Richard, if someone says to you, "Do what I tell you, or I'll torture you for days, but not right now. Later. Right now you have free will. Choose you this day." would you say your will is not being coerced?

Not only not killing anyone, but not being angry at them, or calling them a fool. Or violence of any kind. He taught "love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek," "walk the second mile."

doesnt that make God guilty for all the children dying a slow horrible death of starvation? doesnt that make Him guilty of the 200 million-and growing-orphaned children?

just to name a two...doesnt that make God guilty of everything bad that happens because He doesnt prevent it?

But He doesn't say that. He says: Why will you die when you don't have to? Reach out and take my hand so I can save you from what's coming.

It would be like if say the government came to your neighborhood and said: Ok people, were going to have to burn down your neighborhood because it is infested with the "killer trapazoid head lice". But not to worry, we have built you a new neighborhood across town that is 100 times nicer than this one.

All you have to do is come and move into your new homes. But we do have to burn this one down because if we don't kill the "killer trapazoid head lice" now, they will spread to all the world, and everybody will die.

You have one group that says: Alright lets go! We're gonna have much nicer homes and everything! And I heard we won't have to eat the government cheese anymore. They're going to supply us with Cheddar, and Swiss, and Gouda. Come on let's go!!

Then there's this other group that says: No, we're not going anywhere. We've been here to long to move.

(Gov) But we have to burn the place down to kill all the head lice. You'll be burned up.

We don't care if we burn up, we're not moving.

(Gov) But we built you new homes and everything. We've even stocked the refrigerators with exotic cheeses.

Don't matter. We're not going anywhere. Go ahead and start the fire.


Decision: Burn the place down and save the world from the Killer Trapazoid Head Lice. Or, let them stay there, and let the whole world die.

It's not like they were not warned of the consequences. Go get the matches.

It's not like that at all. Your idea is that God sets people on fire. Not some house where the people are collateral damage, but specifically certain people, for a specific amount of time. It's exactly what I said, as if someone said, "Richard, if you don't do what I say, you'll be set on fire to burn for 2 days and 4 hours. Not right now, but later. So your will is free."

If there's a sentence of being burned on fire hanging over your head, your will is being coerced.

I can honestly say: That fire that God has told us about, has absolutely nothing to do with why I choose to serve the LORD. I have not been coerced into being a Christian.

Also I never argue with what God says He will do. He knows what He's doing. Our ways are not His ways, and our thoughts are not His thoughts. To believe that we need to be able to figure His ways out, so that they all make perfect sense to us, is foolishness.

Would you be someone's friend if they told you the following:

Hey, let's go hunting & fishing...we could hang out and be buddies, but - by the way - if you ever quit being my friend I will douse you with kerosine and light you on fire. But hey, don't let that influence you.

Would you be friends with such a person?

If so, wouldn't it be out of fear?

Rob

Please go to Deut 28:15 If you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. 17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. 18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. 20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. 21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. 25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you. 30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you. 38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land. 43 The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail. 45 All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. 52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you. 53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you--so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot--will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities. 58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name--the LORD your God-- 59 the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. 64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods--gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"--because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. 68 The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

We've talked about that before-- at least I've made at least two posts in its regard-- but maybe you didn't see the post.

2 Thess. 2: 10-12 says, "This lawless one will appear with the power of Satan, performing miracles and wonderful signs at the service of deception. All the deceits of evil will then be used for the ruin of those who refused to love truth and be saved. This is why God will send them the power of delusion, that they may believe what is false. So all those who chose wickedness instead of believing the truth will be condemned." (Christian Community Bible)

What it means is that God allows people to have their lies if they want them. He sends the truth but some people go into darkness because they resist the light. That is how the Pharaoh's heart was hardened-- or how he hardened his own heart. God commanded him to let Israel go and the Pharaoh resisted God. When people do that, they harden their heart. It is like putting a callous around the heart or conscience. I don't know of any good student of the Bible who is unaware that this is the meaning of the verse, including Catholics and Protestants alike. I say this in order to show that it's common among believers of all faiths to recognize that the Bible often gives credit to God for doing that which happens by His permissive will.

For example, here's an accurate comment in the Christian Community Bible (Catholic) on 2 Thess. 2: 11:

"Once again we have the Hebrew turn of phrase that should be translated: God will allow the forces of deceit to act. The same people who do not take into account decisive arguments in favor of the fatih, later follow doctrine and opinions without foundation."

This understanding is plain from studying the rest of Scripture as well as the writings of Ellen White. I do not think that anyone in the Seventh-day Adventist church ever believed that God wills, or wants, people to believe a lie. He does everything He can to save them by sending them the truth. If they reject it and believe a lie, it is because they choose to.

From Jamieson, Fausset & Brown's Commentary:

"God judicially sends hardness of heart on those who have rejected the truth, and gives them up in righteous judgment to Satan's delusions (Is. 6: 9, 10; Rom. 1: 24-26, 28). They first cast off the love of the truth, then God gives them up to Satan's delusions, then they settle down into 'beleiving the lie"; an awful climax (1 Kings 22: 22, 23; Ezekiel 14: 9; Job 12: 16 ; Matt. 24: 11, 11; 1 Tim. 4: 1)."

The point I would make here is that it's well known destructive powers are exercised by the loyal angels at God's command, and also by Satan's angels when God permits.

When it comes to acceptance of truth or acceptance of God and salvation, God never uses compelling force.

This is from the very popular Life Application Bible:

"God gives people freedom to turn their backs on him and believe Satan's lies. If they say no to the truth, they will experience the consequences of their sin."

What is the difference between this and the statements in the Bible which say that God destroyed people, such as at Sodom and in the Flood?

The difference is that the Bible tells us that God doesn't lie to people, but it does say that God has destroyed the wicked before and that God will ultimately destroy the wicked at the end of the one thousand years. This is exactly what the SDA Bible commentary says, as well as Ellen G. White, so that it is clear that acceptance of 2 Thess. 2: 11 as teaching that God permits people to believe a lie after they reject the truth, is perfectly in line with solid biblical hermeneutics.

Notice also the SDA BC comment at Rev. 20: 9: "Fire. This doubtless refers to literal fire as the means of destruction."

Does this mean that this view of the destruction of the wicked is necessarily true? No. All Bible Commentaries contain some errors, of course. The student needs to study carefully and compare the evidence that's presented for various positions, including the one taken by the SDA commentary. But I'm simpy pointing out that the best scholars in the SDA church have determined that there is no contradiction between 2 Thess. 2: 11 and Rev. 20: 9. Ellen White makes the same point when she says that the power of destruction comes from two sources: God's angels at his command and the devil's angels when God permits. It's an important principle to keep in mind.

No one understands all the mysteries in the Bible....No one. And in speaking of God's agape, Paul says, "we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see [God] face to face."

Concerning this topic there are two schools of thought:

1] God kills

2] God doesn't kill

Both parties have their evidence...neither side as the leg up on the other....So, what do we do?

For me I have sided on # 2. It makes sense even though there seems to be counter evidence. In my mind God can't be both...He can't love his enemies with an "everlasting love"...He can't love us more than Himself and at the same time payback evil with evil.

No matter how you twist it, in my mind, if it is evil for me to burn someone for many days, it is evil for God to do so. You will never, in a billion years, get me to synthesize the two. If I must err I must err on the side of God's everlasting love - a love where God loves His enemies more than Himself.

So for God to be directly responsible for the destruction of his fallen, unbelieving children troubles me. Hence, as I said, I must err on the side of mercy and love. I can do no other.

Does this mean that God's fallen, unbelieving children will not perish? No, but not directly of God's doing. God releases those who persist in unbelief...but it wounds His heart with a sorrow that we cannot understand.

Rob