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indianabob:
Lovepeace and friends,

Regarding the fact that we live in a dangerous world of God's making.

I think we need to be careful when judging God's motives or in attributing to God certain results that come about through time and circumstance.  I don't have the understanding from BT that God necessarily "micro-manages" events in the lives of every individual on the planet.  We do believe that there is a cause for our own choices but let's not carry that too far.    ???

I don't think we can say that God preplanned and caused the older brother to push his younger brother off of the fence in the first place OR that God intended a certain extent of injury with the attendant pain and suffering.  After all, God did provide the brothers with "caring" parents who were assigned the responsibility of protecting both boys.

Yes God knows that parents are sometimes negligent in their duties to protect their children from harm and yet God allows parents to have children and to make mistakes or to demonstrate selfish attitudes toward their children.  So, when we pray for healing for an injured child, let's be careful to place the responsibililty where in belongs.  The responsibility for making the world as it is belongs to God, but the parents of the child are accountable for caring for and protecting the children God gives to them.

If we pray for healing for the injured child and at the same time hold the belief that God intentionally caused the injury for His own good purpose; aren't we asking God to reverse His own will?  This doesn't make sense.

We need to more carefully define our principle of "cause and effect" to allow for God's perfect love in a world of human choices without the error of believing in ultimate human free will.

Yes God allows people to harm one another, but that statement alone does not prove that every injury was in a manner of speaking "written into a script" for each individual to follow or play out.  People make bad choices.  People either hold onto or lose their temper in certain circumstances.  People either run red lights or drive cautiously and in obedience to the law.  God doesn't decide in advance that we will ignore traffic signals and have accidents.

Let's discuss this issue in a little more detail as it reflects upon our personal accountability for the pain and suffering we see in the world.

Thank you for considering my remarks,  Indiana Bob

Ninny:
Chanelle,
Maybe you were having your surgery at the time you did to be there to pray for the little boy who'd been injured. I fully believe that God puts us in certain places at certain times to fulfill His purposes.
I may have told this story before but I will tell it again for you if I did.

My two year old grandson had a brain tumor in October of last year it was discovered on Oct 2nd and removed on Oct 6th. But that is not what I want to tell you about. On October 2nd a lady was in the hospital having a c-section and she was in the recovery room when they brought my little grandson out from the MRI. The lady said she heard the nurses crying over a little blond haired boy they were touching his hair and weeping! She called to one of the nurses who was very surprised that she had seen what was happening, the nurse apologized and said they shouldn't have been crying where other patients could see. They didn't tell her anything about the little boy, but she knew it must be horrible! She began to pray earnestly for the little boy.  As soon as she could she got the phone and called everyone she could think of to have people praying for this baby, in a matter of minutes he was on the prayer lists of several churches in the area! BEFORE we even knew he had a tumor God had begun the process of prayer. We only found this out WEEKS later. Weeks later, as I said, my son was talking to a woman he works with and she told him this fantastic story of a friend of hers who had been in the hospital that day having her baby! She never told anyone about what happened for fear of getting the nurses in trouble for showing emotion and talking about a patient! That story is almost too hard to believe! I know it's true. God is in control of everything! No I don't think he micromanages this world, but to his people He is the One who holds the future!
So never fear when God is with you! You are where you are for a purpose!
Hugs,
Kathy :D

Kat:

Here are a few emails as a little refresher course on 'free will.'

http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,1493.0.html ------------

As these are matters of the spirit, only God can ultimately help you to understand. I will, however, attempt to point you in the right direction.
 
I realize that almost all people when dealing with this matter of free will, unknowingly use words that are not accurate and often defamitory in trying to rectify God's works in their minds.  We cannot force God's ways in to OUR WAYS.
Yet we have all been guilty of trying to do this most of our lives.  God plainly speaks at times and at others He speaks in mysteries. Here is a plain statement from God that explains the mystrious ones:  "For My thought ARE NOT your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, SO [in like manner] are My ways HIGHER than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts"  (Isa. 55:8-9).
 
Now there IS the answer, yet we will not accept that answer because we don't understand that answer.  Why then do you and most of the world have a problem with God and His operation of things, and I don't?  Why do you use the "CONTRADICTION" and I don't.  Is there any way to bridge this dichotomy of God's thoughts and our thoughts?  Yes there is:  "Let this MIND BE IN Y-O-U, which was also in Christ Jesus..."  (Phil. 2:5).
 
Without the mind of God, we will never understand the spiritual things of God.  They will ALWAYS seem like "foolishness" to the carnal mind. "But the natural man receives NOT the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED"  (I Cor. 2:14).
 
As it is absolutely Scripturally true that man has no free will, and therefore is always subject to the higther powers that be, when people begin to see this truth, they often balk at it and feel that God is unfair and that man is being judged for things that God MADE HIM DO AGAINST HIS WILL.  When in reality, NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!
 
Most of the human race has always believed that it possesses "free will."  And so as long as any man believes this falsehood, he is operating in his own little world with absolutely no grudge against God for his personal decisions.  But when he begins to see that he has no free will, he then does begin to think that he has a justifiable grudge against God for MAKING HIM SIN.  He was wrong when he thought that he had free will, and he is just as wrong when he thinks that the only alternative is that God MAKES HIM SIN AGAINST HIS OWN WILL.
 
I have stated many times that God DOES NOT MAKE OR FORCE ANYONE TO SIN AGAINST HIS OWN WILL--MAN DESIRES TO SIN, WANTS TO SIN, AND THEREFORE VOLUNTEERS TO SIN.  God did not FORCE or MAKE Eve eat of the forbidden fruit. Her own DESIRES caused her to lust and eat of the forbidden fruit.
And so the real question is: "Does God have the right to make mankind subject to the desires of their own heart?"  Think about it, as I have, for a few thousand hours, and maybe God will grant to you the spiritual understanding of this matter.
 
Hundreds of totally deceived and spiritually blind Christians have told me that: "God does not want robots to love Him--He desires people to love Him by their OWN FREE WILL."  Oh really?  And can the carnal mind indeed love God by its own nature; its own heart; its own desires?  NO IT CAN'T.  And so the very thing that Christians demand as necessary for our love for God to be genuine, is the very thing that totally disqualifies it from being genuine.  The natural mind is totally incapable of  loving God:  "For the carnal mind is enmity [deep-seated HATRED] AGAINST GOD..." (Rom. 8:7).
 
It all starts with God, not with us:  "We love Him [God] because He FIRST LOVED US"  (I John 4:19).
 
God created mankind spiritually WEAK--subject to the lusts and sins of his own heart, so that man will learn that he CANNOT love God first;  he cannot obey spiritual laws and commandments;  he cannot please God;  he cannot accomplish anything of lasting value through his wicked and deceitful heart. (Jer. 17:9).  And therefore God's ways will justify His means.  The rewards and the blessings are not even to be compared with the glory that God is creating in the human race (Rom. 8:18).
 
And so here is the answer to your question:
 
BEFORE spiritual conversion man FALSELY THINKS that he has free will and is for all intent and purpose a god unto himself.
 
AFTER spiritual conversion man will be eternally thankful that God never gave us such a foolish concept as "free will," or he would never ever reach the marvelous heights of power and glory that God has in mind for him.
 

http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,1744.0.html --------

I understand that these things are "spiritually discerned," and that people frustrate themselves over trying to understand spiritual things with a carnal mind. When a man rapes a little girl, IT ASSUREDLY IS NOT GOD!  When one prays to be rich and famous, IT ASSUREDLY IS NOT GOD!  ALL IS OF GOD, but not is all of God directly. 

God created man--man SINS, God is free from sin and never sins or MAKES OR FORCES anyone to sin. Neither does He FORCE people to be rich or famous. God created man and man chooses what he does based on the strongest motivation in his heart.  And most people's heart consists of lust, lies, blasphemy and the like.
 
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of HIS OWN LUSTS [whether for bad and evil things or for for what we may perceive as good things which may not be good or righteous things], and enticed" (James 1:13-14).
 
Man has the ability to make choices. He does not have the ability to make choices that are free from any cause. The "cause" of most of our choices is our mind and heart.  And of the abundance of our heart, our mind thinks, our tongue speaks, and in our body we take physical action.  Only God can give us a "new" and pure heart.


http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,2354.0.html  -------------

You are not understanding this subject and the principle behind it. You ask: "Is it man making the choices or is it God's predestination of things?"  It is BOTH.  Listen:  God is SOVEREIGN! Man therefore has NO FREE WILL OR NO FREE CHOICE.  That's it. That's all there is to it.  That IS the principle. That IS the Truth.  That IS what the Bible teaches.  It is not a contradiction to say that "Man makes his own choices."  You and millions of other just think it is a contradiction to say man makes his own choices if indeed God is sovereign and God is behind all in His creation.  It is not a contradiction. It only sounds like a contradiction for those who do not believe that "God is Sovereign, and Man has no free will."

I hardly know what else to tell you.  God made man's heart. Man did not make his own heart, or his body, or his mind, or his brain, or his will, or his hopes and dreams.  They are all PREDESTINATED by the foreknowledge of God.  So then we don't make choices, right?  NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.... WE DO MAKE CHOICES.  It's just that they are CAUSED by things we can't always see.  Sometimes we can see what makes our choices and some times we can't, but either way THEY ARE CAUSED.  And God, not us, already knows in advance the outcome of all of those caused choices. How does He do that?  He is very smart (has over a 150 IQ), plus HE IS SOVEREIGN, ALL WISE, AND ALL POWERFUL.....and don't forget LOVE.

So, does God FORCE EVIL MEN TO RAPE LITTLE GIRLS?  Well, does He?  Does God being Sovereign prove that God forces evil men to rape little girls?  That's what evil theologians deduce from the truth of no free will.  They turn the Sovereignty of God into one of the biggest evils in the universe. If God is Sovereign, then God must be EVIL, because there is so much evil in the world, and God is in control of all things, right?  Wrong, wrong, wrong!  Man makes all his own choices. Just because they are CAUSED does not mean that he does not make them.  He is, in fact, CAUSED TO MAKE HIS CHOICES. But God does not directly do this. He is responsible, but He does not directly cause those choices. Things like the Devil do such things.  And who created the Devil?  That's right, that One Who is Sovereign and in charge of all things.  Evil men like raping just like evil theologians like stealing widow's social security money.  God doesn't make them do it -- THEY LIKE TO DO IT.  They volunteer with little outside influence.  God made humanity this way. He created them spiritually weak.  Eve couldn't help but sin.  God has a good purpose and God will straighten it all out in the end.

I guess I could just keep writing and writing and writing and one day someone will say................OHHHHHH, now I get it.  Maybe today is your day. I'm pulling for ya!!!

God be with you,

Ray

judith collier:
Kat, could you give an example using the scenario that we were discussing about the little boy pushed off the fence? My head is spinning. Thanks Judy

Deborah-Leigh:
Quote from Lake of Fire part 2

We have got to get away from the "God allows certain things" mentality and syndrome. God CREATES, God DESTROYS, God HEALS, God KILLS, God CAUSES, God BRINGS ABOUT. God SAVES. God does not "allow" things that He has not foreordained to be! This popular doctrine among the religions of the world is utter unscriptural foolishness. The teaching suggests that man does things that God had no previous knowledge of, does not approve of, wishes would have never happened, but nonetheless, He "allows" them. Certainly He "allows" them in as much as He does not "disallow" them, but this still begs the question as to their true origin. God is the Creator, not Satan.

"For OF Him, and THROUGH Him, and TO Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever.  Amen" (KJV Rom. 11:36).

"Seeing that OUT of Him and THROUGH Him and FOR Him is all..." (Concordant Version).

Does this also include EVIL?

"That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me, I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, AND CREATE EVIL: I the LORD do ALL THESE THINGS" (Isaiah 45:6-7).

There are many many things in life that are very hard to accept and deal with in our weakened spiritual state.

It is VITAL that we move away from the habitual way of falsely perceiving that God ALLOWS anything to happen. According to the Scriptures God has only ever ALLOWED ONE THING to happen. What is that ONE thing God has ever ALLOWED? Everything else God has CAUSED.

The answer is in one of the teachings here at BT very clearly and categorically explained by Ray.

Arc

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