the returning Spirit of God was able to arrest any further decay in the sun and maintain it at the diminished level. It has remained that way ever since.

to be continued

[skyblue888]

Post # 20 The Flood (Concepts Revised part 10)

With the moon out and the sun at diminished output, there was neither the heat energy to return the water to its proper place nor the energy to maintain it there. Nor was it possible for the surviving remnant to live on a shoreless ocean. The water must be relocated to expose sufficient land to produce food for man and beast. This was accomplished by the violent upthrusts of land masses forming the great mountain chains and peaks found in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rockies, and so on. Additionally, enormous quantities of water were held in cold storage at the poles.

Artists' representations of conditions experienced by the disembarking voyagers, give the impression that the water gently subsided and Noah and his family emerged to a scarred but peaceful earth. This has to be far from true. We have no concept of the titanic convulsions which all but tore this earth apart. There were no great mountain chains between the creation and the cataclysm. The earth was beautifully formed with pleasant, undulating land, low hills, verdant valleys and slowly moving rivers. Think, then, of the energy necessary to open up the almost bottomless ocean depths, and thrust those huge mountain chains into the air as high as twenty-nine thousand feet.

During the flood, unbelievable quantities of organic material were buried in the earth which quickly generated heat. This burst through to the surface in explosions and fiery issues. Volcanoes circled the globe. Most of them are extinct today, but then they belched forth smoke and fire incessantly.

Grim indeed was the view confronting the patriarch, his wife, and children, as they stepped out of their boat. The sky was filled with the pall of black smoke, the earth heaved and shook as earthquake tremors succeeded each other. It must have required some centuries before it settled down again.

But none of these terrible destructions were the work of God.

Neither man nor Satan can justly charge God with the damages done. It was not His direct act by which the moon was

extinguished and the sun dimmed. He laboured unceasingly to save man from stepping so far out of the ways of righteousness as to compel His retirement from control. If His efforts had been successful, there never would have been a flood. It came, not because God sent it, but because He could not stop it. Those who believe that there are two sides to the character of God—the loving side and "His strange act"—see the flood coming as a result of God's changing from the former to the latter.

The real truth is that the flood proved inevitable, not because God changed His tactics, but because He remained undeviatingly the same. With Him, the use of force has ever been excluded. Therefore, to have prevented the flood once His final appeals had been rejected would have required Him to change to forcing His presence where it was emphatically not desired. This He could not do, thus leaving nothing to prevent the onset of disaster.

Satan and men had applied the greatest possible pressure upon God to force Him into changing His ways and introducing the weapons of force into His arsenal. But they failed. God had forseen it from the beginning and simply went composedly on His way as the crisis developed, knowing that His principles would stand the test. They did.

Next Sodom and Gomorrah

[teresaq]

Originally Posted By: skyblue888

"All will be a happy, united family, clothed with the garments of praise and thanksgiving--the robe of Christ's righteousness. All nature in its supassing loveliness will offer to God a constant tribute of praise and adoration. The world will be bathed in the light of Heaven. The years will move on in gladness. The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold greater than it is now. Over the scene the morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy, while God and Christ will unite in proclaiming, 'There shall be no more sin, neither shall there be any more death.' E.G. White, My Life Today,348. See also Ministry of Healing,506 or Testimonies, Vol.8, 42 or The Review and Herald, Nov.6,1903.

You admitted not to have taken the time to read all the posts. How can you give a rebuttal if you don't take the time to read everything?

sky

I do not find anything in that quote that could even remotely apply it to the flood Sky?

You admitted not to have taken the time to read all the posts. How can you give a rebuttal if you don't take the time to read everything?

So do you want to discuss these points?

Are you willing to accept that this could be a misinterpretation?

Mark :-)

i personally would prefer to pray over this and allow God time to prove or disprove it.

[Twilight]

Originally Posted By: Twilight

I do not find anything in that quote that could even remotely apply it to the flood Sky?

You admitted not to have taken the time to read all the posts. How can you give a rebuttal if you don't take the time to read everything?

Is it not wise to start at the beginning?

I have found that when examining any idea, you should look for the central pillar of that idea.

If there are assumptions at the beginning, then you do not need to examine or go further.

The first thing to do is check and test those assumptions.

And this is what I have endeavoured to do here.

The first two texts do not relate specifically to the flood at all.

The same goes for this statement you have supplied.

Out of context quotes and texts do not prove a doctrine.

Why would anyone go further if the foundations are built on sand?

The scripture does not support this idea, if this is your main points of "proof".

So do you want to discuss these points?

Are you willing to accept that this could be a misinterpretation?

Mark :-) [/quote']

Remember what the pen of inspiration said? "When one ray of light is disregarded, there is a partial benumbing of the spiritual perceptions, and the second revealing of light is less clearly discerned." D.A.322.

sky

But there is nothing wrong in rejecting darkness that is masquerading as light.

I do not think for one minute that you do not believe this to be light.

But I am challenging the idea that it is light at all.

I am challenging the idea.

If you have identified yourself with that idea, you might mistake my challenge as a challenge on you.

It is not.

God bless,

Mark

[Twilight]

Originally Posted By: Twilight

I do not find anything in that quote that could even remotely apply it to the flood Sky?

You admitted not to have taken the time to read all the posts. How can you give a rebuttal if you don't take the time to read everything?

So do you want to discuss these points?

Are you willing to accept that this could be a misinterpretation?

Mark :-) [/quote']i personally would prefer to pray over this and allow God time to prove or disprove it.

How do you know that it is not the Lord leading to pronounce this as error Teresa? :-)

The Lord does not need "time" to prove error.

He only needs to enlighten our spirits, mind and heart so that we can discern.

The thing that slows people down is not the Lords ability to reveal, but mens ability to percieve spiritual truth.

Of course prayer is important in these matters, but how do you know I have not prayed?

Mark :-)

[skyblue888]

Personally, I believe it is presumption to ask the Lord to reveal something He has already made plain to us, again and again. The same thing happened in 1888. The pen of inspiration said, "The grace of the Holy Spirit has been presented to you again and again." And how was it presented? Again and again the people were invited to receive the Holy Spirit by simply looking unto Jesus and trusting wholly in the merits of His shed blood. See T.M.93,92,96,97. But there were those who opposed this simple truth and they prevented the people from receiving it. They interposed between the heaven-sent light and the people. See 1 S.M.234,235. This is why the Holy Spirit sent a most solemn warning to them. "Take off the shoes from off your feet for you are on holy ground. Beware how you indulge the attributes of Satan, and pour contempt upon the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. I know not but some have even now gone too far to return and to repent." "

"The only remedy is belief in the truth, acceptance of the light." T.M.89,90,91.

Today the precious light of truth regarding the character of God is that "God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression, but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to themselves to reap that which they have sown." G.C.36.

This means exactly what Mrs. White was shown: "I was shown that God's judgments do not come direclty out from the Lord upon them but in this way--they place themselves beyond His protection." MR 14, 3.1.

And when men have filled up the cup of iniquity the Lord gives the command to His angels to no longer combat Satan in his efforts to destroy. And this is described in Holy Writ as the anger of the Lord or the wrath of God. Believe it because it is the truth, because God says it and the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

sky

[Twilight]

Personally, I believe it is presumption to ask the Lord to reveal something He has already made plain to us, again and again. The same thing happened in 1888. The pen of inspiration said,

sky

Plain to who Sky?

You think it is plain when others obviously do not. :-(

We have not even begun to discuss the assumptions the opening post was based on.

Yet I sense there is not much point.

You will be totally fixed, not given to receiving anything you have not already "received" and will just claim others are spiritually blind when they will not accept what you "know" to be great light.

Because of that, a discussion would result in accusation and counter accusation.

If you are willing to discuss these things with an open mind, I would be happy.

But from past experience, I do not think you would be willing to do that sadly.

You will just keep condemning anyone who does not "accept" what you are presenting as "light".

If you could even consider for a moment that you are open to being deceived as are we all, a conversation could go forward.

Mark

[skyblue888]

You know Mark, I remember not long ago when this topic was discussed, a couple of months ago may be, you said that you could not really make up your mind because you had not really given this subject much thought before. But now you are talking as though you are totally conversant with it. In fact now we need to sit at your feet and be taught. There are some of us who have spent years and years studying this issue. I am not saying by this that it is the number of years we have studied that decides the matter because it all depends who is at our side when we study. But there is the possibility that some of us have been taught of God all these years. We cannot rule that out.

I felt the same way when I shared the message on the merits of Christ. Not very long after you embraced the light I felt that I had to sit at your feet and be taught when the Lord had exercised my mind upon that very subject for the last ten years.

I am sorry to say Mark but I find that you are using human reasoning too much here instead of accepting the simple statements of the Lord with the simple faith of a little child.

sky

[Twilight]

You know Mark, I remember not long ago when this topic was discussed, a couple of months ago may be, you said that you could not really make up your mind because you had not really given this subject much thought before. But now you are talking as though you are totally conversant with it. In fact now we need to sit at your feet and be taught. There are some of us who have spent years and years studying this issue. I am not saying by this that it is the number of years we have studied that decides the matter because it all depends who is at our side when we study. But there is the possibility that some of us have been taught of God all these years. We cannot rule that out.

I felt the same way when I shared the message on the merits of Christ. Not very long after you embraced the light I felt that I had to sit at your feet and be taught when the Lord had exercised my mind upon that very subject for the last ten years.

I am sorry to say Mark but I find that you are using human reasoning too much here instead of accepting the simple statements of the Lord with the simple faith of a little child.

sky

I stated that I was open at the beginning, which indeed I was.

When you presented the truth of the merits of Christ to me, I asked the Lord to reveal it and He did.

This time it is different.

Clear biblical principles show that what is being presented is error.

I am not the only one saying this.

Others with many years of experience are expressing the same concerns.

Should we add the "years" up?

:-)

-----------------------------------------

As to sitting at my feet.

I sincerely hope that all will sit at the feet of Jesus and learn.

This is about us all sharing with one another and being open to listen to one another.

Does God not use His "children" to teach His "adults"?

Maybe we should all seek to learn from others, even if they have not been in the "truth" as long as oneself.

But for us to do that, it would take genuine humility that only the Holy Spirit can supply.

As I have pointed out before Sky, when there is a spirit of accusation being aimed at a brother, one should search within their own heart to see if the crime is hiding there.

As you have accused me of "desiring" to be the teacher, maybe you should examine your own heart and see if a teachable spirit is indeed present or if you can only interact with others as their "teacher"?

In love,

Mark

[teresaq]

...

Clear biblical principles show that what is being presented is error.

I am not the only one saying this.

Others with many years of experience are expressing the same concerns.

Should we add the "years" up?

hmmm.

i wonder who of us here could claim to be "men of God" and infallible in our understanding?

[skyblue888]

me of course Teresa! ask Mark! hehehe

[skyblue888]

Now it is time to take a look at how the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.

Post # 1 Sodom and Gomorrah

Noah and his family emerged from the ark to tread a shattered earth. The destruction was beyond description.

The Noachic flood was none of God's doing, it having come in spite of His efforts. Therefore, His statement that there would never again be a flood of water, was not an undertaking to restrain Himself, but a prediction of what the future held.

For there to be another flood of water, the conditions necessary to produce it must exist. Before Noah's time, they did, but today they no longer do, as they did then. The only way total flooding could reoccur would be for the polar caps to melt, the mountain chains levelled into the ocean depths and, in general, the land masses reduced to about the same elevation. All the water which covered the earth in the first days of creation and which returned to submerge it again, is still here. Therefore, it would cover the earth if it was evenly distributed over the surface again.

Should the Lord withdraw His sustaining presence from the earth, convulsions of this magnitude are not impossible. It happened before, to produce the ocean depths and the mountain heights, for neither of these existed between the creation and the flood.

But we are well informed in God's Word that this is not the direction things will take when His presence is finally and fully withdrawn from the earth. Rather, a flood of fire, not water, will engulf the planet.

These floods, firstly of water and lastly of fire, are not disconnected. The former is the parent of the latter. This relationship should be clearly understood, and it will be the purpose of the evidences and arguments immediately following, to certify this.

To be continued

[skyblue888]

Post # 2 Sodom and Gomorrah

It is not usual to think of water producing fire, for water is the most commonly used means of extinguishing a conflagration. However, it is easily proved that the waters of the flood were the direct cause of destructive fires which have burst forth from the earth ever since, and are the means whereby enormous amounts of fuel will be provided to fire that last great holocaust.

More than this, it is desired to show that the flood, though itself long since over, lives on in the form of offspring. Some roam the earth as storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, and tempests, others are confined to a single location such as volcanoes, and still others break forth in expected and unexpected spots as earthquakes and tidal waves. All are devoted to missions of destruction.

The flood marks the time division between original tranquillity and the aberrations of nature. Of every one of these deviations from God's original scheme of things, the flood is also the parent. These disturbances may be divided into two categories: those found in the earth, and the others in the atmosphere. The first of these include volcanic eruptions, thermal activities, earthquakes and tidal waves. In the latter are storms, tempests, hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes, typhoons, floods, and droughts.

Problems arising within the earth were spawned when the flood waters buried vast forests whose timbers were of majestic and durable quality. Under the multiplied pressures of earth and rock beneath which they were entombed, they turned to coal which then produced oil. In some cases the generated heat ignites these materials which penetrate to the surface, forming volcanoes, thermal activities, and fiery fissures. There are situations where the opening earth admits tonnages of water which, contacting the molten rock, transforms into steam. Great pressures are built up causing underground explosions, the radiating shock waves of which trigger earthquakes. These are also caused by subsidence of the earth as the supporting material below is consumed. When an earthquake happens at sea, a tidal wave is launched.

Thus, the flood is truly the parent of all these troubles within the earth itself. Weather as it is today, is the product of conditions brought about by the deluge. The redistribution of land and water masses, the location of mountains and flat lands, and the inequalities of climate, all formed by the flood, are the determining factors in producing atmospheric problems from their mildest to their wildest forms. There is not the space nor need in this volume to make a detailed study of weather, interesting and valuable as such would be. Those who do undertake such an investigation will be suitably impressed with the relationship between the weather and the conditions established by the flood.

One example will suffice.

To be continued

[skyblue888]

In November, 1977, a severe snow storm ravaged South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin before crossing the border into Canada. A moisture-laden mass of warm air had flowed northward from the Gulf of Mexico until it met a southbound cold front originating in the Arctic zone. At the meeting point over the northern states, the warm, moist air was chilled and immediately precipitated in heavy snowfalls. Roads were closed, lives were lost, and extensive damage was done. It was days before life returned to normal.

This was possible only because of the geographical and climatic factors existing. Had there been another displacement of these elements, the northern states would never have had that storm. If, for instance the Rocky Mountains had lain east and west across southern Texas, the advancing warm air would have been forced upward to chillier elevations causing it to condense into rain which would have fallen on the coastal plains and run back to the sea again. There would never have been the confrontation between warm and cold fronts which produced the storms and losses in the north. Likewise, if the mountain chains had been lying east and west in Canada the cold front would never have come through to the south. It would have detoured off to the east or west.

Consideration of other possibilities would produce interesting results. Suppose that the Gulf of Mexico was dry land, that the mountain chains all lay east-west so that a plain stretched between them from the Pacific to the Atlantic, or that the United States was another shape. The weather pattern in each case would be very different.

What tremendous changes the flood set up, producing results which reach down to the end of time. The destruction initiated at the flood but halted before it had finally consumed all things, will then break forth to completion. Those fires by which the earth will be reduced to ashes, will also be the child of the flood, for the remaining deposits of coal and oil in the earth will fuel that last conflagration.

In the meantime, drought and flood, tempest and earthquake, tidal wave and hurricane, volcano and fire, are that cataclysm's troubled offspring which will plague earth dwellers till the end. Not every area is afflicted with all these scourges. In fact, some parts are apparently free from them. This explains why some centres of sin pass unscathed year after year, while others seemingly less iniquitous, are struck down with shocking suddenness. Those cities located right where one of these children of the flood resides, need to be far more careful than those in positions more favoured.

For years the giant of destruction will remain unseen or manifest itself only in mild forms, because the restraining power of God holds it in check while He seeks to woo men from their danger and while there remains in the city a faithful remnant for whose sake He will continue His restraint. But, during this time, the unwitting inhabitants continue to resist His appeals until finally He has no choice but to leave them to their desires.

The unfettered monster then bursts with unannounced fury upon the unprotected heads and homes of the abandoned sinners, whose destruction may be as total in the area where they are, as it was over the whole earth when the flood came. Sodom and Gomorrah were a case in point.

To be continued

[pnattmbtc]

Originally Posted By: pnattmbtc

I have a short statement to make in regards to the flood.

If one looks at either Scripture, or the SOP, or creation scientists who have sought to create flood models, in all three scenarios the flood waters were precipitated by waters which were underneath the earth's crust. These waters erupted into the earth's atmosphere, and then fell back to earth. Scripture speaks of this as the waters of the depths bursting forth.

How could the waters in the depths erupt into the atmosphere? They would have had to have been under great pressure. It follows that if God was preventing these waters from erupting, but ceased doing so after 120 years of warning, then God would be acting according the principles of GC 35-37.

i have basically skimmed most of skys posts except for a couple but will go back and read more carefully.

i can see where the water in the earth was held under pressure much like the fire is now.

would you say, offhand, that skys presentation and your point could fit together?

Yes. I think there's no doubt the water's of the depths were under great pressure, regardless of the mechanism which caused that to happen. I don't think the mechanism was an arbitrary act of God, but some natural phenomenon, such as what sky is mentioning.

An interesting point is that the SOP says that Satan feared for his life in the flood.

[skyblue888]

Post # 4 Sodom and Gomorrah

The Scriptures report the devastation of those cities and their peoples in the same way that all the other destructions which fell upon abandoned sinners are described.

"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." Genesis 19:24,25.

To millions of Bible readers, these words have pictured God as personally pouring great sheets of flame from His own hands upon the hapless victims below. But, those who have come to learn and accept the principles of God's character as explored in this study and who have learned to use the Bible as its own dictionary, know that such an interpretation is wholly incorrect.

Rather, the truly Biblical interpretation of these words is that the Lord had no option but to withdraw and leave the wicked to the fate they had chosen. This He had done only when every means and appeal had been totally exhausted and there was nothing more He could do. Then, whatever potential of destruction was lurking in the area, was unleashed. The result was terminal.

There is always great value in assessing the implications of a certain belief, so study will now be given to see in what image God is cast by the belief that He personally poured that fire down upon the dwellers of the plains. Only a certain kind of God would do this.

Death by fire is one of the cruellest and most-to-be-feared ways to die. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, on February 1, 1974, a fire started by an electrical short-circuit in an air-conditioner, engulfed the upper fourteen stories of a newly constructed twenty-five story bank building, trapping hundreds of workers as the flames fed on combustible interior-finish materials. Due to inadequate escape facilities, at least two hundred and twenty-seven persons lost their lives. Those in the higher floors above the fire level found themselves cut off. As the fire advanced upwards, many chose to die by leaping from the upper levels rather than face the hungry flames.

In the jungles and forests it is the thing most feared by the animal kingdom. Beasts and reptiles lose all fear of each other as they flee pell-mell from the roaring flames. There is good reason, for death by fire is a horrible death.

Think of yourself as facing the death penalty, the only consolation being that the choice of how you will die is given to you. The choices are firing squad, gassing, the electric chair, beheading, hanging, or being burned alive. None of these is a pleasant prospect, but when you sit and think of your body being roasted while you are still alive, you know that that is the very last choice you would make. It is not difficult to realize that this is the kind of death which a judge or king would impose upon a person whose death he wished to make as painful as possible.

to be continued

[skyblue888]

Originally Posted By: teresaq(sda)

i have basically skimmed most of skys posts except for a couple but will go back and read more carefully.

i can see where the water in the earth was held under pressure much like the fire is now.

would you say, offhand, that skys presentation and your point could fit together? [/quote']

Yes. I think there's no doubt the water's of the depths were under great pressure, regardless of the mechanism which caused that to happen. I don't think the mechanism was an arbitrary act of God, but some natural phenomenon, such as what sky is mentioning.

An interesting point is that the SOP says that Satan feared for his life in the flood.

Yes, very interesting!

[skyblue888]

Post # 5 Sodom & Gomorrah

Picture the scene back there when the consuming flames fell upon the cities of the plain. The Scriptures tell us that "when the morning arose," Lot and his family were hurried out of the city and, as soon as they were clear, the destruction fell in flaming torrents.

Therefore it was an early morning conflagration. The sun is beginning to mount in the heavens. The golden glow of the morning is changed to fiery orange and red. People are glancing with fearful apprehension through the windows and see an appalling spectacle outside. Fire is running like a river down the street engulfing victims in its path who fall writhing and twisting in searing agony.

Within the house, there is protection for only a short time. The flames are consuming the timbers, licking in through doors and windows and reaching out for the trapped ones inside. They retreat to an inner room, but though it gives them a little longer to live, it makes the end more agonizing. Steadily, the temperature in the room rises while the flames batter at the walls without, until the room becomes an oven in which they are slowly but terribly baked alive. The temperature of their clothes rises above ignition point and bursts into flames. As they tear them off, their flesh comes away in great sheets and the stench of cooking human tissue chokes the air.

When the flames at last break through the walls they are already dead, lying naked of clothes and skin in twisted, bloated, horrible postures. The expressions frozen by death on their faces, express the extreme suffering of terror and pain through which they departed.

It is not a pleasant scene upon which to dwell. It would have been a far worse one to behold. Yet it must be visualized as realistically as possible so that it can be comprehended that no God of mercy, justice, and love, would ever behave in such a way to personally and deliberately inflict a death of this nature upon anyone.

The ability to do certain things reveals the disposition within the doer. It is not possible for any being in the universe, including God, to do everything. The truth of this statement is confined to the spiritual and ethical side of the person. Admittedly, God has the physical power by which He can do anything. But while He has the might, there are some things His character will never permit Him to do. Just as surely as Satan's character will not allow him to love, so God's character prevents Him from hating any other individual, no matter how much that person may have wronged Him.

Therefore, if God poured the fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, it could only be because it was in Him to do it. It had to be a part of His character. Therefore, God has within Him a spirit of cruelty by which He is motivated to select the cruellest possible death for those who have refused to obey Him. Without that, He could never have treated the Sodomites as He is accused of having done.

But that is not God's character. He is not cruel, sadistic, and revengeful. He would never select the worst conceivable punishment, and then administer it to those who did not appreciate His ways and acted contrary to His ideas.

Terrible are the implications of believing that God determined that the cities of the plain should be consumed by fire and then proceeded to do it. It is to equate Him with the papacy, whose constant practice was to burn to death those who refused to submit to her assumed authority. Something of the seriousness of this is manifested when it is recognized that the papacy is Satan's masterpiece of misrepresentation of God's character. If we wish to understand what God is not, then behold the principles and practices of the papacy. The way God is supposed to have behaved at Sodom and Gomorrah is exactly as the papacy would have behaved if she had been in God's position. Therefore, how God is thought to have behaved is certainly not the way He conducted His affairs there.

The papacy went forth to convert the people to her religious beliefs and service. When her first efforts were unsuccessful, she began to exert pressure upon them until, when it was clear that the subjects of her ministrations had no mind to ever obey her, she cruelly destroyed them with fire. In doing this, she represented herself not only as administering the will of God but of doing it as she and Satan would have it believed God does it.

The very fact that this is the way of the papacy is certain denial of its being God's way for, if anyone wishes to know what God is not, let him behold what the papacy is and what she does. Contrawise, if anyone wishes to know what God is, let him look at the life of Jesus Christ. Never will the two witnesses agree.

It is with horror and loathing that we read of the papal practice of burning victims to death. Yet we have looked with satisfaction upon God's destroying by fire (as we imagined He did) those who would not obey Him. But careful thought will lead all to understand that if they do continue to believe that God personally decreed that the Sodomites should die by fire and then as personally administered the destruction, then our God is a cruel, revengeful, and therefore self-centred God. Of such a God the papacy is a fit symbol.

Evidence that would further help us to deny such teachings is found in the varying habits of men according to the influence Christianity has had over them. Those heathen races who have little or no Christian influence are the ones who will execute their victims with the greatest cruelty. They will devise means of bringing them to the very doors of death and then resuscitating them, so that they die over and over again as it were.

But those nations where the mighty influence of Protestantism has had its effect, dispatch their criminals and traitors in the most painless way possible. The hangman was required to study how to set the noose so that death would be instant from a broken neck rather than from strangulation, while the headsman was required to strike only one sure blow fairly on the exposed neck of the condemned.

The ultimate witness to the character of God is found in those who have drawn so near to Him as to possess His character. Such a people cannot be brought to take up any weapon of destruction against anyone, not even their very worst enemies. They would much rather die themselves than take the life of another. That is the example of the life of Christ. He would rather die Himself than require that the life of another be taken. This is the ultimate outliving of the injunction to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. A God who counselled this kind of behaviour as the reflection of His own, could never pour fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. He did there just what He did on every other occasion. He did not "stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He left "the rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they had sown." The Great Controversy, 36.

If the Lord of heaven did not act the part of an executioner and personally pour fire on those cities, how were they destroyed? Are we left with no scientific information to reveal the nature of that disaster?

to be continued

[skyblue888]

Post # 6 Sodom & Gomorrah

There is a considerable amount of information available if careful search is made for it, though hampering the search is the relative uncertainty as to where these cities actually stood.

There are those scholars who have looked for the cities on the northern side of the Dead Sea, but "Other scholars seek these cities underneath the waters of the southern end of the Dead Sea. Arguments for this view are more numerous and weighty:

(1) The 'vale of Siddim' in which these cities were located is identified with the 'salt sea' in Genesis 14:3. The northern two-thirds of the present Dead Sea reaches a depth of one thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight feet, and must have existed as early as Abraham's time, but the depth of the southern part nowhere exceeds sixteen feet. Submerged trees show that part of this area was dry in relatively modern times, and accurate measurements have shown that the level of the sea has been steadily rising during the last century.

"(2) Asphalt is found at the southern end of the Dead Sea, while the Vale of Siddim is said to have been 'full of slimepits,' RSV 'bitumen pits' (Genesis 14:10). Bitumen, or asphalt, still erupts from the bottom of the southern part of the Dead Sea and floats to the shore.

"(3) Statements made by classical authors, Diodorus Siculus (ii. 48. 7-9), Strabo (Georgr. xvi. 2. 42-44), Tacitus (Hist. v. 6. 7), and Josephus (War iv. 8. 4), describe an area south of the Dead Sea (presumably now covered by its rising water) as scorched by a fiery catastrophe that destroyed several cities whose burned remains were still visible in their day. Foul gases are said to emerge from fissures of the ground. Compare Deuteronomy 29:23. Submerged forest in the Dead Sea near Jebel Usdum, "Mount of Sodom". Somewhere under these waters lie the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah.

"(4) Geologists have found oil and natural gases in the ground at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which is at the same time an area frequently disturbed by earthquakes, hence furnished all the conditions for the catastrophe described in the Bible. Furthermore, Jebel Usdum, the 'Mount of Sodom,' at the southwestern shore of the Dead Sea, consists of 50 per cent rock salt. Some have conjectured that in an upheaval during the destruction of Sodom some of this salt may have been dislodged and may have buried Lot's wife, piling over her to form a 'pillar of salt' (Genesis 19:26). (The place where the Israelis have a potash extraction plant, on the southwestern shore, has been named Sodom, but it has no connection with the ancient Sodom.)

"(5) A number of streams enter the southern part of the Dead Sea from the east, in a region that is still very fertile, and it is reasonable to believe that the whole valley now forming the southern-most part of the Dead Sea was once that exceptionally fertile plain, one fitting the Bible description which compares the land with the Garden of Eden and the Nile valley (ch 13:10).

"(6) Kyle and Albright, in their exploration of the region lying southeast of the Dead Sea, found no ancient ruins of cities, but discovered an elaborate place of worship on a hillside with remains dating from before 1800 B.C. This site, Bab edh-Dhra', evidently was a place where the annual festivals of a large population were held. The cities in which this population once lived must have been in the area now covered by the waters of the Dead Sea.

"(7) Zoar, one of the 5 cities of the plain (Genesis 14:2), was at the southern end of the Dead Sea in the time of Christ." The S.D.A. Bible Dictionary, 8:1028, 1029. This statement gives excellent reasons for concluding that the site of those ancient cities was at the southern end of the Dead Sea. But it also tells some further interesting facts about the area. "Bitumen, or asphalt, still erupts from the bottom of the southern part of the Dead Sea and floats to the shore. . . . Geologists have found oil and natural gases in the ground at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which is at the same time an area frequently disturbed by earthquakes."

The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1975 Edition, Macropedia, Volume 14:165 states:

"The Dead Sea was known in ancient times as Lake Asphaltites (from which is derived the term asphaltum) because of the semisolid petroleum washed up on its shores from underwater seepages.

"Even today the southern region of the Dead Sea is rich in asphalt. Inflammable gases still escape from rock crevices in the area. Asphalt rising to the surface of the southern part of the Dead Sea gave to it the name Lake Asphaltitis in classical times. Massive lumps of asphalt floating on the surface are often of sufficient size to support several persons. Asphalt, sulphur, and other combustible materials have been reclaimed and exported from this region for years." The S.D.A. Bible Commentary, 1:335.

Asphalt, oil, natural and highly inflammable gases and earthquakes are not common to every part of the world, but they are a combination often found together. Where they are found indicates a spot where enormous amounts of vegetable material in the form of plants and trees together with animal and human carcases were buried at the flood. Where such materials are found there is the formation of coal, oil, gas, and petroleum which may or may not combust. If it does, then volcanic or thermal activity will result, usually accompanied by earthquakes and tremors.

"Before the flood there were immense forests. The trees were many times larger than any trees which we now see. They were of great durability. They would know nothing of decay for hundreds of years. At the time of the flood these forests were torn up or broken down and buried in the earth. In some places large quantities of these immense trees were thrown together and covered with stones and earth by the commotions of the flood. They have since petrified and become coal which accounts for the large coal beds which are now found. This coal has produced oil. God causes large quantities of coal and oil to ignite and burn. Rocks are intensely heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted. Water and fire under the surface of the earth meet. The action of water upon the limestone adds fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanoes and fiery issues. The action of fire and water upon the ledges of rocks and ore, causes loud explosions which sound like muffled thunder. These wonderful exhibitions will be more numerous and terrible just before the coming of Christ and the end of the world, as signs of its speedy destruction.

Coal and oil are generally to be found where there are no burning mountains or fiery issues. When fire and water under the surface of the earth meet, the fiery issues cannot give sufficient vent to the heated elements beneath. The earth is convulsed—the ground trembles, heaves, and rises into swells or waves, and there are heavy sounds like thunder underground. The air is heated and suffocating. The earth quickly opens, and I saw villages, cities and burning mountains carried down together into the earth." Spiritual Gifts, 3:79, 80.

This makes it plain that wherever there is a spot on the earth where such enormous amounts of vegetation have been buried to petrify into coal and oil, there is the potential for volcanic eruptions and devastating earthquakes. The evidences still existing today show that Sodom and Gomorrah and their associated villages and towns were located over just such a spot.

They were in danger constantly, for they were living over a powder keg, a disaster which was only waiting to happen. But the Lord desired their salvation. He was as loathe to see them perish as He is to see anyone destroyed. So, He filled His usual role of protector of those wicked cities, while His Spirit pleaded with them to repent and escape the wrath to come. But they would not and the time came when finally the protecting Presence had to be withdrawn leaving no power to control the seething elements beneath the ground. Long held back, when released they exploded in one spectacular and all-consuming fireball of destruction that filled the heavens above where they stood and the earth where they rested.

It was not something which God sent in the sense that He decreed what should happen to them and then personally used His power to see that it happened. Rather it came, not because the Lord brought it, but because He could not hold it back any longer. There was no one the Sodomites could blame for their destruction but themselves.

to be continued

[nuff sed]

Hmmm.............I wonder where my piece of brimstone picked up on the plains of Gomorrah really came from? It sure does burn pretty when I touch a match to it.

[pnattmbtc]

It is not a pleasant scene upon which to dwell. It would have been a far worse one to behold. Yet it must be visualized as realistically as possible so that it can be comprehended that no God of mercy, justice, and love, would ever behave in such a way to personally and deliberately inflict a death of this nature upon anyone.

The ability to do certain things reveals the disposition within the doer. It is not possible for any being in the universe, including God, to do everything. The truth of this statement is confined to the spiritual and ethical side of the person. Admittedly, God has the physical power by which He can do anything. But while He has the might, there are some things His character will never permit Him to do. Just as surely as Satan's character will not allow him to love, so God's character prevents Him from hating any other individual, no matter how much that person may have wronged Him.

Therefore, if God poured the fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, it could only be because it was in Him to do it. It had to be a part of His character. Therefore, God has within Him a spirit of cruelty by which He is motivated to select the cruellest possible death for those who have refused to obey Him. Without that, He could never have treated the Sodomites as He is accused of having done.

Right! And for the same reason, it cannot be the case that God will set the wicked on fire at the end of time to cause them even worse suffering then that pictured here. It is not in Him to act this way. Simply studying the life of Christ makes this clear.

[skyblue888]

Originally Posted By: sky

It is not a pleasant scene upon which to dwell. It would have been a far worse one to behold. Yet it must be visualized as realistically as possible so that it can be comprehended that no God of mercy, justice, and love, would ever behave in such a way to personally and deliberately inflict a death of this nature upon anyone.

The ability to do certain things reveals the disposition within the doer. It is not possible for any being in the universe, including God, to do everything. The truth of this statement is confined to the spiritual and ethical side of the person. Admittedly, God has the physical power by which He can do anything. But while He has the might, there are some things His character will never permit Him to do. Just as surely as Satan's character will not allow him to love, so God's character prevents Him from hating any other individual, no matter how much that person may have wronged Him.

Therefore, if God poured the fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, it could only be because it was in Him to do it. It had to be a part of His character. Therefore, God has within Him a spirit of cruelty by which He is motivated to select the cruellest possible death for those who have refused to obey Him. Without that, He could never have treated the Sodomites as He is accused of having done.

Right! And for the same reason, it cannot be the case that God will set the wicked on fire at the end of time to cause them even worse suffering then that pictured here. It is not in Him to act this way. Simply studying the life of Christ makes this clear.

Amen.

What did you think of this:

"Terrible are the implications of believing that God determined that the cities of the plain should be consumed by fire and then proceeded to do it. It is to equate Him with the papacy, whose constant practice was to burn to death those who refused to submit to her assumed authority. Something of the seriousness of this is manifested when it is recognized that the papacy is Satan's masterpiece of misrepresentation of God's character. If we wish to understand what God is not, then behold the principles and practices of the papacy. The way God is supposed to have behaved at Sodom and Gomorrah is exactly as the papacy would have behaved if she had been in God's position. Therefore, how God is thought to have behaved is certainly not the way He conducted His affairs there.

The papacy went forth to convert the people to her religious beliefs and service. When her first efforts were unsuccessful, she began to exert pressure upon them until, when it was clear that the subjects of her ministrations had no mind to ever obey her, she cruelly destroyed them with fire. In doing this, she represented herself not only as administering the will of God but of doing it as she and Satan would have it believed God does it.

The very fact that this is the way of the papacy is certain denial of its being God's way for, if anyone wishes to know what God is not, let him behold what the papacy is and what she does. Contrawise, if anyone wishes to know what God is, let him look at the life of Jesus Christ. Never will the two witnesses agree.

It is with horror and loathing that we read of the papal practice of burning victims to death. Yet we have looked with satisfaction upon God's destroying by fire (as we imagined He did) those who would not obey Him. But careful thought will lead all to understand that if they do continue to believe that God personally decreed that the Sodomites should die by fire and then as personally administered the destruction, then our God is a cruel, revengeful, and therefore self-centred God. Of such a God the papacy is a fit symbol."

[teresaq]

The key to the problem lay in the application of two principles. The first is that God will never force His presence where it is not desired, and the second is that every power in nature is directly and continually dependent on God's creative power to keep it on station fulfilling its appointed task. Therefore, in the era leading up to the deluge, the sun and the moon, which were critical factors in the coming of the flood, were dependent on the presence of God's power to keep them burning at exactly the correct heat level and stationed at the proper distance from the earth. Let the Lord's hand be removed from the control and direction of those two orbs of fire, and the flood had to follow.

Under Satan's determined and relentless influence, men increasingly desired total separation from God. They wanted nothing of His ways or principles. God, knowing the dreadful consequences of such a course, sent message after message pleading with them to correct their drift, but they steadily insisted on His departure.

Because He will never force His presence where it is not desired, He had no choice but to depart. In doing so, He gave them what they wanted, the control of the heavens and the earth. The moon, being nearer to the earth, was the first to feel the effect of God's departure. It went out entirely. The sun, much further away from men and much larger than the moon, took longer to diminish completely. Before it could do so, the wicked had perished and suddenly the situation was reversed. Whereas the majority had been against God, now the changed situation placed the majority on His side. They were only eight in number but still the majority.

These, of course, desired the Lord to fill His office and do His work of sustaining the powers of heaven and earth. Thus the returning Spirit of God was able to arrest any further decay in the sun and maintain it at the diminished level. It has remained that way ever since.

this is such a good point!!

one thing about this message that i have not seen from the opposing side, is the stressing on how God protects and cares for us.

this message hits it home like nothing else can.

this, for me, is a gospel i can share far and wide!

God loves you so much, protects and cares for you every second and moment of the day, unless and until you convince Him you do not want anything whatsoever to do with Him.

but the alternative god will eventually destroy you in the worst possible way with the most demonic glee!!

look at the destruction of jerusalem.....

look at what happened in france during the reign of terror....

in fact we can look at almost every instance where man has left God...

aside from the instances where satan has been allowed to attack the people of God, such as job.

[teresaq]

i wonder if we also tend to look at Gods power in a negative way instead of positive...

instead of concentrating on How He holds the worlds together, sends the rain, brings up the plants, ad infinitum, the concentration is more on the destruction....

for example tradition says sodom and gomorrah was destroyed for homosexuality. what a field day religionists have had from whoever it was that came up with that idea!!

a great "weapon" to use against the homosexual forgetting that it is an example of what will happen to everyone who has forsaken God.....