According to GC 543, the lost receive what they voluntarily choose. They are not forced to receive something contrary to their will. They do not wish to spend eternity with God, or those who love Him and His principles.

I didn't say this. I said, "He accepts responsibility for all that happens in His universe. This is why God is often portrayed as doing that which He permits." Do you see the difference?



I agree with this analogy, although the "actively granting them those results Himself" seems a bit unclear. In your analogy, you're allowing a friend drive the car. You're not doing anything arbitrary to punish them if they make a wrong choice. You're actively granting them the results of their choice by letting them drive the car. This fits with what God does. He lets us drive the car.

God grants people the ability to make their own choices, and allows them to experience the result of the choices they've made. This is DA 764.

Says the psalmist: "They tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can He give bread also? can He provide flesh for His people? Therefore the Lord heard this, and was wroth." Psalm 78:18-21. Murmuring and tumults had been frequent during the journey from the Red Sea to Sinai, but in pity for their ignorance and blindness God had not then visited the sin with judgments. But since that time He had revealed Himself to them at Horeb. They had received great light, as they had been witnesses to the majesty, the power, and the mercy of God; and their unbelief and discontent incurred the greater guilt. Furthermore, they had covenanted to accept Jehovah as their king and to obey His authority. Their murmuring was now rebellion, and as such it must receive prompt and signal punishment, if Israel was to be preserved from anarchy and ruin. "The fire of Jehovah burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp." The most guilty of the complainers were slain by lightning from the cloud. {PP 379.1}
The people in terror besought Moses to entreat the Lord for them. He did so, and the fire was quenched. In memory of this judgment he called the name of the place Taberah, "a burning." {PP 379.2}

This murmuring soon infected nearly the whole body of the people. At first, God did not gratify their lustful appetites, but caused his judgments to come upon them, and consumed the most guilty by lightning from heaven. Yet this, instead of humbling them, seemed only to increase their murmurings. When Moses heard the people weeping in the door of their tents, and complaining throughout their families, he was displeased. He presented before the Lord the difficulties of his situation, the unsubmissive spirit of the Israelites, and the position in which God had placed him to the people, that of a nursing father, who should make the sufferings of the people his own. He inquired of the Lord how he could bear this great burden of continually witnessing the disobedience of Israel, and hearing their murmurings against his commands, and against God himself. He declared before the Lord that he would rather die than to see Israel, by their perverseness, drawing down judgments upon themselves, while the enemies of God were rejoicing in their destruction. In his distress he said, I am not able to bear all this responsibility alone, because it is too heavy for me. {1SP 282.1}
The Lord directed Moses to gather before him seventy of the elders, whom he knew to be the elders of the people. They were not only to be those advanced in years, but men of dignity, sound judgment, and experience, who were qualified to be judges, or officers. "And bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there; and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and ye shall eat flesh; for ye have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt; therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you; because that ye have despised the Lord which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt? And Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish or the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them? And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord's hand waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not." {1SP 282.2}
Moses himself showed a manifest distrust of the power of God, for which the Lord rebuked him. By this question of the Lord to Moses, he was made to understand that nothing was impossible with the great Ruler of the universe. He reproved Moses for his forgetfulness of his miracles. He who could divide the Red Sea, and bind the waters, so that they were like a wall on either side of Israel as they passed through on dry land, and could rain them bread from heaven, and bring them water out of the flinty rock, could provide meat to supply the host of Israel. {1SP 283.1}
...
"And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails; he that gathered least gathered ten homers; and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague." {1SP 284.1}
In this instance the Lord gave the people that which was not for their best good, because they would have it. They would not submit to receive from the Lord only those things which would prove for their good. They gave themselves up to seditious murmurings against Moses, and against the Lord, because they did not receive those things which would prove an injury to them. Their depraved appetites controlled them, and God gave them flesh-meats, as they desired, and let them suffer the results of gratifying their lustful appetites. Burning fevers cut down very large numbers of the people. Those who had been the most guilty in their murmurings, were slain as soon as they tasted the meat for which they had lusted. If they had submitted to have the Lord select their food for them, and had been thankful, and satisfied with food of which they could eat freely without injury, they would not have lost the favor of God, and then been punished for their rebellious murmurings, by great numbers of them being slain. {1SP 284.2}

In your analogy, you're in the front seat driving the car, and the people choose where to go. You drive them there, even if they choose to go to a destination that you know is wrong. This analogy fits with my perception of reality. God permits us to go places (or helps us get there, if you wish to make that point) even though He knows the destination is not one we should choose. Up to here this makes sense.

Then it seems your saying what happens is after you get to the wrong destination, you take out a machine gun and kill your friend or family member. If this was your plan, why didn't you just do that in the first place? Why wait until your friend or family member gets to the wrong destination?

(In case the reasoning here isn't clear, you seem to be making the point that God killed the Israelites that ate the meat. This is analogous to your killing your friend or family member after getting to the wrong destination; wrong destination = the sending and eating of the quail.)

Satan, the author of disease and misery, will approach God's people where he can have the greatest success. He has controlled the appetite in a great measure from the time of his successful experiment with Eve, in leading her to eat the forbidden fruit. He came with his temptations first to the mixed multitude, the believing Egyptians, and stirred them up to seditious murmurings. They would not be content with the healthful food which God had provided for them. Their depraved appetites craved a greater variety, especially flesh-meats.(1SP 281)

Their depraved appetites controlled them, and God gave them flesh-meats, as they desired, and let them suffer the results of gratifying their lustful appetites. Burning fevers cut down very large numbers of the people. (ibid)

Those who had been the most guilty in their murmurings, were slain as soon as they tasted the meat for which they had lusted.

Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God,--as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin.(DA 471)

Saying punishment, retribution, vengeance is not quite what most people would say is a "result". Wouldn't you say those terms have a negative connotation? By the way, how is punishment different than discipline? I don't recall seeing an answer to that from before. I think of punishment as a means of correction. I think of retribution and vengeance as acts for self satisfaction. It wouldn't seem logical for a self-sacrificing God to do something like that.

GC: If I am driving down the road, and a friend or family member feels I do not know the way, and thinks to know the way better than I do, I may choose to allow them to test their own judgment, by turning the way they desire to go. I am permitting them to see the results of their course. I am, however, the one at the controls. God is permitting the destruction of the wicked in the same manner. He is permitting them to have the results of their course, while actively granting them those results Himself.

T: I agree with this analogy, although the "actively granting them those results Himself" seems a bit unclear. In your analogy, you're allowing a friend drive the car. You're not doing anything arbitrary to punish them if they make a wrong choice. You're actively granting them the results of their choice by letting them drive the car. This fits with what God does. He lets us drive the car. God grants people the ability to make their own choices, and allows them to experience the result of the choices they've made. This is DA 764.