Is destruction inevitable by a loving Creator?

[teresaq]

Thank you Teresaq. How wonderful and how very true. This was new to me. I was not aware our prophet had spoken so clearly on the topic. Praise God.

she talked more, and indepth, on the character we have to possess to inherit heaven than anything else.

so does the bible. :)

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

Thank you Teresaq. How wonderful and how very true. This was new to me. I was not aware our prophet had spoken so clearly on the topic. Praise God.

she talked more, and indepth, on the character we have to possess to inherit heaven than anything else.

so does the bible.

Well ... the quotes you provided were excellent and timely. I had not seen them before and was blessed. Thankyou.

[LifeHiscost]

"God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression." G.C.36.

Would the context of the statement above add something to the understanding that is not immediately evident without contextual inclusion. Also, when God takes part in the painful exercise, it is for the purpose of excising the cancer, not for execution of the patient.

So how do our minds respond to this below?

"And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt."Genesis 19:29 KJV

"If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are."1 Corinthians 3:17 NKJV

When a surgeon is called to perform surgery that proves to be successful, no one says, "Wasn't that a marvelous work that new scalpel performed?" When satan proves to be the tool of choice in performing the necessary cuts in the diseased body of Christ, we ought to be praising God for His performance, although I would admit that someone who doesn't believe that our Father is willing to get up close and personal as our sovereign Lord, might take exception to that viewpoint.

"And the patriarchs [Jacob's sons], boiling with envy and hatred and anger, sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt; but God was with him" Acts 7:9 AMP brackets their's LHC

"But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."

Genesis 50:20 NKJV

Blessings!

[teresaq]

Originally Posted By: skyblue888

"God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression." G.C.36.

...Also, when God takes part in the painful exercise, it is for the purpose of excising the cancer, not for execution of the patient.

if "the law is a transcript of Gods character", does He break that law?

[LifeHiscost]

Originally Posted By: LifeHiscost

...Also' date=' when God takes part in the painful exercise, it is for the purpose of excising the cancer, not for execution of the patient. [/quote']if "the law is a transcript of Gods character", does He break that law?

The immediate answer to most would probably be no. However perception of the commandment's meaning would probably have some affect on whether our conscience allowed us to do some activity.

Practical example! Drugs are toxic and deadly. And yet a major industry in the United States uses them in protocols where there are known to be from 106,000 to 160,000 deaths per year directly linked to those drugs. And especially should doctors be held responsible when the patient dies. Yet can we call the self sacrificing doctors murderers when they use those drugs for a hopeful result, all the while knowing the possible risk of death?

Thus God gives free choice to human beings, all the while knowing the high risk that free choice can lead to death.

Is this like comparing apples to oranges? God is infallible in His decisions. His earthly children aren't. Making it seem transparently obvious that God, Who is omniscient, should be the final arbiter in concluding whether one should live or die, not leaving it open to question when He decides one is not safe or happy in life extended.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;"Proverbs 3:5 NKJV

"Every man's way is right in his own eyes,But the LORD weighs the hearts."Proverbs 21:2 NASB

Blessings!

[teresaq]

Originally Posted By: teresaq

...

Practical example! Drugs are toxic and deadly. And yet a major industry in the United States uses them in protocols where there are known to be from 106,000 to 160,000 deaths per year directly linked to those drugs. And especially should doctors be held responsible when the patient dies. Yet can we call the self sacrificing doctors murderers when they use those drugs for a hopeful result, all the while knowing the possible risk of death? ...

we arent discussing manslaughter but deliberate, premeditated murder.

so do you have an example that would more resemble what is under discussion? :)

[LifeHiscost]

we arent discussing manslaughter but deliberate, premeditated murder.

so do you have an example that would more resemble what is under discussion?

[Gail]

Although the execution of justice is not the same as murder. The Old Testament penal system included the death penalty.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: teresaq

Hmmm. I thought teresaq had more to say than this.

[Guest]

It was kind of an empty thought.

[Woody]

It was kind of an empty thought.

Rarely is teresaq empty. I think this empty quote is a false accusation.

[skyblue888]

For days the rain poured down in steady torrents. The old earth dam was thirty-five years old. The water, brown and swirling, reached almost to its crest. Still the rain continued. In the river valley below, the residents went about their business, wishing the rain would end but paying little attention beyond that. Then it happened. The earth walls trembled beneath the mounting pressure of manifold tons of water, cracked, then exploded outwards, releasing a surging thirty-foot wall of roaring, foaming, savage destruction which raced at express train speed upon all that stood in its path. When its brief fury was spent, thirty-nine people were dead and forty-five seriously injured. Buildings and vehicules were savaged into wothless junk. Naturally, the insurance companies described the tragedy as an "ACT OF GOD."

Of course, THEY THOUGHT AS MEN.

[skyblue888]

Above the steaming jungles of a south-sea island, a great volcano raised its mighty crown. Of late, it had rumbled and smoked, causing the villagers to regard it with increasing apprehension. Then came the day when mighty explosions rent the air. Boiling lava flowed over the side and advanced inexorably on the villages below. Houses were consumed in the flames, crops were wiped out, and stock losses were heavy. The villagers themselves fled for their lives, finally taking to the steaming seas in canoes. With sober and awed faces they told one another that God was angry with them and they must work out some method of appeasing Him.

THIS IS TO THINK AS A MAN.

[skyblue888]

A person who had always enjoyed wonderful health, became seriously ill. Confined to a bed of suffering and pain in the hospital, his thoughts turned to God for comfort. He took a bedside Bible and, opening it for the first time in his life, began to read at the beginning. Passing beyond the Genesis record of creation and the fall of Adam, he came to the story of the flood where he read that God sent the waters on the earth to destroy those who would not obey Him. Then he read of the outpouring of fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues rained on Egypt, and the commands from God to the Israelites to go out and destroy the Amalekites down to the tender infant in arms. It was too much. He closed the Book declaring that he could neither love nor serve a God who could manifest such cruelty as he saw pictured in those words. How sad indeed that he read it all through the eyes of human understanding.

HE SAW GOD BEHAVING AS IF HE WERE A MAN!

[skyblue888]

Ever more frequently, disasters are destroying life and property around the world. Always it is regarded as being the work of God who is venting His wrath on a people who will not obey, respect, and love Him. THIS IS TO ATTRIBUTE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR TO GOD. This is not not to speak of God nor to think as He thinks. No one will ever love and serve God while he thinks of Him in the limited, superficial way of man.

The very facts of life prove this. Humans are so settled in the idea that an angry God is sending all these troubles on the earth that they do not question the notion. They believe that He does this to correct their disobedience, but it does not produce such a result. The more they are subjected to such treatment, the less they love God and the more rebelliously they pursue their own ways. This is the natural outcome.

Look and see if any earthly potentate ever won the love and loyalty of his subjects by inflicting upon them heavy punishments for disobedience. He may have obtained a craven service, but this is not the loyalty of love. Therefore, if God uses the tactics which men believe He does, then it is a self-defeating program. Instead of gaining loving and cheerful obedience, He is rewarded at best with a servile loyalty and, at worst, with open and flagrant rebellion!

[skyblue888]

There is another view altogether different, inspiringly beautiful, and refreshingly pleasant way to think of God. It is the way of Christ. The time surely has come when men need to speak of God, not as a man, but as Christ did. When men learn to speak of God as Christ did, then love, joy, admiration, loyalty, and peace will spring forth naturally from the human heart.

Then, God will truly be seen as a loving Father, not as a despotic monarch. When Christ came to this earth, He had a number of missions to accomplish. One of the most important of these was to expose the lie in circulation regarding His Father's wonderful character and to show the Father as He truly is. He invites all to see, to think and to speak of God as He sees, thinks and speaks of Him, not as men do.

Christ revealed the Father so fully that all that men can know or need to know about Him has been revealed in the life and character of His Son. Yet despite the magnificent level of perfection to which Christ did this work, this aspect of His divine ministry remains little known and recognized even to this day.

Not even the apostles of Christ awakened to it. It is for this reason that Philip said: "Lord, show us the Father, and if sufficeth us." Christ was greatly disappointed by this request. Well He might be, for it told Him that the purpose of His mission remained undiscerned by the ones nearest to Him--the ones who should have seen this the first and the most. "Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known Me, Philip? he that has seen Me has seen the Father; and how do you say then, Show us the Father?" John 14:8,9.

[skyblue888]

Christ affirmed that if they had seen Him and His wonderful character of love, then they had seen the Father. This is to assert, quite truthfully, that Christ had not merely come to declare the Father. He had also come to reveal or to manifest Him. To do the latter or even the former effectively, He must in Himself be a perfect and complete reproduction of the Father. This He indeed was.

Quite some time before this conversation with Philip took place, He had already informed them that His life was the perfect reflection of the Father's and that He did only what the Father did. "Then aswered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do: for what things soever He does, these also does the Son likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that Himself does: and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel." John 5:19,20.

The essential point in this declaration from Him who said of Himself, "I am the truth," is that not only did Christ do only the things which the Father did, but He did them likewise, or exactly as the Father did them. The methods, the principles of operation, the procedures of the One, are precisely and completely those of the Other.

Many have read the records of the Old Testament and have seen God as a wrathful, vengeful Being who thought nothing of pouring molten fire down on the hapless heads of those who would not repent, the Sodomites being a case in point. Then they have read the story of Christ and, seeing a being very different from the God they saw in the Old Testament, have concluded that the characters of God and Christ are different.

They see Christ as being gentle, loving, kind, forgiving, humble, and patient and as One who never once retaliated against His enemies. Irrespective of how brutally they treated Him, how unkindly they rejected Him, how mercilessly they harassed Him, and how shamelessly they lied about Him, He only responded by doing good to them in return. Though invited to destroy His rejectors, He never once lifted a finger to do so. To say that the Father and the Son have different characters is to SPEAK AS A MAN for this is not the way Christ spoke. With absolute finality and authority, He confirmed that He and the Father were of the same character and did the same works in the same way!

[Woody]

What has happened to this thread?

[Gail]

But CHrist also picked up a whip to drive out money changers to protest the abuse of the temple as God's house...

Mercy is in balance with justice.

[teresaq]

I was under the impression you were talking about the taking of life. Murder is with malice. When God takes life it is not murder. In fact He is merciful when removing a life that has nothing to look forward to other than the misery caused by living outside the parameters of God's injunctions....

the law states, thou shalt not kill. the "law is a transcript of Gods character."

so does God kill?

true

false

i dont know

i wont list each commandment so as not to make this post too long.

remember the sabbath day.....

does God ever break this commandment?

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

has God ever committed adultery?

Thou shalt not steal.

has God ever stolen?

so for me, to answer the question of whether or not God kills involves taking multiple perspectives into consideration.

[teresaq]

Originally Posted By: LifeHiscost

Hmmm. I thought teresaq had more to say than this.

the editing of the quotes does that sometimes. it happens to me on occasion. :)

[teresaq]

A person who had always enjoyed wonderful health, became seriously ill. Confined to a bed of suffering and pain in the hospital, his thoughts turned to God for comfort. He took a bedside Bible and, opening it for the first time in his life, began to read at the beginning. Passing beyond the Genesis record of creation and the fall of Adam, he came to the story of the flood where he read that God sent the waters on the earth to destroy those who would not obey Him. Then he read of the outpouring of fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues rained on Egypt, and the commands from God to the Israelites to go out and destroy the Amalekites down to the tender infant in arms. It was too much. He closed the Book declaring that he could neither love nor serve a God who could manifest such cruelty as he saw pictured in those words. How sad indeed that he read it all through the eyes of human understanding.

HE SAW GOD BEHAVING AS IF HE WERE A MAN!

this was a very good point!! we forget that many times we are reading the bible as if God thought just like me or someone else.

we so often forget there is an enemy sitting right beside us whispering in our ear interpreting the word we read.

[Gail]

Who instituted the civil laws in Israel? Those laws were to protect the innocent, weren't they?

[teresaq]

But CHrist also picked up a whip to drive out money changers to protest the abuse of the temple as God's house...

Mercy is in balance with justice.

[Gail]

I agree with all that.

Were the civil laws that Moses wrote down in a book instituted by God or Moses? They were punitive, but I agree that they also were to protect the innocent.