"war in heaven" - real or metaphorical?

[Robert]

the God I worship and know is a God who wants nothing more than the worship, love, and admiration of his intelligent creatures

Then He must be lovable....He must love me more than Himself....This love I see at the cross of Christ where God was willing to say goodbye to life forever so I could take His place. The God you present (and you are honest in doing so) is frightening....If I say "no" He kills me....Then, in the end, He will resurrect me (as if killing me wasn't enough) and burn me with fire for many days.....Scary!

[John317]

Quote:

John317: "For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout the earth."

Quote:

ROBERT: So, in your view, God brought Pharaoh from his mother's womb in order illustrate His power? In other words Pharaoh was preordained to oppose God (as in "I will harden Pharaoh's heart") and have His armies wiped out? That doesn't sound like fee-will to me.

No, I don't beleive that God forces people's wills in order to fulfill His plans. Pharaoh was completely free in his choices as far as God was concerned. However, the king of Egypt was actually a prisoner of Satan, as all people are who are not slaves of Christ. The difference is that when we're slaves of Christ, He makes us free to fulfill our potential in God's glorious, eternal plan, whereas when we're slaves of Satan, He uses us for His evil purposes against our own welfare and then laughs as he watches us die.

Gotta go

[Robert]

It's back to the Bible is too complicated....It seems like only the PhD will make it to heaven....

Ironically, Abraham didn't have a Bible, yet he is presented in the Bible as the father of faith. He is the standard of what it means to believe, yet again, he didn't belong a church, he didn't have a Bible, etc., etc....

Maybe (and this is a rhetorical question) it's best not to get too deep in the Bible?...It seems like folks who do become dogmatic, Bible thumpers. I mean after all we have how many denominations? Even within the SDA denomination there are a least five different gospels. Like I said (and you disagreed) the Bible is very complicated....

The problem for me is that I thought I understood God's love. This is why I believe, but now you (and again you are honest in your belief) are getting me to doubt God's love because of those "other verses" that seems to make God look anything but loving. Most of them are in the OT too....Maybe that's why I stay in the NT most of the time.

[John317]

The Bible is a very deep and profound book because the real author of it is a profound God. It certainly can be made complicated, but it need not be. The Bible's essential message is fairly simple: love for God and love for others.

I don't agree at all about only Ph. D.s making it to heaven. That's not true at all from my viewpoint. My wife didn't have more than a sixth grade education. When we married 22 years ago, she was Catholic. Today she is SDA, a change she made completely on her own, and without any pressure from me at all. I simply left magazines and a Bible in Spanish around the house, and then one day she asked if she could go to church with me. Three years later she asked to be baptized. About the same time she led two other women to the Lord and to join the SDA church. Now she shares her faith with her sisters, so they are learning about Christ and things like the Bible's message about the second coming, the sabbath, and the state of the dead.

[Robert]

..you (and again you are honest in your belief) are getting me to doubt God's love because of those "other verses" that seems to make God look anything but loving.

1 Sam 15:3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Note - no free-will....No chance for the infant and nursing child to grow up and accept or reject God. God simply wipes them off the face of the earth. That doesn't sound like the God I know of....

And we think TV is violent....No wonder their are so many infidels.

Rob

[John317]

Speaking of the death of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, the following article tells us that an ancient manuscript containing the "Song of the Sea" has been discovered. It was the song sung by jubilant Israelites after fleeing slavery in Egypt and witnessing the destruction of the pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea.

By KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, Associated Press Writer Karoun Demirjian, Associated Press Writer – Fri Feb 26, 8:23 am ET

JERUSALEM – Two parts of an ancient biblical manuscript separated across centuries and continents were reunited for the first time in a joint display Friday, thanks to an accidental discovery that is helping illuminate a dark period in the history of the Hebrew Bible.

The 1,300-year-old fragments, which are among only a handful of Hebrew biblical manuscripts known to have survived the era in which they were written, existed separately and with their relationship unknown, until a news photograph of one's public unveiling in 2007 caught the attention of the scholars who would eventually link them.

Together, they make up the text of the Song of the Sea, sung by jubilant Israelites after fleeing slavery in Egypt and witnessing the destruction of the pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea.

"The enemy said: 'I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them,'" reads the song, which appears in the Book of Exodus. "Thou didst blow thy wind, the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters."

An exhibit at Israel's national museum dedicated to the Song of the Sea is now bringing together the two long-separated pieces.

One page of the song, known as the Ashkar manuscript, was previously housed in a rare books library at Duke University in North Carolina and was first displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2007.

That's when a photograph of the manuscript in a local newspaper caught the eye of two Israeli paleographers, Mordechay Mishor and Edna Engel, who noticed it resembled a different page of Hebrew writing known as the London manuscript, presently part of the private collection of Stephan Loewentheil of New York.

"The uniformity of the letters, the structure of the text, and the techniques used by the scribe ... it made it very clear to me," Engel said.

The relationship would not be so clear to a casual observer. The Ashkar manuscript has been so blackened by exposure to the elements that the text is all but invisible, while the London manuscript is legible and far better preserved. But after close study of ultraviolet images, the experts were able to confirm that the texts were not only written by the same scribe, but were also part of the same scroll.

Scholars believe the scroll was written around the seventh century somewhere in the Middle East, possibly in Egypt. It is not known how the two parts were separated or what happened to the rest of the manuscript.

The museum arranged to have the London manuscript brought to Jerusalem. The new exhibit chronicles how the Song of the Sea was written through various ancient manuscripts, from the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls to the manuscript known as the Aleppo Codex, written nearly a millennium later.

The reunification of the two pieces adds an important link in the chain, showing how the writing of the Hebrew Bible evolved through the so-called "silent" period — between the third and 10th centuries — from which nearly no Biblical texts survived. While in the Dead Sea Scrolls the song is arranged like prose, for example, in the newly reunited manuscript it is written like a poem, the same way it appears in the Hebrew Bible today.

The manuscripts are "filling the gap," said Israel Museum curator Adolfo Roitman. "We can see we are dealing with a tradition that is still alive."

The museum exhibit displays the manuscripts along with other depictions of the Song of the Sea from the museum's permanent collection, including artistic renderings of the biblical passages in frescoes and Renaissance paintings and recordings of the song as it is chanted by Jews in different communities worldwide.

[Robert]

What about my statement: Abraham didn't have a Bible, yet he is presented in the Bible as the father of faith. He is the standard of what it means to believe, yet again, he didn't belong a church, he didn't have a Bible, etc., etc....

[John317]

Truth is progressive. If Abraham were alive today, God's expectataions for him would not be the same as they were for him in his own time and circumstances. The same with us: if we lived in another time and place, where we had no Bibles and no Great Controversy, He wouldn't expect us to act on the knowledge He's blessed us with.

But we're not saved by our intellectual knowledge or by our understanding of complex theology. It's our personal commitment and relationship with Chirst and how we treat others that God is really interested in.

[Robert]

The Bible's essential message is fairly simple: love for God and love for others.

But that's not the whole....What it also states (and you've brought this out) is that if you don't love God and aren't loving, God will wipe you off the face of the earth. Let's put this into simply language.

How would you respond to a father who said, "Son, I love you...I'd die in your place to keep you alive, but if you don't return that love I'll kill ya, in fact I'll do worse...I'll throw gasoline on you and set you on fire! But remember, son, I love you."

[John317]

Quote:

Robert: you (and again you are honest in your belief) are getting me to doubt God's love because of those "other verses" that seems to make God look anything but loving. 1 Sam 15:3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Note - no free-will....No chance for the infant and nursing child to grow up and accept or reject God. God simply wipes them off the face of the earth. That doesn't sound like the God I know of....

And we think TV is violent....No wonder their are so many infidels.

Rob

There's just an awful lot that you're not taking into consideration here that makes a huge difference.

Can you think of any reason that could possibly explain why God would tell Saul to do those horrible things? Why do you think God commanded him to kill both man and woman and infants? How do you explain this to yourself if you believe that God never did it? What happened then?

[Robert]

Quote:

Robert: you (and again you are honest in your belief) are getting me to doubt God's love because of those "other verses" that seems to make God look anything but loving. 1 Sam 15:3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Note - no free-will....No chance for the infant and nursing child to grow up and accept or reject God. God simply wipes them off the face of the earth. That doesn't sound like the God I know of....

And we think TV is violent....No wonder their are so many infidels.

Rob

There's just an awful lot that you're not taking into consideration here that makes a huge difference.

Can you think of any reason that could possibly explain why God would tell Saul to do those horrible things? Why do you think God commanded him to kill both man and woman and infants?

I can't think of one....

[skyblue888]

Can you think of any reason that could possibly explain why God would tell Saul to do those horrible things? Why do you think God commanded him to kill both man and woman and infants?

________________________________________________________

John, this has already been answered. Please re-consider the next following posts. Thank you.

sky

[skyblue888]

Can you think of any reason that could possibly explain why God would tell Saul to do those horrible things? Why do you think God commanded him to kill both man and woman and infants?

John317

________________________________________________________

Israel elected to reject God's way when they took up the sword after crossing the Red Sea. Not only had the Lord not given this weapon to them, but He had done all in His power short of direct compulsion to prevent them from taking it up. Despite those loving efforts to save them from that terrible fate, they had chosen it and the Lord could only respect that choice. He never makes the choice of how we shall act. He warns and teaches us, but the choice remains ours. There is no compulsion in God's relation to His creatures.

Once they had made that choice, then by it they had instituted their way in place of God's way. It is impossible for both the way of God and of man to operate within a society at the same time. It can be only one or the other, never both. So, when they elected to institute their way in place of God's, then God's methods could not be used in dealing with their enemies and problems as they arose within their own camp. Like what happened at Mt. Sinai was not after the order of God. It was the application of the procedures which Israel had instituted by adding the sword to their way of life. The only part God filled was to apply some restraint and guidance to their use of it to minimize its evil effects.

What complicates the problem, making it difficult for many to understand God's behavior, is that Israel was still reckoned to be His people. Therefore, it is reasoned, if God was still their Leader and, from that position, instructed them to execute their enemies, (commanding to kill both men and women, and infants) then He was responsible for the slaughter. If this is correct reasoning, then it can only be concluded that this was the divinely instituted solution to the problem. Rebellion, therefore, was to be overcome by force.

Such reasoning will satisfy the superficial thinker to whom serious, clashing contradictions in the Bible can be rationalized away, but it will not satisfy the truly spiritual student who knows that there can be no real contradictions therein. He will search with faith-filled, intensive dedication until the problem is resolved according to Bible principles for "Rebellion was not to be overcome by force." Desire of Ages, 759.

sky

[skyblue888]

When Israel took the sword, the Lord was left with three alternative courses of action. The FIRST option is that He could simply have said that He would walk with them no more. They would then have been on their own and what would have happened to them would entirely have been their own fault. This was the same course open to Him in the Garden of Eden. There, He could have argued that He had given Adam and Eve everything, including adequate warnings of the cost of disobedience. Having shown their ingratitude, they were undeserving of any further help from Him so He would have been entirely justified if He had left them to their fate. This is how He could have chosen to act.

Likewise, if the Lord had chosen this when Israel took the sword, how speedily that nation would have been destroyed. Firstly, they would have fought with their weapons among themselves. Secondly, they were no match for the highly trained and experienced Canaanites who, as Satan's allies, longed for nothing so much as to remove Israel from the face of the earth. For God to have walked out on the Israelites would have committed them to certain death.

If the Israelites had elected to completely go their own way, then God would have had no choice but to leave them to themselves with all the consequences. But in many things they were still prepared to go God's way. They accepted the Sabbath institution, the sanctuary service, the general leadership of God, the provision of their daily bread, and even His counsels on how to best use their swords.

Therefore, in the very nature of His character, God could not leave them because they had departed from His ways in one thing or even in a nunber of things. He would stay with them while there was still some place where He could bless and heal them. He will never leave nor forsake us. It is the human who leaves and forsakes God.

The SECOND option was for God to simply ignore the people's sin; to pretend that it had not happened. But He certainly could not do this. Sin demands attention. It imposes a situation which cannot be left unattended. To ignore sin is to condone it, or excuse it, or to admit that there is no answer to it. It is to suggest that if you pretend it is not there, the wretched nightmare will simply fade away.

This leaves the THIRD possibility. God would remain with His people to whatever extent they would have Him in their midst. He would lead, protect, forgive, bless, and teach them. In those areas where they had chosen their own way He would offer them counsels which, if received and obeyed, would save them from the worst effects of what they had chosen. In the meantime, they might be led to see the error of choosing their own course of action and return entirely to the Lord's way.

This is what God did in the incident of the golden calf and in all the conquests and their attendant slaughters in the land of Canaan. What they did in all this was their doing not His. They had established their own codes and God had no choice but to let them have it thus. But He could and did counsel them on how they could operate in their own way without it being the worst of that way. This was love. This was returning good for evil. This is going the second mile.

sky

[skyblue888]

Conclusion to be drawn from the two previous posts:

It is a principle of faith that belief in the testimony of Christ which clearly states that "Rebellion was not to be overcome by force" must be maintained in the face of evidences which declare the contrary is true. Thus in the Old Testament, God's actions seem to say that He did use compelling power to achieve His righteous ends, that He did resort to force to put down rebellion, and that He did make an example of some by crushing them with terrible punishments.

The choice of belief between the declarations of God and the appearances of what God did in the human arena is before every person. The greater proportion choose to believe what they think they see rather than what God has said. Therefore, the almost universal belief is that God does use force, that He exterminates whole nations who have utterly rejected Him, and that He relies on compelling power to put down rebellion.

But the true child of faith will believe what God said despite any evidences which at least appear to be contrary. God said that "Rebellion was not to be overcome by force," so he believes that, even though he cannot rightly understand what God really did in those Old Testament incidents. He will simply admit to the challenger of his faith that he does not yet understand just what God did, nor does he have to necessarily. In the meantime, he will assure the doubting questioner that he has the plain utterances of God, so that he can be assured that, even though he cannot explain it in detail, God does not do what He appears to do. This is the way faith works. It is based on God's utterances, not appearances. In due time such a faithful one will discover, under God's wise tutelage, just what God actually did in each varied incident. When he does, he will find that God did not once act contrary to His principles, but only in perfect harmony with them.

Either we believe God's utterances or we build our belief on the witness of sight and circumstances. If we believe God's declarations that "compelling power is found only under Satan's government," that He never turns to the use of force, and never crushes to destruction those who do not serve Him, then we are children of faith.

Otherwise, if we believe that God did find it necessary to use force to destroy His opponents, then we are unbelievers, because we have allowed the witness of appearances to take precedence over the witness of God's words. Without question the witness of sight and circumstances is very powerful. When the Old Testament stories are read wherein it is reported that God rained fire and brimstone on the Sodomites, that He poured forth the waters of the flood until they were all drowned, and so on, it is easy and natural to believe that God was personally resorting to the weapons of force.

But that pure faith, the faith of Jesus, which clings unswervingly to the declarations of God, recognizes that if this is so, then God is truly inconsistent. He has said one thing but does the other. This is the charge which Satan laid against God in Heaven and which the great controversy is designed to remove. If the Lord was to act contrary to His stated principles, then He would quickly and effectively give Satan the very evidences he needed to prove the point he had sought to make up in Heaven. It would have been much better for the Lord to have admitted inconsistency to Satan in the first case than to blatantly continue it where it could be openly seen by all. But, the very nature of the great controversy and the issues involved in that, demand that if the Lord is to triumph, He must be utterly consistent with Himself. He cannot say one thing and then do another. To do so, even for a single instance, would be to lose everything and give the victory to Satan and his angels.

sky

[teresaq]

wow, sky. pretty good.

[pnattmbtc]

I think I wrote about several posts that weren't responded to, but this was several pages ago, so we can skip that. But I'm reposting this one thing, hoping it will be responded to.

Quote:

pnattmbtc: but "It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work."

John317:The Bible and Ellen White do not assist Satan in concealing his work, and they speak plainly. Ellen White didn't describe these things in symbols but directly and clearly in modern English. She wanted to be clearly understood and therefore did not write in riddles. Nowhere does she say that God did something when it was really Satan who did it.

p:This makes no sense. Inspiration often presents God as doing that which God permits. Do you deny this? Do you deny that Scripture presents God as doing that which Satan has done? What about the destruction of Jerusalem?

"But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.(Matt. 22:7)

p:Is this God, or Satan? If you say it's God, then you run into this:

"It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work."

If you say it's Satan, then you run into this:

"The Bible and Ellen White do not assist Satan in concealing his work, and they speak plainly. Ellen White didn't describe these things in symbols but directly and clearly in modern English. She wanted to be clearly understood and therefore did not write in riddles. Nowhere does she say that God did something when it was really Satan who did it."

So is Matt. 22:7 God, or Satan?

I'll also reask a couple of questions.

1.How was heaven imperiled for our redemption? (19th time I'm asking this, I think).

2.Given that the language of Scripture frequently presents God as doing that which He permits, how do we know if God actually directly did the given thing, or merely permitted it? (I've also asked this many times).

[teresaq]

dont hold your breath, my brother.

going back through this very long thread one will find many points "not noticed" hence not responded to. yet the same arguments will come up as if they hadnt been addressed.... lol too, too funny.

[skyblue888]

I have posted this before but may be it needs to be looked at again.

Picture a smallish town located in an area where wild animals, such as bear, deer, mountain sheep, and various big cats abounded. As is to be expected, the majority of men in the town were keen hunters never missing the opportunity to take their guns out and track down the game.

But one man was different. He had the love of God in his heart and to kill the beautiful dwellers in the forests and mountains was contrary to his nature. So he was never seen in company with the men trailing off to seek their adventures in the blood of others. For their part, they were troubled by this odd man out and never lost an occasion to persuade him, if possible, to join them. At one time, they even bought him a splendid hunting rifle for his birthday. With Christian graciousness, he gently declined the gift. This was naturally resented, causing those men to increase the pressure on him, but despite this, year after year, there was no change in him. The only equipment with which he would hunt was a good camera.

This man had a fine son whom he was most anxious to protect from the influence of the hunters around. He worked untiringly to instill into him the same love of the wildlife which he possessed, and was gratified to see that he was having good success in this direction. Thus the father was working to have the boy do things his way as distinct from the hunter's way.

The father did not take away the boy's freedom of choice. When he eventually reached later youth, he became answerable for himself and was no longer under the direct control and discipline of his father. He received an invitation to spend some weeks away from home and, eager to see new country, accepted the kindly offer. This was a clever plot by the huntsmen, who sent their sons along to invite the boy, once he was away from the father's direct influence, to go hunting with them. They urged him to try it just once to see how he liked it. Feeling that no harm would be done by an on-the-spot personal appraisal of the hunting business, he went along.

His first reaction was unfavorable but, something about the challenge, thrill, and excitement, drew him back and soon he was an enthusiastic devotee. He went to the sports store, selected a beautifully engineered weapon, and in due time returned with it to his dismayed father. He had exercised his choice and now the father was confronted with a situation which required a response. How would he now relate himself to this turn of events? Clearly the young man had instituted in his life a course contrary to the ways of his father.

For the father, the choice lay between several alternatives. The first option was to disown the son, forbidding his entrance to the home and requiring he go his own separate way. The justification for this would have been the certainty that the principles of father and son could never harmonize.

Another course would have called for the use of force to coerce the lad's surrender to his father's wishes and ways. This was not the answer for two reasons. Firstly the youth had achieved the age of independence, so it would have been impossible for the father to achieve the desired result anyway. But, secondly, it was not in his father's nature any more than it is in the character of God, to use force. To them, the only acceptable service is that which springs from an educated heart of love.

A third alternative was to quietly ignore the change, pretend that the rifle had never been brought into the home, and act as if all were well when, in fact, it was not. Having considered and rejected each of these possibilities, what would have been left for this godly man to do?

Firstly, the man recognized that his son had placed himself, other people, domestic livestock, and wild animals, in a position of great danger. Being an inexperienced and untrained rifleman, he did not understand the necessity of looking beyond the target to ensure that there was no buildings, people, or farm animals in the line of fire. He needed to understand how to carry the weapon so that in climbing through fences, for instance, he did not, as so many have done, shoot himself or his friends. He must be made aware of the awful potential of the ricochet, when a bullet, glancing from rock or tree, will embed itself in a target far to the right or left of the original sighting. He must come close enough to the game to eliminate the possibility of only wounding the animal which would then drag itself away to suffer a lingering death. These and other things he could be taught in order to save himself and others from the worst effects of what he had chosen.

While the father could no longer save the youth from taking the gun, he could, if permitted, provide the instruction needed to save him from these serious consequences. Even the wild animals would benefit from this saving ministry, for, while they could not be saved from death, they could be delivered from a painful and lingering one.

When the boy's father found that his long pursued objectives of saving the youth from taking up weapons had failed, he still recognized that there was much he could do to save the boy from the worst effects of what he had chosen.

So, sadly, but with tender dignity the father drew his son aside and spoke with him. He expressed disappointment that the younger man had chosen to go the way he had, but assured him that he would respect his decision fully. He gently suggested that there were dangers associated with the use of such a weapon, from which perils he could only be safeguarded by receiving and obeying a number of specific precautions. The father intimated that he was more than willing to carefully instruct the son in these things so that he would be saved from the worst results of what he had chosen.

The son, relieved that his parent was not launching against him a fiery denunciation of his ways, no longer braced himself to resist such pressure. Instead he expressed his willingness to learn. Israel, for instance, was not prepared to trust God fully by leaving the sword alone, but they accepted and followed His counsels regarding the restrictions designed to minimize its evils. In like manner, the son who had abandoned his father's principles regarding the total rejection of firearms, was prepared to respect his counsels in the use of them.

God, who has been placed in the same position by the determination of His children to take up weapons of destruction, has likewise solemnly warned that His effort to save them from the worst effects of what they have chosen does not indicate any change in Him, even though His actions could and have been interpreted otherwise. "I am the Lord, I change not;" "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever;" "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Malachi 3:6; Heb.13:8; James 1:17.

The father in our story did not have to change his ways in order to instruct the son to be a kind killer, neither did God have to change His ways to save Israel from being cruel users of the sword.

Now suppose that one of the villagers, the man who had most ardently sought to convert the father, had happened to come down the lane as this session was in progress. From a distance too great to hear all that has been said, he beheld the father instructing the son in the use of firearms. What assumptions will this man make? What conclusions will he draw? He never was possessed of the spirit of the father and therefore, could never understand it. Accordingly, there was no possibility of his correctly assessing what the father was doing. Instead, he would have interpreted what he saw as sure proof that the father had changed.

The onlooker would have lost no time in returning to his hunting companions to announce the father's conversion. He would have told them that he was now one of them. He would have offered as proof to his incredulous listeners, what he had seen of the father actually instructing the boy in gun-handling. The evidence he offered was factually true, for this is exactly what he had seen the father doing, but the conclusions drawn from those evidences were the opposite from the truth.

Even as the father was misjudged, so God has likewise been.

At the golden calf, God gave direct instructions through Moses for the Levites to take their swords and execute the unrepentant rebels. Men have taken these facts and from them have drawn their own conclusions. While the facts are correct, the conclusions drawn from them are wholly wrong. They have declared with great satisfaction that God has changed and has become like one of them--a destroyer. They could not be more mistaken. Thankfully, God has not changed. He has not become like men; He is not a destroyer. Sin has not changed Him, neither have sinful men.

sky

[pnattmbtc]

pnattmbtc: You're saying the statement "Compelling power is only found under Satan's government" is flatly contradicted by many of her clearest statements, unless we take this sentence not to be a universal principle. This is your assertion, right? So how should the sentence be taken? How do you suggest it should be worded?

J:Your "universal principle" can be easily proven NOT to be a universal principle, but you first have to be able to recongize "force." Of course as long as you refuse to recognize force when you see it, you can continue to keep your universal principle. So far I think you have what's called a "closed system," in which nothing can be shown to be false. You've arranged everything and re-define everything in such a way that it is impossible for anything done by God to be "force," just as it's impossible by your definition for God to have destroyed anyone, no matter how clearly the Bible or Ellen White say otherwise.

That's the way you've done already with the fact that the wicked angels were "expelled," "cast out," and "drive from heaven." You simply refuse to acknowledge that fact that "expelled" or "drive out" refers to the use of force, despite those words being commonly associated with its use, also despite the information Inspiration gives us that God had decreed that Satan absolutely could not remain in heaven.

Another one is that Exodus 6: 1 clearly shows that God forced the king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of Egypt. That is the meaning of the words, "with a strong hand shall he let them go," and "with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land." God is talking here about forcing or compelling Pharaoh to release Israel. Why did the Pharaoh do it? Only because the Egyptians felt that if they didn't, they would all die. Also, only because their lives were being made absolutely miserable by their water turning to blood, by all the dead frogs, the biting insects, the painful boils, and the disease of their livestock, etc. Also, only because the king's son was killed.

"The strong hand" refers to God's might. God is saying in those verses that God will cause Pharaoh to release the Israelites because of God's use of His power or might. Many modern translations use the word "force" or "compel" in this context, and appropriately so. The Amplified Bible, for instance, reads, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for [compelled] by a strong hand, he will let them go..."

In GC 671, Ellen White says that Satan is "contrained to acknowledge God's justice and to bow to the supremecy of Christ." The primary definition of "constrained" is "forced."

The Egyptian army was certainly forced to stay forever in the waters of the Red Sea.

The people who died in the flood were certainly forced to die in the water.

Jesus certainly forced the Jewish traders in the temple to leave off their business when He cleansed the temple.

Jesus certainly forced the demons out of people's bodies.

God certainly forced Adam out of the garden of Eden. Ellen White even says plainly that God sent angels to make them leave the garden. "Holy angels were sent to drive the guilty pair out of the garden." 3 SG 45.

Holy angels guarded the way to the tree of life, and compelled Satan and the evil angels to leave it alone. The holy angels also compelled Adam and Eve to stay away from the tree. The Truth About Angels, p. 62.

God certainly forced the people to stop building the tower of Babel and to disperse.

When Jesus told Satan "get thee hence," Satan had no choice but to obey. What is that if not "force"? See The Truth About Angels, p. 177.

God will certainly force Satan to stay on the earth during the 1000 years. He won't be able to leave it.

God certainly forced Satan to stay on the earth and among the warring elements during the flood.

An angel of God forced Herod to die a painful death. AA 152.

There are many more examples of where God has chosen to use force.

Where you are badly mistaken, I believe, is to think the statement by Ellen White refers to no use of force at all under any circumstances, whereas the examples given prove without quesion that her statement is talking about the fact that God won't use force to make people accept Him and He won't use force to win the great controversy.

What you fail to recognize apparently is that God already won the great controversy through the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and High Priestly ministry of His Son. God did't win the great controversy by forcing the demons out of heaven. God didn't win the great controversy by destroying Sodom or by destroying the world with a flood. He did those things for sure, but they aren't what won the war against Satan and sin.

Please look carefully at each of the above examples and tell whether any of those events are examples of the use of force, and if they are not, please explain why they aren't. Be as specific as possible.

[skyblue888]

The agents of a large criminal organization come to a certain business man from whom they wish to obtain regular payments. The services they offer are "protection."

The businessman courageously refuses to make these "contributions" whereupon the syndicate resorts to a tried and proven method of obtaining their objective. They possess powers of force in the form of destructive weapons. These they now wield, though they do not, at first, go all the way. They begin by smashing his plate glass store windows and emptying the displays into the gutter.

This first blow is relatively mild, but as the owner continues to refuse, they hit him harder and harder until he is literally pounded into submission.

No decent citizen, no Christian, can approve of these tactics. All would fear to be subjected to them, yet, oddly enough, they accept it as perfectly right and just in God, for that is exactly how they regard His behaviour in Egypt.

Here is how the Almighty is understood to have solved the Egyptian problem. God desired the release of His people. He came to Pharaoh and demanded this, but the courageous king refused to obey. In God's hands were mighty weapons of destruction and with these, He struck the Egyptian monarch a deadly blow. He did not unleash all He could have, so as to give opportunity for compliance with His demands.

When this was not forthcoming, God struck Egypt again and again until king and people were pounded into submission. Thus the nation did under compulsion what it would not do any other way.

Anyone who candidly thinks about the standard view of the Egyptian plagues will recognize that this is a correct analysis of how God is seen as behaving.

Immediately, it is evident that this places God in the same class as the crime syndicate. It means that the methods used by the world's leading criminals to secure their ends are those used by God.

Once this realization comes, the question of how we shall relate to it arises. There should be a great awakening to the need of obtaining a reversed and corrected view of God's activities in Egypt.

But this is seldom so. Marvellous are the powers of the human mind to rationalize.

As a sample of this we will cite a conversation held with a highly educated person who mentioned that God does personally raise His righteous hand in which are held weapons of destruction, to destroy the disobedient. Specifically, the conversation turned to ancient Egypt.

He agreed that his view of the situation was that God desired and demanded of Pharaoh the release of His people.

The king refused.

God then struck a first blow to show that He was not speaking idly.

The king was not intimidated.

Therefore God struck blow after blow until Egypt was pounded into submission.

That is, God achieved His purpose by the direct use of force when all else had failed.

My friend immediately saw, with great clarity, that criminal organizations use the same methods.

They desire and demand.

The person involved refuses.

They strike the first blow to demonstrate that they mean their threats.

The subject continues to resist.

Therefore, they hit him again and again until he is forced to concede.

That is, they achieve by force that which they otherwise could never gain.

I was most encouraged to see how clearly this man recognized the nature of his beliefs about God and that he could see that the syndicate operated in the same way as he understood God did. I naturally expected him to admit that he had never quite realized this before and that he was startled to see the real implications of his belief.

Instead, I was given a demonstration of the power of the human mind to rationalize.

Unhesitatingly he said, "Of course God uses the same methods as criminals. What makes the difference is God's intention. He does it with a good intention for the benefit of others. The criminal does it all for self."

"In that case," I replied, "you are saying that the end justifies the means used!"

He stoutly denied this, though the fact was inescapable that his argument was exactly that.

Here it is in simple terms.

The means used by the criminal were unjustified because the end was selfish. The same means used by God were justified because the end was unselfish.

Once this line of reasoning has become established, any crime can be justified. During the Dark Ages millions of fine people were martyred on the basis of this rationale.

The end can never justify the means.

Let every true child of God forever reject such a philosophy. There is no place for it in the ways, character, and government of God's church. God has never worked like this and never will.

All His ways are ways of righteousness and peace.

Any belief that God and the criminals use the same methods must be forever denied by the testimony of God Himself, when He said, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:8.

Do we believe God? Shall we hold to a plain, "Thus saith the Lord"?

Assuredly!

Then we must deny the long-held traditional view of God's behaviour in Egypt because it makes God's ways to be the ways of wicked men.

There is no issue in regard to God's intentions versus the intentions of criminals. With few exceptions, every person would admit that God intends only good, while the motivation of wicked men is purely selfish and cruel. There is no question about this. But this is not about discussing or proving that the intentions of God and man are different. They are different. This we accept as a fact.

What we are trying to prove is that the methods of God and of men are different. It aims to develop the unshakable conviction that God's words in Isaiah 55:8, 9, mean exactly what they say. It will demonstrate that the methods used by God when dealing with those who oppose Him are not different from man's ways in only some respects: they are totally different. No resemblance between them can be found.

God is not a God of force. This is a weapon He never uses.

"God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing power." The Desire of Ages, 759.

"The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority." ibid., 22.

"Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendency of

physical power; but from Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is banished." The Acts of the Apostles, 12.

"In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom." The Desire of Ages, 466. [227]

"God does not employ compulsory measures; love is the agent which He uses to expel sin from the heart." The Mount of Blessing, 77.

The message of these statements is clear. The use of compelling power is found only under Satan's government. Herein lies at least one great distinction between the way of God and the ways of Satan and men. The only course they know by which to build their kingdoms and achieve their ends is by employing force. If God builds His kingdom by using compelling power, as so many believe, then His and man's ways are the same. But they are not. Man rules by compulsion. God does not employ this means at all. Therefore, the standard view of what God did in Egypt is a false one, needing to be replaced by another.

While it is sound Scriptural truth that God did not use force to obtain the release of the Israelites, or other objectives at any time in history, it cannot be concluded that He was neither present nor active in the Egyptian situation. He certainly was there, working with great intensity and purpose, but along very different lines from those generally supposed.

God must be seen as doing only that which Christ lived and taught.

He must not be seen relating to this problem as sinful man would relate to it, e.g., by using force to solve it.

sky

[teresaq]

Quote:

and He won't use force to win the great controversy.

thats right!!

[skyblue888]

Quote:

and He won't use force to win the great controversy.

thats right!!

If it had to be decided that way, there would never have been a controversy to begin with!

Right?

sky

[teresaq]

Quote:

and He won't use force to win the great controversy.

thats right!!

[skyblue888]

Originally Posted By: teresaq(sda)

Quote:

and He won't use force to win the great controversy.

thats right!!

Originally Posted By: skyblue888

If it had to be decided that way, there would never have been a controversy to begin with!

Right?

sky

lol. simplicity is too much for our feeble minds. we have to make it complicated.

"Truly, this only I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." Ecc.7:29.