Tom: (1) You can answer your question here by reading what I have already said and linked to. I won’t waste my time restating them.

(2) My exegetical approach is not to build a teaching on one or a select few “favoring” passages in the Bible or SOP but harmonize all paassages.

(3) You’ll mind-boggling, to say the least, to read what I have posted on my blog on the “War in Heaven” and just blindly continuing with your comments is basically what upset me and made this discussion no longer worth the time investment.

So I will only wish you “good luck” with your single-sided GC and Theodicy view! I think I’ve made my point and I won’t be held responsible for doing your analysis and reading work. And... seriously stated, in regards to my “attitude” switch read e.g., Matt 23 for some clues. Knowing myself for now 36+ years, when I make such statements, they are certainly not “tactics” but my weighed decision. Sorry if you all choose to remain indifferent and/or oblivious to your disrespectful “trespasses” here.

...I really don’t get it Tom. You want to continue this discussion and want me to continue addressing your question yet you outrightly refuse to read my answer on the “War in Heaven” on my blog, which resolves that issue, instead preferring to accuse me of being a ‘violent warmonger’ who colors my reading of the Bible and SOP according to that paradigm’??1 What’s the real story here. Do I have to beg you not to so blindly falsely accuse me??? And since that is what you want to blindly assume and moreover, falsely, generalizingly believe about me, then what’s the point of continuing the discussion. You’ve freely made your choices, then, at least, live with them!! And as your selectively, one-sided Theodicy view goes, you should clearly understand here where the entire blames lies for this cessation of “discussion”.

Like I perceived before, you obliviously see absolutely nothing wrong with your conduct here. I don’t have the time, patience or desire to deal with that self-obliviousness. That is typically relativist though, the only thing that matters is what [u]you’ve[u] done last.

It sounds that way to you because of your mind-set. To your way of thinking "judicious violence" is a good thing (or "judicious killing," which is what your actual words were).

The way we view God impacts how we interpret spiritual statements, whether from Scripture or the SOP. To someone who views things the way you do, "Sounds indeed like justified and deserving, Divine ‘wrathful’ judgements to me" is what comes naturally to mind. Someone who views violence/killing/coercion/use of force to get ones way/etc. as contrary to God's character, sees something different happening.

Immediately before the statement you cited, we read:



Earlier in the chapter she explained:



Enumerating what happens:

1.In that fearful time the righteous must live in the sight of a holy God without an intercessor.

(This is the problem! There is no more intercessor to defend against the attacks of Apollyon, the destroyer.)

2.The restraint which has been upon the wicked is removed, and Satan has entire control of the finally impenitent.

3.God's long-suffering has ended.
(Let's see what happens as a result)

4. The wicked have passed the boundary of their probation; the Spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last withdrawn. Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one. Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble.

She concludes the paragraph with a comparison to the destruction of Jerusalem, which she explained in the same terms that she is here explaining the pouring out of the last plagues.

As stated here that was one of the contributive factors. And ‘violent warmonger’ = my supposed “mind-set”, was knowingly and significantly in single quotes. Can’t have a “discussion” when what you’ve stated is being ignored and then you’re being accused of what you have disproven there!! That is what is not worthwhile to me.

M: She clearly says God was testing, proving Moses. Which plainly means He did not intend to destroy Israel.

T: There are other incidents in Scripture where this very thing happened. For example, God looked for someone to repair the breach of the wall. If He had found someone, things could have been different. In Moses, He did find someone, and things were different.

M: Otherwise, if Moses had failed the test and God had destroyed Israel, it implies God would have raised up a nation through a man who failed the test of his faithfulness.

T: It does imply that. But people have failed tests of faithfulness and gone on to be great followers of God, of which Abraham, the very father of the people whom were discussing, is an example. The reason Israel wasn't destroyed was because of Moses' intercession. God wasn't kidding.

Because God is Just in his character, judicious killing harmonizes with how He sees best to deal with the sin problem. The Theodicy Truth here is not determined by what I need my God to be, but what He has revealed and done in the Bible. God never acts out of Character as that would itself be sin, since He/His Character is already and unimprovingly perfect.

NJK:-Sounds indeed like justified and deserving, Divine ‘wrathful’ judgements to me.

T:It sounds that way to you because of your mind-set. To your way of thinking "judicious violence" is a good thing (or "judicious killing," which is what your actual words were).

The way we view God impacts how we interpret spiritual statements, whether from Scripture or the SOP. To someone who views things the way you do, "Sounds indeed like justified and deserving, Divine ‘wrathful’ judgements to me" is what comes naturally to mind. Someone who views violence/killing/coercion/use of force to get ones way/etc. as contrary to God's character, sees something different happening.

Your view of God is colored by your mind-set, your paradigm, your already existing ideas of God's character, just like everybody else's is.

M: She clearly says God was testing, proving Moses. Which plainly means He did not intend to destroy Israel.

T: There are other incidents in Scripture where this very thing happened. For example, God looked for someone to repair the breach of the wall. If He had found someone, things could have been different. In Moses, He did find someone, and things were different.

M:To what purpose was God testing, proving Moses?

M: Otherwise, if Moses had failed the test and God had destroyed Israel, it implies God would have raised up a nation through a man who failed the test of his faithfulness.

T: It does imply that. But people have failed tests of faithfulness and gone on to be great followers of God, of which Abraham, the very father of the people whom were discussing, is an example. The reason Israel wasn't destroyed was because of Moses' intercession. God wasn't kidding.

M:Why would God destroy a nation fathered by a failure only to replace it by another father of failure?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Also, why did God need Moses' permission to destroy Israel?

"If God had purposed to destroy Israel, who could plead for them?" Her use of the word "if" implies it was not God's intention to destroy Israel.