Did God really command this stuff?

[donken]

Hi Josh.   Yes, but as humans we know that we all have both good and evil characteristics and emotions in us.  The tares are the carnal ones and the wheat is the Spiritual ones of God's seed.

Our emotions are spiritual taste buds and by what deed\result\fruit they produce if acted upon tell us what group they belong to.  Wheat or tares.

Donken

[donken]

Hello Eaglsway.  God did not "invent" death,   Death is the state of anything not alive and is also the state of anything alive that is not God.  Death is an absence of complete life only.  Life is Holy as the natural state and is never not holy.  Anything without life is automatically dead.  Jesus comes to overcome he\it that has the power of death, that is the devil.

The scripture "writers" said in various places that Jesus cast out demons and so on, from people who were SICK.  That is what they called that condition in their tme and is THEIR words and ideas.  Today we know them as viruses and so on that do not belong in our body and upset the normal condition of the body when they are in the body where they are not supposed to be.  No demons, we simply have different names for those conditions today and are able to SEE them also, via microscopes and so on.  Today is the day of "scattering the darkness" we all formerly lived in and through.  There is nothing spiritual outside of physical or eathy bodies that is evil or evil doing.  God is THE ONLY SPIRIT except for in the creation and there never ever has been disobedience\sin or rebellion IN GOD'S KINGDOM where GOD IS GOD and rules entirely.

Bless, ken

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: @ donken. My own personal witness of such not even being considered, I know of no "disease" that talks back, like the demons did in the man of the Gadarenes, or the familiar spirit in the woman that Paul cast out. Jesus was very plain when HE said HE would do cures and cast out devils for 2 days. When He sent out the disciples, they came back stating even the devils are subject to us in Your name.

Add to that, one of the gifts of the Spirit, is DISCERNING OF SPIRITS, which we would not need if there was only one. My  :2c: Blessings....

[donken]

Hi.   I hope I can shed some light on this subject that is able to be received, {shine inside of us}.  God did not do the violence or kill anyone.  Men and the elements of the world, the natural world do these evil things, or I can say it this way, WE ALL DO THEM no matter what degree.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  If as some believe God does the evil and makes man do evil to other men for reasons of punishment, then no one does evil but God in that scenario.  Why.  Because if God made some nation do evil to Israel, then what choice that people have and how could they not do it.  Because many say, incorrectly, that GOD MADE THEM DO IT.
We should not think we can get away by saying then that God made everyone do the evil, like eve said in retrospect.  She did not admit SHE DID IT.  We are not admitting WE DO IT, but say God makes men do it for correction of Israel and us.   That does not wash with God.

The truth is like the story of the girl whose mother told her not to touch the stove, it is hot.  The girl touched the stove and burned her finger.

Scripture says God sent prophets and so on to tell Israel and warn Israel, but they would not listen, so they in a figure, touched the stove themselves.

What God was telling them, IF THEY HEARD HIM it would go well with them and he would guide them and keep them safe.  But if they were going to do their own thing, then he would not protect them as sinners against other sinners, and they were told they were going to lose the battle.  IT was what they did that caused them to be overtaken in battle because God did not stop the enemy.  THAT IS ALL.   That is applicable for us today, now, as Christians.

I am saying, hear the workds of Jesus, read them, understand them spiritually, and do them, each person as much as is given to them to understand them.  God wil be within.  And, he will teach us BUT if we are going to be in unbelief about this HE must make his presence known to them at some time.  THE LION does not roar untiil he has TAKEN the prey.  The KLion does not make his presence known until he has captured and overcome the prey.  OUT OF THE EATER comes honey.

As to GOd's spirit being poured out already I think if you look at the results that are still in the world you would not be able to say God is in charge here. I am not saying he could not be, but then those who think God will do evil to evildoers would be correct if he did it that way.  IT IS UP TO THE SON TO PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIMSELF.
\
As I said, it is going to be son of Adam and what his works produce, being overtaken by the son of god and what HIS works or lifestyle produce IN THE WORLD.

Man to man without any miracle power used to subdue man, except for the loving power of the INDWELLING GOD being agreed with, line upon line, but us within also.   THE LAMB is to be the victor and will then be found to be the LION.

It takes the lion-like strength of the love of God to be THAT LAMB.
Donken. 

[Seth]

Hi.   I hope I can shed some light on this subject that is able to be received, {shine inside of us}.  God did not do the violence or kill anyone.  Men and the elements of the world, the natural world do these evil things, or I can say it this way, WE ALL DO THEM no matter what degree.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  If as some believe God does the evil and makes man do evil to other men for reasons of punishment, then no one does evil but God in that scenario.  Why.  Because if God made some nation do evil to Israel, then what choice that people have and how could they not do it.  Because many say, incorrectly, that GOD MADE THEM DO IT.

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to show that God does use evil for good. Men WANT to sin. That's our default position out of the chute. What God does is turn man over TO WHAT HE WANTS TO DO. Then, he uses their evil and turns it around for good.

So, it's not that GOD does the evil, but in order to humble man, he allows the most stubborn of us to REAP WHAT WE SOW. It is a very, very, VERY effective judgment. But, if anyone cannot reconcile this with their own notions of what God would or would not do apart from scripture, that person will insist that the scriptures need circumcision - removal of material - rather than the reader of the scripture needing the change.

[donken]

Hi Seth.  Well, Seth I believe we are getting closer to an agreement on much of this subject.    God does not PLAN or INTEND evil either.  Yes, we reap what WE sow, but God also allows us to be infants and babies and do wrong things IF we do them in the parameters of what we can do in obeying God AT THE STAGE we are in at that time.

God will not support one disobedient person, after a period of time of trying to turn that person of course, against another person who is just like the person who is an Israelite or Christian.  Then God just lets us do what we want to do that is contrary to what he wants us to do and we reap the experiences of that from other people and the world, not from or by God.

1Pe_3:10  For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
What would keeping his tongue from evil entail, do you think?  {Rhetorical question}.

1Co 13:4  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
1Co 13:5  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

As to our natural state, yes, anything that is being created and is not finished will always be in a state of being short of the "glory" or image it will be when finished.  That is man.  God is still creating JESUS CHRIST, who we are now seeing as who we are going to be for this creation.

God bless, donken

[Seth]

That's pretty much what the entire chapter of Romans 1 is about. He opens with the condition from which man needs salvation. God's wrath cannot be said to not exist, but it can be understood separately from the wrath of man. Saying God has NO wrath makes an entire slew of Bible writers without authority and untrustworthy. ALL scripture, would then NOT be Spirit breathed. However, we can circumcise OURSELVES and understand that his wrath is not like the wrath of man, not of the same manner attached to flesh inspired emotion.

As two whether God commanded war, I believe that has been covered in this thread already by Eaglesway. If we have to remove any scriptures from the Bible, then the Bible is completely untrustworthy. However, we can be modified by the Spirit to see spiritual application.

For example, the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah. The Bible records that God sent fire to the city and destroyed it.

Genesis 19
23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, 25 and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Now Abraham arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord; 28 and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace.

29 Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

Peter confirms:

2 Peter 2
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into tartarus and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;

It happened according to Peter, but he does see the spiritual application. He likens the physical destruction that GOD brought upon Sodom and Gomorrah to the spiritual destruction that those who sin receive, saying, "for they shall utterly perish in their own corruption."

So, Peter does see a type and shadow in the destruction of the city, but the type is not unholy of itself. The Law was having a type of Christ, but the Law was still holy and righteous, just not able to impart spiritual salvation. BOTH the shadow AND the body are holy but the body is stronger.

[donken]

Hi Seth.  Perhaps we can understand what men said by what they naturally thought was the truth.  After all, they did not know that God had said to let them, mankind, have dominion, did they.  I mean, people say that Moses wrote Genesis, and the men of Sodom and Gomorrah events did not write it ad did not have a book to read it in either.  Yet somehow God was able to actually talk to people with the idolization of a book they held dear, even about the witness of Jesus Christ who said some of the things the O.T. said about God was not the way GOD IS.  The scripture in fact was to be understood entirely different in some cases, and the scriptures that speak about stoning and like acts are what believers used to kill Jesus by.  The spirit of those type of scriptures is a murderer.  Thou shalt not kill, is the staple of God's Spirit and is contrary to what LIFE DOES.  God said, thou shalt not kill as HIS commandments, not the commandments of men who must live of their own works as the bible also says.  Briars and thorns will the ground bring forth from the works of man in his own countenance.

I also read that God changes not.  Also, there are quite a few people {not me among them specifically, but I can accept their hope in what they believe} that picture God's wrath as His passion, meaning love.   In revelation when the wrath is poured out, heaven is EMPTY of wrath, and that is the witness we want to see,  There is no wrath there and God is always there.  Just like the four beasts are pictured as being in "heaven" but we know they are the kingdoms of men that is to end by being CAST INTO A LAKE OF FIRE".  Is tha lake in "heaven" too, do you think.?  I don't.

The idea of the beasts in heaven is a parable, that they are full of eyes all about, meaning, when we see or understand them SPIRITUALLY {in heaven} then they teach us many things that are good for us to KNOW, but they are not "in heaven" either.  We need to see them "spiritually" and all the deeds men do in those kingdoms and be able to identify where they are OF.   Earthy or Heavenly.

As I said, quite a few people will say that God's wrath is LOVE even, as a passion.  That is much better than thinking GOD kills poor unintelligent man that is simply earthy and carnal and can not be anything else.  The first man is NATURAL, earthy sensual, DEVILISH.  James 3:17 and 1 Cor. 15. etc.

Mat_12:36  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof **in the day of judgment**.

IT is far better, if it is possible for one, to believe something good of GOD and let God tell you that he is not that good.  Ie.. as if someone could actually think something better about God than God actually is.   

In passing, how do the cities RISE in the day of Judgment?  Where do we think they rise??   Mar_6:11  And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Apparently Sodom and Gomorrah were not "judged" by God "yet".

Mar_6:11  And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Mat 11:21  Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Mat 11:22  But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
Mat 11:23  And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
Mat 11:24  But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

In Christ, donken

[Seth]

Hi Seth.  Perhaps we can understand what men said by what they naturally thought was the truth.  After all, they did not know that God had said to let them, mankind, have dominion, did they.  I mean, people say that Moses wrote Genesis, and the men of Sodom and Gomorrah events did not write it ad did not have a book to read it in either.  Yet somehow God was able to actually talk to people with the idolization of a book they held dear, even about the witness of Jesus Christ who said some of the things the O.T. said about God was not the way GOD IS.

Jesus never said that. I think you assume that is what Jesus meant. Fair enough, but that's a matter of your personal interpretation. Jesus never literally said "some of the things in the OT about God is not the way God is." There are several ways to interpret a scripture.

The scripture in fact was to be understood entirely different in some cases, and the scriptures that speak about stoning and like acts are what believers used to kill Jesus by.

Yes, that why it was part of God's plan. He breathed it into scripture, and and they used their own scripture to falsely accuse Christ, not knowing that they were, themselves, the instrument by which God brought salvation to the Gentiles and the whole world. It was all in the plan.

The spirit of those type of scriptures is a murderer.

Scripture is GOD BREATHED, not murderer breathed.

Apparently Sodom and Gomorrah were not "judged" by God "yet".

I am not sure why the quotation marks, but the SCRIPTURE says that Sodom and Gomorrah was indeed destroyed by God with fire. The OT scripture says it, and an Apostle of Christ says it. The fact that there is spiritual understanding to GAIN from it, does not invalidate the shadow itself.

[donken]

Hi.  I believe the scripture itself tells us why they brought the woman taken in adultery to Jesus.

Joh 8:6  This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

What Jesus did is exactly what we are to do if we believe and follow Jesus.   Jesus caused the accusers to REMOVE THEMSELVES from being accusers any more.

Father, forgive them {how many} for they know not what they do.

Bless, donken

[Seth]

I'm not sure what that has to do with what we are talking about. Are you saying that the OT scripture is accusing God of things he never did?

[Seth]

Hi Seth.  No.  I am saying that Jesus caused those who wanted or thought to stone the woman taken in adultery, which was a teaching of Moses as if it were of God's ways, to remove themselves from doing so.

But not because Moses was wrong. Not because it was not of God to have commanded thusly:

Leviticus 20:10
And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Jesus was showing that he was not under the Law of Moses, because the Law is for the unrighteous. He was NOT saying that Moses was wrong, or invalidating Leviticus 20:10 as a God inspired part of the Law. He was showing them that by walking according to the Spirit, he was already walking under a new covenant with God.

The New Covenant does not invalidate the Old Covenant as having glory. The Old Covenant had glory, but it was a fading glory.

[jabcat]

Hi Seth.  No.  I am saying that Jesus caused those who wanted or thought to stone the woman taken in adultery, which was a teaching of Moses as if it were of God's ways, to remove themselves from doing so.

But not because Moses was wrong. Not because it was not of God to have commanded thusly:

Leviticus 20:10
And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Jesus was showing that he was not under the Law of Moses, because the Law is for the unrighteous. He was NOT saying that Moses was wrong, or invalidating Leviticus 20:10 as a God inspired part of the Law. He was showing them that by walking according to the Spirit, he was already walking under a new covenant with God.

The New Covenant does not invalidate the Old Covenant as having glory. The Old Covenant had glory, but it was a fading glory.

Yes, for the purposes of TM forums, I believe the pertinent questions include,  since the scriptures clearly say God did command these things, what does it mean?  What were the reasons?  What are we supposed to learn from it today, this side of the cross?  What are our attitudes, how do we comport ourselves in light of what's recorded?  How do we reconcile these things with the rest of scripture, etc.

[eaglesway]

Seth said

"I am not sure why the quotation marks, but the SCRIPTURE says that Sodom and Gomorrah was indeed destroyed by God with fire. The OT scripture says it, and an Apostle of Christ says it. The fact that there is spiritual understanding to GAIN from it, does not invalidate the shadow itself."

:iagree:

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: :iagree: