GC, it seems from your comments regarding view God as a danger, that you seriously understood what I had in mind by saying that God protects us from a thousand dangers, all of them unseen. So I thought I'd explain my thought in more detail.

Here's the quote I cited:



Please note that the idea is not that God is protecting the wicked from Himself, but from unseen dangers that come from sin and Satan.

Here's another similar statement:



These thousand dangers can include all sorts of things, including natural disasters, car accidents, health problems, all sorts of things. For someone to be destroyed, it's enough for God to permit any of these thousand dangers to occur, all of which are the result of Satan/sin either directly or indirectly.

Perhaps something like when the Bible said "fire came from God" and destroyed sinners, it really means that fire came from Satan?

Maybe GC believes it is against God's character to take these sea-faring quails away from their natural habitat and send them to the Israelites. Hence, he has to come up with a theory that is not explicit in the text.

But one thing GC has going for his theory is that it does not contradict the text. God could have created these quails near the sea and had the wind blow them in. GC doesn't go so far as to say that Satan was the one who sent the quails.

I've never said this. I don't understand why it's apparently so difficult to accurately represent the position of another, especially when so many posts have been written.



Why not say that God specially created Peter? That doesn't contradict the text, does it? Or God specially created the donkey that Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on. There's millions of things one could say that "doesn't contradict the text" as you put it. Using logic like this, we could have the Bible saying anything at all, couldn't we?

Otoh, the Bible says "God killed Saul." It says that God moved David to number Israel. It says that God would destroy Jerusalem (in the parables of the murdered son, and the wedding parable), and so forth. The SOP says:



We see here the principle that the Great Deceiver seeks to conceal his work by making it appear that God is doing what he does. Do you suppose he's not successful with this? For example:



It's ironic to me that it's being suggested that God is doing the very thing that Satan is trying to get people to think that He does. It seems to me if we're thinking along the lines that Satan is trying to get us to think along, a bit of skepticism that we might be on the wrong track would be called for.

Thanks, Arnold. Actually, Tom has not done the research on this yet. Still waiting for that. As a result, he doubts what I said.

Basically, it's like this: Quail are not sea-faring birds. They do not even occur in large numbers on sea coasts. They do like to be near mountain streams and rivers, but they are rare along the sea. If you do some research, it will bear this up. I'm a birdwatcher. I do not go to the ocean to find quail. A distribution map for the state of Washington, which has many different biomes, listed the quail as being "R" for "rare" along the coast at every time of the year. They were "common" inland.

God provided water from a rock. Water does not usually come out of a rock. God provided quails "from the sea" (and note that it does not say "coast," but even if it did, quails do not live there either), and quails do not usually come from the sea.

Gulls, maybe. Terns, yes. Skuas, pelicans, harlequin ducks, shorebirds like sanderlings, plovers, sandpipers, oystercatchers, turnstones, stilts, etc., yes--but these are ALL unclean birds. In fact, I cannot think of one bird off the top of my head which originates from the "sea" which is clean. The Bible specifies that swans, osprey, pelicans, cormorants, lapwings, eagles, night-hawks, and other such "sea birds" are all unclean. Why shouldn't they be? They eat crabs, shrimp, unclean fish, oysters, clams, and a host of other unclean material.

Moreover, Moses considered food sources from the sea when describing the impossibility of God's promise to provide flesh for all of Israel. Moses specifically asked God, "Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them?" If Moses were contemplating every possible food source, going as far away as to the sea itself, would he have missed this incredible abundance of quail floating on lily pads in the sea?

I imagine that a certain distance away from the sea may have been a few quail...but we're not talking about a few--we're talking about enough quail to feed 2 million people for an entire month! The quail came in all around the camp, covering the ground to a height of two cubits, or about one meter. If you know about quail, you know they are not large birds. That's an awful lot of them.

Which brings up the next point: Quail don't like to fly. They are ground-dwelling birds. I have never once seen a quail blown in the wind. If it's windy, they take cover under a bush. They hunker down. They won't fly. Yet this wind is blowing a quarter billion of these animals in to the Israelite camp? Wow.

It was a miracle, not a natural event. Guaranteed.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Do you believe that the fire that burned Nadab and Abihu was from God? I thought you did not. I haven't been able to follow everything, so correct me if I'm wrong.


If that's all you're going by, yes, we can invent all sorts of things. But having read GC's stuff, I didn't think he would base a theory on such a flimsy foundation. And as we see in his post, he seems to know a thing or two about quails.

But this highlights one of my bigger concerns about your hermeneutic: You reject things based on what you do not know. You took my one point, which is true BTW, and built a straw-man edifice which you heroically destroyed. You did not consider that there could be other factors involved, which could bolster GC's hypothesis. Instead, you took the one point, acted as if that was the ONLY point, and somehow thought that belittling the point, which is true BTW, helps your case. Rejecting truth, no matter how small, will lead to no good.

Why would you do that? Because his statement made no sense to you. Considering the GC is a mere man, there's really no grave danger in rejecting what he says if it doesn't make sense to you. But the really bad thing is that you do the same to God's words. You see statements from God - in the Bible/SOP - and see fit to reject those that don't make sense to you. That is grave danger you are walking in.

In this, you are guilty of what you berated above: Unwarranted universal application of a correct principle. You cite Saul, David, and others as evidence that God is sometimes spoken of doing that which He allows. While that is true, we have no license to apply it whenever it makes sense to us.

You can find inspired commentary that illuminates Saul and David, where there is evidence that this principle is in play. But you apply the principle in places where there is no inspired commentary saying that you should. For example, the Bible/SOP are consistent that God destroys the wicked. Yet, you say that God does not destroy.

Do not make a world of an atom.


Yes, Satan fools us into thinking that God does some of the things he is responsible for. But he also tries to go the other way and fool us into thinking he is responsible for what God does. Look at the passage below, and you'll see that we are willing to fall for that trick, too.


Do you realize what the rebels did? They pointed to God's destruction of rebels, and "attributed them all to human or satanic agency." You have some truth, but you belittle or reject the fact that God destroys when He sees fit.


So true.

Ok, Tom, I have taken up your challenge. It is clear after having done the research on your past statements why you prefer to say nothing more about it. But let these statements speak for themselves (in no particular order, and from multiple threads):





Very appropriate response, Rosangela! God did indeed make a very clear distinction between the two kinds of fire, and if it was so important to God as to be a life-and-death matter for Nadab and Abihu, it would certainly be unlike God to declare the fire which killed them proceeded from God when it did not, and was but the common fire!




Ok. Well, Tom, I want some answers here.

A. GOD'S ATTRIBUTES
1) Do you believe that God lies?
2) Do you believe that Moses lied to us in what he wrote?
3) Do you believe that God told us He is a "consuming fire"?
4) Do you believe it was God who appeared as fire at Pentecost?
5) Is fire really, truly, NOT an attribute of God?

B. CAUSE OF NADAB AND ABIHU'S DEMISE
1. Do you still believe literal fire killed Nadab and Abihu?
2. Do you still believe it was the common fire from their censers by which they "committed suicide?"
3. Do you truly reject God's Word which says He kindled the flame from His Presence?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Tom,

You are so smooth in your words as to always have an answer which, for the time, relieves you of giving a more direct response. But over time, your posts add up to a certain level of confusion. This is why people like Mike and me still have trouble knowing where you stand.

Notice how in the above quote, you say that you believe fire is a part of God's glory and character. Therefore, you have expressed that fire is an attribute of God. But look what you say in this next quote:



Whereas before, you stated agreement with Ellen White in that God will impart life and death through the same fire of His glory, you now deny it with great persuasion and logic.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. And by the way, those two quotes came from two consecutive posts of yours in the same thread on the same day.

Selah.

Green Cochoa.

I'm sure there are other possible explanations which do not require the creation of quail. Again, the question suggests itself, that GC himself raised, if the quail were created by God, why would the people get sick from eating it?

This is a baseless accusation. Of everyone who posts regularly on this forum, my viewpoints have been the most open to change, at least based on the evidence of those posting. To state this another way, my viewpoints have changed the most over the 5 or 6 years compared to other people who have been posting here. I wouldn't have changed my positions had I did as you are suggesting, rejecting things based on what I did not know. If I did as you are suggesting, I'd have simply kept the viewpoints I had.

The following comes to mind:



I'll admit to rejecting things on this basis.

Common sense dictates that if Scripture says, "And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea" that the likely explanation is that the quails already existed.

I think I'd be more concerned about a hermeneutic that freely allows fanciful interpretations such as this (i.e., the idea that God created quails). Is there any Commentary that suggests this? No, I'm not saying we should base our interpretations purely or even primarily on the basis of what Commentaries say, but this isn't a moral issue, such as observing the Sabbath, that would warrant a bias on the part of Commentaries. If there were something to GC's argument, I'd expect some Commentary to bring up the same points. It doesn't look like GC's theory is based on anything that isn't common knowledge.

I don't understand how this topic migrated here. I'll make a few comment, but if you want to discuss this in more detail, please start a topic. This topic is regarding the suffering of the lost in the second resurrection.

Briefly, when one speaks of God's destroying the wicked, the question is, how does God destroy? There must be some way of reconciling statements speaking of God's destroying and those which say that Satan is the destroyer. There must be some difference in how Satan destroys and how God destroys, or else we wouldn't be told that Satan, not God, is the destroyer.



This speaks of God's destroying, but in such a way that it's readily seen how this reconciles with statements saying "God destroys no man" and "Satan is the destroyer. The Lord is the restorer."

God destroys by permitting destruction to occur. There are a thousand dangers, all unseen, from which God protects us.



This also explains the principle.

There are a number of problems with the idea that God is the One actively doing the destruction.

1.This is just what Satan does.
2.This is what Satan seeks to present God as doing, when it is actually he who is doing this.
3.To act so is contrary to God's character, as evidenced by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
4.Force and compelling power are not to be found in God's government, but only in the government of the enemy.
5.Destruction was invented by Satan. It is the fruit of sin. God would be implementing the tools of the enemy were He to do so.
6.It is completely unnecessary for God to take destruction into His own hands because He is protecting us from a thousand dangers, which are able to do the destruction themselves.