Poster | Thread | CofG Member
Joined: 2017/2/12 Posts: 964 Cambodia
| Re: | | Marvin, your point is well expressed. I think when we look at the cross that all the varied views and "feelings" of God about suffering are clearly seen.
We see God's compassion for the injustice and suffering of the innocent. We also see His compassion and love for His enemies and for the gross sin of those who greatly offend God and cause others to suffer ( all of us, even youth).
At the same time, we see at the cross that no one is "innocent" except Christ. That all deserve judgement and eternal punishment and suffering. We see at the cross that God's compassion, patience and long suffering will one day end and that God hates sin and He hates sinners ( the Bible says both things).
In everyday life, we saw Jesus show such great compassion at peoples' suffering even at times weeping with them and for them. At other times, we see that Jesus is told of the untimely death of many of God's people by a collapsed building and other gruesome deaths by the Romans and His response is seemingly detached....."unless you repent, you will likewise perish."
My case is not that God lacks compassion for sufferers. The cross and the suffering of the innocent for the wicked alone is sufficient to make that case. What I think is missing in most peoples' understanding of God is that He is sovereign over all that occurs on earth. Satan has to seek God's permission in Job and Satan has to ask God's permission to sift Peter and the demons have to ask Jesus' permission to leave a young man. If the demons have to ask permission to leave, one would be curious if they have to ask permission to enter in the first place.
The real issue that people have if they are honest is that they can't "accept" that God is sovereign and loving and yet at the same time, that He superintends over suffering in this life. In their estimation, a loving God would stop suffering if He could. The NT, however, is absolutely wallpapered with God telling and forewarning His people that they will absolutely unjustly suffer and that He "grants" it to them as a privilege for great purposes and He even explains all the purposes of the suffering He ordains for them. I've counted at least 17 different purposes God expresses for the suffering He leads His people through. In many cases, the instruction is to rejoice in that suffering. The historical list of suffering by God's precious chosen children, men, women, and children, at the hands of evil is overwhelming yet, God is behind it all with good purposes whether we agree or not.
As Jesus said to Peter when Peter suggested Jesus shouldn't have to go through injustice and suffering....Get thee behind me Satan. You have the interests of man and not those of God.
_________________ Robert
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| 2020/1/21 17:53 | Profile | TMK Member
Joined: 2012/2/8 Posts: 6650 NC, USA
| Re: | | Joch wrote:
//I am not a betting man, but I’d wager that Job knew the story of the fall, the serpent, Kain, the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. pretty well.//
Perhaps, but there is no hint of this knowledge in the book of Job. I don’t think it can be taken for granted that he knew. He may have been a contemporary of Abraham or maybe preceded him. God never told Job that he was goaded into killing his children by a devil.
You may take offense at this way of saying it but that is how the story goes. There is no indication whatsoever that God planned to wipe out Jobs family had the devil not offered a wager. _________________ Todd
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| 2020/1/21 19:25 | Profile | CofG Member
Joined: 2017/2/12 Posts: 964 Cambodia
| Re: | | Todd. There is some evidence of Gid’s Plan when Satan wiped out a someone’s children:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know- this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. - Acts 2:22-23 _________________ Robert
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| 2020/1/21 20:09 | Profile | JFW Member
Joined: 2011/10/21 Posts: 2009 Dothan, Alabama
| Re: brother Robert | | You wrote “ God is that He is sovereign over all that occurs on earth” Is that really true? Why do you think this?
Thank you Fletcher _________________ Fletcher
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| 2020/1/21 20:27 | Profile | CofG Member
Joined: 2017/2/12 Posts: 964 Cambodia
| Re: | | Hello Fletcher,
There are dozens of verses that I could link you to but I was thinking God’s answers to Satan’s challenge and God’s questioning of Job in that book are really very sufficient. However, and generally, look at Jesus. Commanding and ruling over creation, Satan and demons, money, food, healing, the sea, angels, death, hades, moving of mountains, authority over kings and governments, sustaining all of creation by the power of his word, building His church, holding His brothers and sisters in His love not allowing any created thing to separate Him from them. That should cover it. _________________ Robert
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| 2020/1/21 22:07 | Profile | JFW Member
Joined: 2011/10/21 Posts: 2009 Dothan, Alabama
| Re: | | I’m sorry dear brother- you move too fast for me, I’m not able to keep up... So are you saying that God is sovereign over His plan (which includes the law, the prophets, the Christ etc...) ? Or are you saying that God, the Holy one of Israel, the great I AM is literally sovereign (is the source of and in control over) “all that occurs on earth” ? Which would include every depraved act of fallen man?
Honestly seeking to understand what you are putting forth as your beliefs-
_________________ Fletcher
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| 2020/1/21 22:51 | Profile | CofG Member
Joined: 2017/2/12 Posts: 964 Cambodia
| Re: | | Hi Fletcher. I will give you a verse to comment on.
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. - Proverbs 21:1 _________________ Robert
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| 2020/1/22 6:33 | Profile |
| | 2020/1/22 6:48 | | JFW Member
Joined: 2011/10/21 Posts: 2009 Dothan, Alabama
| Re: brother Robert | | / Hi Fletcher. I will give you a verse to comment on.
The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. - Proverbs 21:1 /
Brother Robert, Firstly thank you for your demeanor, and I hope we can maintain a spirit of fellowship throughout our discussions - - each giving the other “the benefit of the doubt” regarding our chief aim being the glory of God thru the truth of His spirit being revealed and agreed upon, and not simply a base desire to “be right” until which time that fact becomes unavoidable and even then to proceed with a spirit of meekness in all prayerfullness not allowing a spirit of division/bitterness to spring up 🙏🏻😇
Regarding the passage of scripture that you put forth for me to comment on,... it’s a familiar and beloved passage that I’ve quoted/referenced many times:) Tho regarding it as a basis of literal fact, it cannot be taken as such - A Kings heart is not a stream of water in a literal sense and the writer is clearly speaking metaphorically or figuratively to express a theme as he (the writer) perceives it -
This topic can and should be quite exhaustive, in lieu of hijacking this thread, perhaps we should start a separate/new one where we can deep dive this most important subject? _________________ Fletcher
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| 2020/1/22 7:46 | Profile | Gloryandgrace Member
Joined: 2017/7/14 Posts: 1165 Snoqualmie, WA
| Re: | | Hi Fletcher and Brother Robert:
If I could jump in with you?
When it is said God controls all that occurs on the earth. What we don't mean 1. God's works are indistinguishable from Satan's 2. God tempts man to sin in that God is conspirator with a man to sin. 3. Mans sinning is equivalent to doing the will of God, especially if God ordained the occurrence.
This text seems to bring some clarification for those who will hear it.
Isaiah 53:10
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
"Yet it was the will of the Lord".
The cruel romans whipping him... The cowardly Pilates shiftiness... The roman guards blindfolded and slapping him The Pharisees calling for his crucifixion The crowd yelling 'crucify him' Judas Iscariot selling him out for 30 pieces of silver
The will of God to crush and grieve his own Son included sinners of all kinds, with motives, actions of all sorts.
Was God raising the whip? No, But God put Jesus there to be whipped. Was God cursing and spitting on his own Son? God forbid, but God sent his son to them knowing this was to be his treatment. Did God design the betrayal of his own Son? No, but God knew who should betray him and Jesus accordingly chosen him to be among the 12 disciples.
But Divine concurrence, where God's working out his own plans and bringing about the greatest display of glory and salvation ever is hemmed in with the sinful act of men, not only foretold but necessary to the extent God was willing to sacrifice his own Son. God received upon his own Son, what we should receive for our sins.
Roman soldiers...just the right ones who would not step back from giving Jesus 39 stripes. Pharisees, religious leaders who would not step back in horror over their corrupt trial and accusations. Disciples who despite big words to stand for Jesus, fled from him or denied him. The right men, in the right place in the right time, all orchestrated and situated...as a stream of water curves from a hard bank or cuts through a soft bank or rages down a steep drop...cannot deviate from its course on it's own. It is subject to everything around it, that 'everything' was planned and designed of God even as the water itself was purposed to run through it.
So too, a man may harden his heart, he may resist the will of God and insofar as he can he will disobey and rebel against God; nevertheless the man can do nothing to stop God's plan and his active participation in it. He may take credit for his no's or yes's but divine sovereignty has not lessened it's weight or varied it's strength to turn the heart wherever God would have it turn.
_________________ Marvin
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| 2020/1/22 16:51 | Profile |
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