The question is - Does God do anything to cause sinners to suffer in proportion and in duration to their sinfulness? Or, does He withdraw His protection and allow sin to cause them to suffer according to their words and works? What do you believe?

Actually, yeah, I agree hunting for sport is cruel. Hunting to feed your family is not. Jesus allowed demons to enter pigs knowing they would be drowned. Allowing animals to die for a good reason is not cruel. And, after His resurrection, Jesus cooked fish and ate it with His disciples. So, killing animals for food is not a sin.

PS - My wife and I are vegans. However, we do eat "clean" meat on rare occasions. And, when eating outside our home, we are not strict about not eating animal byproducts.

How about these two: And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha...

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,

Opinions shouldn't have anything to do with establishing the truth, right? Especially "testing truths".

You seemed to imply that God caused the Flood by ceasing upholding the fixed laws of nature, as if nature would implode upon itself if God didn't act supernaturally to prevent it. You also seemed to imply this state of things began during creation week. Is it unreasonable to ask you to post inspired passages to support this idea?

Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice. Who gave him charge over the earth and who laid on him the whole world? If he should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

"Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?

God is love, therefore, He cannot be cruel. Otherwise, He would cease to be God. When a State executes a criminal it is not considered cruel. Nor it is considered torture. God often commanded His chosen people to kill sinners. Not even stoning someone to death was considered cruel.

The point is God did command Moses to stone two guys to death (and others as well) and it was not considered cruel or unloving. God can do things that would be wrong for us to do.

Allowing animals to die for a good reason is not cruel.

I do not believe God created a condition during creation week that resulted in water wanting to return to its pre-creation state and killing everything in the process the moment God should cease holding it back.

Also, God is just as responsible for killing the sinners He commanded Moses and others to kill. It doesn't matter that He didn't do it directly.

Actually, yeah, I agree hunting for sport is cruel. Hunting to feed your family is not. Jesus allowed demons to enter pigs knowing they would be drowned. Allowing animals to die for a good reason is not cruel. And, after His resurrection, Jesus cooked fish and ate it with His disciples. So, killing animals for food is not a sin.

PS - My wife and I are vegans. However, we do eat "clean" meat on rare occasions. And, when eating outside our home, we are not strict about not eating animal byproducts.

I write to you, my brother, that the giving of prescriptions
for the eating of the flesh of animals shall no more be
practiced in our sanitarium. There is no excuse for this.
There is no safety in the afterinfluence and results upon
the human mind. Let us be health reformers in every sense
of the term. Let us make known in our institutions that
there is no longer a meat table, even for the boarders; and
then the education given upon the discarding of a meat diet
will be not only saying but doing. If patronage is less, so let
it be. The principles will be of far greater value when they
are understood, when it is known that the life of no living
thing shall be taken to sustain the life of the Christian.

M:Tom, the DA 758 quote you posted does not say the holy angels needed to behold Christ and Him crucified to clear up certain misunderstandings they had concerning the law and love of God.

T:The quote points out that Christ's death was not just for us, but for the angels and unfallen worlds as well. Christ's death resolved the Great Controversy. The chapter goes into depth explaining this. There are other passages as well which point out that apart from the cross, the angels would be no more secure than they were before Lucifer rebelled.

M:Christ's death did not end the GC. Why not? Ellen says it is because there are unresolved issues. "Yet Satan was not then destroyed. The angels did not even then understand all that was involved in the great controversy. The principles at stake were to be more fully revealed. And for the sake of man, Satan's existence must be continued. Man as well as angels must see the contrast between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness. He must choose whom he will serve. {DA 761.3}

Again, she does not say the holy angels were unclear about God's law and love. Instead, she says they are unclear about certain aspects of Satan's rebellion. You seem to be confusing being unclear about Satan with being unclear about God. But the two are worlds apart. There is no comparison.

T: It's not a confusion, MM. To the extent that the angels were unclear in regards to Satan's character, they were unclear about God's. Think about it. Satan was making claims about God. If Satan was trustworthy, then there was a chance these claims were true.

The point of the Ever Lasting Father story is in what the neighbors would have thought had they seen the Father explaining to the son the principles of hunting. Just as the father in the story had no desire that his son should hunt, so did God have no desire that the Israelites should kill.

Regarding your question if Jesus did anything like your understanding of what happened with Moses, the answer is no. This has been my whole point. You should readjust your understanding of what happened with Moses to agree with what Jesus did and said.

I think you may have a misunderstanding in what I've been trying to say. Actually Rosangela's comment that we could not bear the guilt of our sin comes to bear on what I think. During our earthly life, Christ bears the guilt of our sin, meaning we do not need to come face to face with it. In the judgment, those who have rejected Christ, will come face to face with their sin and guilt, and will not be able to bear it. Those who have more sin and guilt will suffer more, not because God does something arbitrary, like burn them alive extra if they've sinned more, but because the fact of having more sin and guilt means there is more suffering when they come face to face with it.

Notwithstanding that Satan has been constrained to acknowledge God's justice and to bow to the supremacy of Christ, his character remains unchanged. The spirit of rebellion, like a mighty torrent, again bursts forth. Filled with frenzy, he determines not to yield the great controversy. The time has come for a last desperate struggle against the King of heaven. He rushes into the midst of his subjects and endeavors to inspire them with his own fury and arouse them to instant battle. But of all the countless millions whom he has allured into rebellion, there are none now to acknowledge his supremacy. His power is at an end. The wicked are filled with the same hatred of God that inspires Satan; but they see that their case is hopeless, that they cannot prevail against Jehovah. Their rage is kindled against Satan and those who have been his agents in deception, and with the fury of demons they turn upon them. {GC 671.2}

Saith the Lord: "Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit." "I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. . . . I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. . . . I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. . . . Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." Ezekiel 28:6-8, 16-19. {GC 672.1}

"Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." "The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies: He hath utterly destroyed them, He hath delivered them to the slaughter." "Upon the wicked He shall rain quick burning coals, fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." Isaiah 9:5; 34:2; Psalm 11:6, margin. Fire comes down from God out of heaven. The earth is broken up. The weapons concealed in its depths are drawn forth. Devouring flames burst from every yawning chasm. The very rocks are on fire. The day has come that shall burn as an oven. The elements melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein are burned up. Malachi 4:1; 2 Peter 3:10. The earth's surface seems one molten mass--a vast, seething lake of fire. It is the time of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men--"the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion." Isaiah 34:8. {GC 672.2}

The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. Proverbs 11:31. They "shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts." Malachi 4:1. Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished "according to their deeds." The sins of the righteous having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit. His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch--Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of the law has been visited; the demands of justice have been met; and heaven and earth, beholding, declare the righteousness of Jehovah. {GC 673.1}

Satan's work of ruin is forever ended. For six thousand years he has wrought his will, filling the earth with woe and causing grief throughout the universe. The whole creation has groaned and travailed together in pain. Now God's creatures are forever delivered from his presence and temptations. "The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they [the righteous] break forth into singing." Isaiah 14:7. And a shout of praise and triumph ascends from the whole loyal universe. "The voice of a great multitude," "as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings," is heard, saying: "Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Revelation 19:6. {GC 673.2}

While the earth was wrapped in the fire of destruction, the righteous abode safely in the Holy City. Upon those that had part in the first resurrection, the second death has no power. While God is to the wicked a consuming fire, He is to His people both a sun and a shield. Revelation 20:6; Psalm 84:11. {GC 673.3}

"I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." Revelation 21:1. The fire that consumes the wicked purifies the earth. Every trace of the curse is swept away. No eternally burning hell will keep before the ransomed the fearful consequences of sin. {GC 674.1}

i am very glad to hear that we are in basic agreement about hunting!! i feel very strongly about that being an animal person. but i know people who hunt and eat meat and have not felt called to say much unless its in context, and then as gently as i can.

Are you familiar with the theory of entropy? I made the assumption you were. Tom elaborated in trying to explain my statement. In the beginning, before God had performed a supernatural act, the earth was covered with water. All of it. This would be considered the natural, lowest ordered state. It would continue to be that way until work was performed in an intelligent way working against this state of disorder. He did. It would follow, that laws of disorder would tend towards it returning to that state unless additional work was maintained in an intelligent way to maintain that state.

Whether you agree whether that happened/happens or not, doesn't that at least make logical sense?

So, wouldn't a question be as to why sometimes God kills people directly and other times He tells someone else to do it?

A past question: When did the Israelites first kill people?

Also, God made everything in the Universe out of nothing. Consequently, if we want to apply the laws of entropy to the Flood, as we currently understand them, we would be forced to conclude nature, if left alone, would eventually cease to exist. It would vanish altogether.