Man, This is Rough Punishment, But for a Purpose!

[Tim B]

Look at this verse in Leviticus:

Lev. xxvi, 15 on to 44, "And if ye shall despise my statute, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments. I also will do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption- and the: burning ague," &c. "And I will set my face against you," &c. " And if ye will not yet for all this, hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your Heaven as iron, and your earth as brass, and your strength shall be spent in vain. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.. I will.also send wild beasts among you which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number and your way shall be desolate.

And if ye will not be reformed by me, by these things, but will walk contrary unto me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times more for your sins, and will bring sword upon you which shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant, &c.." And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy. them utterly."

Now, this is obviously extremely harsh punishment, but can the point of it all not be obvious? It's to bring those being punished BACK to God.

Take from here on page 31 (thanks again to FineLinen for the link to the book!): http://books.google.com/books?id=M3gXAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=universal+reconciliation#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Amen; He never has any other objective...... :thumbsup: Blessings.....

[Beloved Servant]

...and they still never learned.

[V.I.D.]

Hatred gives birth to more hatred .
Sorry  ,but even i think sometimes that God is not that stupid as to not know that simple thing.
Even if you slaughter someone ,that will not solve the problem neither will it make him more loving ,or wanting to serve you .
And yes ..the logical outcome:

...and they still never learned.

If you admire your God and think He is a hight being then why do you like to cyte from a 1000 year old book which is rewritten  1000 times ,to proove your opinion which does not show Him in His true form ?(i.e. smarther than a 4 year old )
So we cerry pick ?
Ok !We can just accept that He is stupid and that solves the problem ??? ! :grin: :grin:

[Beloved Servant]

V.I.D
I do not understand the nature of comment that you wrote after my quote.
But, have you ever watched a movie more than once and after the second viewing realized something you missed the first time?
Same vain, have you ever listened to a song more than once and heard something you missed the first time?
Now, the Book of the Lord is simply a collection of bound pages to the walking dead.
But, to those that have ears to hear:
                                                     It is a LIVING WORD that gives Life.

[V.I.D.]

 

When i was a Christian i thought that it is good and trully spiritual to READ the Bilie Spiritualy and figuratively .
I know that the meaning of the text is to bring people to God ,but why are you showing it in a way that makes Him . ..look so stupid ?
Now hear:
In the Bible there are places where there is slaughter and there are places where is mercy .Those things normaly go one after another forming a contrast dont they ?
This contrast is intended to show God's mercy . O do you cannot expect a book  written a 1000 times to be perfect in showing things properly and you can not expect the same book to be PERFECT BY IT SELF ,OR by THE TEXT ,but the same book has a meaning .
While i still loved Christianity ,THIS context was the thing to understand . The Spiritual one and i thought that it was formed with that contrast.( thought my doubts back then caused me problems in viewing it .)
The contrast to show God as MERCIFULL .
And BY GRACE  =salvation. Ok ...But if there is no MERCY then how is grace gonna come ,or love?
While Tim cyted the Bible ,he *cherry picked * the place where he got uneasy from . And what he said was just showing GOD as a punishing being . SAVING BY PUNISHMENT !

Now, this is obviously extremely harsh punishment, but can the point of it all not be obvious? It's to bring those being punished BACK to God.

Isnt the bringing back to God ...=salvation ?

SAVING BY PUNISHMENT ?

Or saving by grace ,but is love and grace possible without MERCY FIRST  ?

Making it look that way while at the same time the meaning that was intended in the Bible is different . I.e. God being mercifull and loving is strange .The contrast is what shows the meaning not the words really ..

You are supposed to be teachers of Christ right ?
Then why do you point to a different meaning from the one in the thought of the Spirit that YOU are supposed to serve ?

A FACT: Hatred gives birth to more hatred . Just showing God as a slaughterer and confirming it as a way of *bringing people to love (GOD ) * WITHOUT SHOWING THE CONTRAST written in the Bible makes Him look stupid .MERCY just goes somewhere in the background .

Now many will say that saving by punishment (in the case above : slaughter and stuff like that ) IS MERCY ,because the guy is saved enyway i.e. brought back to God .

BUT

Hatred gives birth to more hatred and pain,so just by punishing someone nothing is gonna happen really .
So saving must take place with love and grace and MERCY has a place with all of those ,since without it the other ones dont really work !


Even if He is not all that good i bet he will not be as stupid to not know that : Only by punishment saving does not happen . And He should know that : Hatred gives Birth to more hatred .

And another thing ...

Now, the Book of the Lord is simply a collection of bound pages to the walking dead.
But, to those that have ears to hear:
Its a living word that gives light .

Saying i am dead might be right ,but it might be the thing that my own soul is pointing to and the thing that i believed before and still believe : I am not dead.

No one is dead SPIRITUALY ,because we all have Spirits ! (Or we should )
We are just not being able to believe god's SPIRITUAL revalation that ADS to our knowledge that which is supposed to be precious for us really . For our Spirits . A precious knowledge .

Being BLIND ,or being DEAD to that knowledge is just figuratively saying .
Saying DEAD in order to provoke ,because this knowledge is important for us and saying BLIND to symbolise the lack of UNDERSTANDING and having a Spiritual path with God in union .We cant ,because of unbelief .

BUT i allways get angry when people say this with the dead and alive ,because some actualy understand things litteraly and assume that everyone is a living corpse .Everyone except the *chosen * .
And they come and say to me then * you are dead to God and you can not understand * .
If you REALLY wanna bring someone to God ,WHY IN THE WORLD would you have such an approach ?

[Gab]

Hatred gives birth to more hatred .
Sorry  ,but even i think sometimes that God is not that stupid as to not know that simple thing.
Even if you slaughter someone ,that will not solve the problem neither will it make him more loving ,or wanting to serve you .
And yes ..the logical outcome:

...and they still never learned.

If you admire your God and think He is a hight being then why do you like to cyte from a 1000 year old book which is rewritten  1000 times ,to proove your opinion which does not show Him in His true form ?(i.e. smarther than a 4 year old )
So we cerry pick ?
Ok !We can just accept that He is stupid and that solves the problem ??? ! :grin: :grin:

V.I.D., I'm not sure if you saw, but I answered your "3 questions about UR" topic, and the answer I gave there seems relevant here.  Thought I'd give you a heads up if you hadn't seen it.

[V.I.D.]

What i was talking about here has in common many things with this topic ,BUT its not the same thing .

Here i was asking WHY are you showing God as someone that saves BY PUNISHMENT rather in the way that YOU people believe it ..i.e. by Grace ,Love and Mercy .
The Bible clearly says that by GRACE you are saved .

And IF you have read my post above carefully you may see my point .
It is either by grace ,or by punishment . If you believe that BY PUNISHMENT we are saved then this can be your answer .
If you believe something else ,but forgot to mention the other stuff that i was talking about then this might be your  answer .
I do not know what it is . It is up to you to answer .
Please read my post ( the longer one ) carefully and IF YOU WANT ,then answer my question .

[rs1203]

Well, it does say that the grace of God teaches us (or disciplines, corrects, trains, punishes, etc.) to say no to ungodliness.  So grace works by training, correction, or even punishment to teach people about a new life.  If I understand correctly, most people are so stuck on reading the bible and applying eternal characteristics to it.  That's probably true and all, but if that's the main focus then we miss out on the importance and value of our life here and now.  And this is where it gets hard. 

You see salvation has a great deal to do with how we live here on earth.  Yes, there are promises for a blessed and happy future with God, but Jesus did say that the kingdom was at hand, was near, was upon us, was within us.  It's right there, waiting for you to "enter it".  And to enter into the kingdom of God, you have to get rid of certain things and be willing to be "clothed" in other things.  Some of those things include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, etc. which are fruits of the spirit, not of us trying really really hard to produce that fruit.  Now the hard part is that we would like for life to go smoothly (at least I would), but God "trains" or "disciplines" us in the circumstances and situations we find ourselves in, whether by choices we made or choices that are out of our control.  Some people deal with debilitating injuries or illnesses for the remainder of their life, which is certainly not pleasant, but is a way in which God is training them and I guess the dirt with which he wants to grow the fruit.  Punishment can be because one has acted out of line and needs serious correction or one could just be in error in belief or action and need correction.  But either way, God wants not only for us to be perfected for heaven, but I think (at least in my own not so knowledgeable opinion) he would like to see some of that lived out in this world.  Maybe not the answer you were looking for and maybe it doesn't make sense.  I guess the only thing I can relate it to was football two-a-days.  Those were not the best of times, and I remember throwing up during some of them, but it got me in better shape for football.  I still wasn't very good, but at least I was in better shape.

Hope it made some sense and maybe at least pointed you in a closer direction to what you're looking for.