Actually you pertinently replied/posted here!



From the many miracles in the Bible that God did for His faithful people but not for those who “hated” Him. Indeed He actually acted adversarially for many of them, especially when timely and/or “object-lessonly” necessary, e.g., Mal 1:1-5.



You’ll need to quote a Bible text or SOP passage which says that God blesses the wicked. A As I see/understand it, a “blessing” is giving more than what can be naturally obtained, and usually through a supernatural act/intervention by God. Interestingly enough, in our day, people usually defaultly associate wealth with a blessing from God, e.g., ‘God Blessing America’. That relative worldly wealth actually is mostly self-generated from the Capitalistic game that the whole world is playing. Notwithstanding, I think that God had blessed the many pioneers of science in ca. the 1800's who laid the foundations for the great technological advances and derived wealth that we see today, by probably inspiring these mostly born again Christians with quite “far-out” ideas. Most of what is being developed today are just the perfecting of these ideas and application of the Sciences, virtually conceived by these sincere and genuine “Christian” minds. So in a way, the whole world is benefiting/being blessed by what God was able to do through such faithful people (). God’s Judeo-Christian heritage, established by God through Moses, is another currently still enjoyed “Blessing” of God to, originally, His faithful people.




Actually: (1) humans who do not accept this Atonement provision, do not, and cannot, enjoy it or its “blessings”. Although those who are rejecting it, are actually enjoying derived blessings which are bestowed upon the faithful, as detailed above.

(2) Salvation is something Spiritual/Eternal. I was speaking of physical/material/temporal things that God “leads/gifts” people to tangibly and concretely have. Again, as seen throughout Ancient and New Israel’s History, even through the Remnant Church, God does not bless the wicked, -as I see it, at all, unless it is for a pointed GC/Prophecy fulfilling purpose. (E.g., Isa 45:1-4; cf. 46:11a). Indeed the SDA Church, were it but for God’s blessings through the guidance of the SOP, would not be as relatively, globally “wealthy” as it is today. E.g., comparable institutionally to the 1+ billion member Catholic Denomination, while itself having ca. 25 million people (including non-baptized children). In fact, the SDA Church is easily capable of being even much more wealthy, if it more faithfully and closely adhered to all of God’s wise and knowing counsels and timeless socio-economic principles. (E.g, Isa 58:10, 11).

So this blessing is freely and equally made available to all, but it is only enjoyed by those who accept/receive it, as you seem to also understand. However, until received, and thus actualized, it does not become an actual blessing to the “spurner”.

Yes they do (not all of them, of course, but there are blessings from the atonement which all enjoy). This was a strong point of the 1888 message.



I'm not sure what you're wanting to say here. You said originally that God does not bless the wicked, except for basic life necessities. I don't know what you're including under this heading.

Let's consider someone who wins an Olympic gold medal. That's not a basic life necessity, I wouldn't think, but they obtain their medals due to blessings from God (and their own effort, of course).

Or if a person obtains wealth, they've obtained blessings from God to do so, including health and intelligence.

God affords the wicked with the blessings of protection, as the GC statement points out.



You write "so this blessing is freely and equally available to all" after a paragraph talking about the wealth of the SDA church. I'm not following what "this blessing" is speaking of.

Here's a statement which deals with blessings of the atonement which are available to all:

Actually, factually, Yes. On a page, I can see all the texts for several posts, and go back and forth and copy/paste. If I do the "Reply" I lose that ability. I have to use some other source to copy/paste to, or do a preliminary run through, and then go back, and reply. Copy/paste a SOP reference that you're looking at is trivial compared to that.



If you already have a list of texts, I can see that, but if it's something you're looking up, say an SOP reference, you're already there, so why not copy/paste it?

Also, if you just included the text of one reference, that would be helpful. You don't have to do all of them. Just the one you think best makes your post. Then leave it to the reader to follow up on the others; that would be reasonable.

Nicely put.



The organic relationship I have in mind is that all bad things result from sin. If God were not involved at all, a being would sin, and death would follow immediately. This would not provide the opportunity for a being to see the (non-death) consequences of their choices. So God gives beings the opportunity to develop a character, that may or may not be in harmony with His own. I see DA 764 is talking about this:



The organic relationship is choose sin and die. This is expressed several times here, in different ways. If God were to allow this, a person wouldn't have the opportunity to develop a character. So God permits a person to sin and not die right away, so as to to develop a character, and have an opportunity to make the right decision.

There are a thousand dangers, all of them unseen, from which God protects us. We're not aware of most of these dangers, just a very, very small percentage, so do not recongize just how dangerous a thing sin is, nor to what extent we are dependent upon God and His protection.



God always wants to have and to show mercy. We see this just as much in the destruction of Jersualem in A.D. 70. For example, the lamentation of Christ shows this.



You mean just the one sentence taken out of context, right? The rest of the paragraph is echoing what I've been saying:



This is not only making the same point, but referring to the same event! So one could hardly argue she's making a contrast here between her comments in GC 35-37 and what she's saying here.

Let's take a look at her comment from GC chapter one, that you're referring to:



I'm not understanding this. The flood is a "no mercy" situation, right? So this would mean you see the principle as applying tot he flood then? I would agree with this, that the principle applies here, being what you call a "no mercy" situation, but I wouldn't think you would agree with this.

Also, what constitutes a "mercy" situation, as opposed to a "no mercy" situation?

The seven last plagues are a "no mercy" situation too. So you see the GC 35-37 description as applying to the seven last plagues as well?



This presupposes that it is not necessary for God, as a general principle, to act to prevent natural disasters from occuring. I think we have a large disagreement here. The SOP tells us that God's intervention is needed to even keep the earth in proper orbit. I think sin has messed things up to the extent that God's intervention is needed to prevent the earth from destruction. When He ceases, then destruction occurs.



All sin has selfishness as its root, which, apart from God's intervention, would lead to the result described above in the DA 764 quote.



Againg, the DA 764 statement looks to disagree with this.



So you're saying God doesn't have a capital punishment provsion for sins which *do* have organic consequences?

You seem to have the underlying idea that sin, of itself, is, at least in general, not very destructive to the one practicing it. So God must impose penalities to punish it, or it would go unpunished.

On the other hand, I see that sin is extremely destructive, and that we vastly underestimate to what extent, so that we consequently vastly underestimate God's activity in protecting us, and preventing its destructive work.

I don’t see that in the DA 660 statement you quoted below. Life, Bread and Water are the very “basic necessities of (temporal) life” which indeed Christ’s death allows us to have. Especially in terms of Life. And also the “sun and rain” (Matt 5:45), which allow to grow food and obtain freshwater, on both the just and the unjust, as God could easily have not made it so, as seen in the Plagues of Egypt.



Do cite some of those 1888 references.



The format correction above should show that I had made a summarizing topical shift, which addressed what I had meant by “basic necessities of [temporal] life”.



Or, along these surface lines, we can add, as it is popularly done, the vile entertainer who “Thanks God” for having won an award and who does have talent, was actually specifically blessed by God in both talent and success!!??

Completely contrary to this popular opinion, I don’t talent as a “blessing” from God, but just a naturally forming ability which can be dedicated to God. However, in the fact that nature can come to form such ability in a humans, then it so ultimately does originate with God. I rather see that, at times, especially in firstfruit circumstances, God searches the earth for people who have such naturally forming talents and seeks to get them to use them for His Glory.

So I don’t see “talents” as a specific blessings from God. They are indeed only “specifically” so when they are a gift of the Holy Spirit (COL 327.1).



I am assuming that you are referring to GC 35-37, however like I had said in Post #133274, (which you have not yet responded to), I see that the GC 35-37 is pointedly reserved for God’s once faithful professed people who have come to rebel against Him and not actually to the wicked. The “organic” possibility of utter destruction is seen with this group as the Devil actively does want to destroy them and God has to continually send/commission angels to protect them. (From the underlying 14MR 3.1).

So I don’t see that passage as speaking of ‘a blessing of protection to the wicked’.



I was summarily referring back to the “atonement blessing” in general.

-I don’t get your responding process, seems somewhat convoluted to me, but your Copy and paste process would not have to involve special pasting, reformatting and coding, whereas mine does.

-I have already stated my reasons why for not including all texts. And wider context is also important to Bible and SOP statements.

I see the key to understanding EGW’s statement here, echoing the ‘fully lived life and then natural death’ analogy in James 1:15, is: “By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire.”

That is why I see that some sins were to be capitally punished as they more quickly came to this result of self-inflicted, naturally-derived, death when fully “lived” out, while others did not and could be normatively atoned for once a year.



I see that this “organic relationship” for all, particularly Satan’s sins which at first, in Heaven, not necessarily “capital types of sins”, did indeed necessitate this time so that they could be self-revealed.



I don’t understand how you are involving the formation of one’s character in this. I rather see that time is permitted so that people can understand why God’s ways are indeed, now transparently better, and based on this choose either sin or God.



As I see it, these fall under the “basic necessities of life” that God equally provides for everyone, indeed all in protection against the harmful results of sin. However there are many Satan-caused dangers that God has to pointedly and constantly protect His people against, as long as He actually can, i.e., if they are faithful.



God’s/Jesus’s “wanting” to do something is completely distinct from what He ultimately/eventually “chooses” to do (even when allowing/permitting). Case in point, as I substantively see and understand it, at some point, late into the Jewish War, God no longer chose to have mercy and let Titus respond as He should have a long time ago, and no longer have mercy. Indeed the reason why Titus chose to no longer have mercy was not even substantive, i.e., the Jews were physically fighting back, but because he became insulted by the Jews presuming to dictate the terms of surrender. (Josephus, Wars 6:6.3 [#352]) If he became so indignant for that, then it can be seen that his previous patience and mercy when suffering losses in actual battle was surely God influenced.



Are you referring to a “textual sentence” or a “judgement sentence” here? I am not sure by what you are implying here, especially as I don’t see the “executioner” sentence to be out of context, particularly spiritually.



My point was that in GC 614.2, EGW says that God did some judgements in the OT through Holy Angels. The first 4 plagues, though unmixed with mercy in themselves, are actually said to ‘not be universal, or the inhabitants of the earth would be wholly cut off.’ (GC 628.2)

Then in the Fifth Plague, God judges the “throne of the Beast” (Rev 16:10), and in the Sixth Plague God acts against the “life-blood” of this apostate movement (Rev 16:12). It is only after that, that the whole world is gathered together to war against God due to falling for supernatural miracles (Rev 16:13-16) and why I see that it is only in the Seventh Plague that this now global Babylon Congregation all suffer the unmixed fierce wrath judgement of God (Rev 16:19).

So, like in the War of the Jews event, I see a gradual withdrawal of God’s judgement culminating in an utter ended of unmixed wrathful judgement for those who persist in rebellion until the end. Interestingly enough, it is because, some may want to switch sides to avoid this punishment, with some, e.g., former SDA’s who knew that they would come, that Jesus makes the applicable imperative statement in Rev 22:11 just prior to the beginning of the Plagues, as seen in the SOP account.



As explained above, I see that there is mercy involved even within/during the execution of a judgement by God, right up to an utter end, where God allows the Devil to then fully have his way.



(I’ll address this through concrete Biblical examples next.)



The Flood judgement was decreed 120 years before it occurred. It was going to happen, and with only the one ark being planned, God clearly understood that many of these people, who were actually acting against great light and knowledge (unlike the Ninevites) would not seize the granted opportunity for mercy. Most in fact quibbled with the fact that it had never rained, rather than humbly, substantively seeing that their lives were contrary to God’s clear and known will. Noah was indeed a preacher of “righteousness” (2 Pet 2:5), because his generation were not “doing what was right”. Like the Pharisees later on, many of them, i.e., people who even professed to be followers of God, probably found all kinds of loopholes in God’s Ten Commandments in which to practise their sins.

So mercy was present in the decreed Flood judgement until the door in the ark was closed. God did not have to instruct Noah to preach repentance at all, but just him build the ark and let people suffer their deserved consequence for their sins. Then it would have been a “no mercy” judgement from the start.

In a similar way, for most of the Jewish War, which was long ago showed by God to be the utter judgement of faithless Israel, there was ample opportunity for mercy and even to escape death. However those who snubbed that provision and persisted in fighting and then rebellion to the end, suffered the fate of death. However, apparently millions (i.e., ca. 1 million out of a possible 2.1 million present in the city then when the war started during the Feast of Unleaven Bread) escaped.



Simply said, where people are allowed to escape the actual utter judgement that God intends. If God did not want them to escape/survive, even be saved, this surely would not have been the case at all. So even in a judgement, there is usually a last chance, ‘mercy provision’ and then a ‘no-more-mercy’ stage.



Though “saving mercy” will, actually not be granted by God once the plagues are started, which is why Jesus greatly wishes that no one would seek it then (Rev 22:11), mercy is implicitly present as ‘not all flesh is cutoff’ from the start. So this “non-saving mercy”, somewhat like for the 1st Century Jews, will be for an opportunity for everyone to make a knowing decision during this time, against God before they all suffer the full effects of their sins.

Indeed it seems that the first 4 plagues are poured out before the Final Global rebellious movement is fully established. I.e., many people in ‘non-Christian’ countries may not have subscribed to a New World Order under the leadership of the U.S./West and Papacy.



[Please provide the direct quote and/or reference for your SOP statement above on the “orbits” Indeed I cannot really comment here without first reading/analyzing it for myself.]

Nonetheless, I can understand that God can limit how many natural disasters are allowed to strike the earth. Perhaps in direct proportion to the “righteousness level” on earth, and thus this is indirectly a part of the Four Winds that He is holding back, as the faithfulness of may people allow Him to restrain “outlaw” human passions, which, when no longer restrained, would warrant the proportionate withdrawing of His protection.



Still all sins do not have the same “life span” up to their death. Some sins have a faster track to this natural death end, and that is why I understand that their utter, and relatively soon results were to be capitally preempted/curtailed when committed. In, how I see, God choosing to fairly deal with various branches of sin in this judicious way, I think it indeed reveals the Justice and even Merciful aspects of God’s character, rather than blanketly making all sins result in immediate death. That is why I Theologically see that it is the end result of sin, through a “life of rebellion” that is death and not sin itself. Indeed this result has to be allowed to grow, and not only “sown”, to be naturally vs. declaratory, even artificially, “reaped”. Hence this GC’s time.



For the many reasons previously stated on this SOP passage in this thread, indeed also involving Gen 3:22's Truth, and the further ones above, I do not see that it Substantively nor Theologically does. Indeed I see that in this GC, it will only be shown that sin is deserving of death, and that, as in capital judgements, for the sake of those who do not want to live a life of sin. This is indeed why I see this entire GC is necessary. I.e., not merely so that man can naturally reap the natural consequences of sin, but as God has done through the removal of the Tree of Life, to demonstrate to all that God has not reason at all to, effectively, “sponsor” sin and sinners and let them live, as they either will eventually destroy themselves after much suffering and/or involve sinless worlds and being in continual strife.



Temporally speaking, isn’t that easily seen in Israel’s laws. Indeed the Passover Ordinance was the provision for the sins of people that were not to be capitally punished.



As stated above and throughout this thread, that is what God’s statement in Gen 3:22 indicates.



In some cases, it indeed would as Satan would surely not do it himself and not all sins have this immediate consequence of death, if ever. That is why God must preemptively/“prematurely” act to keep certain sins in check, even those that would seem to “organically” lead to death. And these interventions are for the sake and well-being of the righteous.



I agree with this though only in part, as I Theologically see and understand from the Bible and SOP that this is all only the case because God chose to bar the Tree of Life for both nature and created beings. So the Planet has since then come to develop these destructive effects. However, as it can be seen in the Garden of Eden that remained until the Flood and still had the benefits of the Tree of Life, it was in its perfect state while the rest of the earth was suffering these destructive results of sin.

Your refusal to accept that plain Bible and SOP possible fact is what is keeping you from understanding this directly derived Theological Truth.

By your comments, it looks like you do see it.



Which makes these blessings of the atonement.



Sure, if you're interested, I can find some of these. I have many at home (where I am not right now). I'll see if I can find at least one right now.





There's two. Let me know if you'd like to see more.



Talent, surely. Success, not necessarily.



Certainly it's a blessing from God. We can't control our DNA. If we have some special aptitude, say for art or music or whatever, that's a blessing from God.



Which makes it a blessing from God. Nature isn't self-acting.



These "natural forming talents" were given by God. Every good thing comes from above.



Do you know this reference by heart? That is, COL 327.1. You must have had it right in front of you, ready to copy/paste, right? It's a whole paragraph. Why can't you just quote the part of the paragraph you're interested it? How much effort is it to copy/paste this?



This says the talents are "especially the gifts and blessings imparted by the Holy Spirit," which makes sense. However it neither says nor implies that it does not include other gifts and blessings. Indeed, the wording implies these talents are included (just not "especially).

And, indeed, a little further along we read:



So it's not the case that only gifts of the Holy Spirit are "specifically" talents. That are "especially" talents, but not "only 'specifically'" talents.



Yes.



I probably won't have time to . Just the little bit I'm trying to keep up with is all I'll likely be able to manage.



She applies the same concept to specifically the wicked, as already cited in the GC 614 passage. Not only does she apply the same principle, she refers specifically to the destruction of Jerusalem in so doing.



She writes:



This is specifically speaking of "the disobedient," which is, by definition, the wicked. The whole point is that even those who are disobedient are protect by God from Satan's "malignant power."



Ok; this has been discussed above, so I won't comment further here.

Tom: The Talents and blessings issue is an interesting one, but one that is pertinently off topic to this discussion. I would have to study out the issue more deeply and fully to comment further, but that is beyond my available time and pressing agenda.

-I was expecting quotes from EGW. Nothing per se against Waggoner and Jones, but I do not (defaultly) consider them as an authoritative or inspired source, even on this topic.

-‘No Time...’ Seriously/Truthfully Tom!??? As it is patently the usual case with you, you evidently have ample “time” for everything else than what you manifestly do not think/know to have a plausible and/or valid answer to. Again, rather than expending your time on such peripheral issue, why don’t/won’t you expend it on the substantive ones that you have chosen not to answer.

-In regards to GC 614, in the end, ‘the whole world will be religious’, and quite genuinely, thinking to be even born again Christians. Some from a life of being Christians others by recent conversion. So EGW comments there, like with the 1st Century Jews, applies to a former professed People of God who think themselves to still be so, and not to outrightly wicked people. Indeed even God’s people can become “disobedient and unthankful” = wicked.

I also see two concurrent but distinct notions being expounded on/expressed here by EGW.

(1) ‘sinning mankind’ being allowed to only have the influence of Satan “blow upon them”

(2) God permitting Satan to execute judgements upon former professed People of God.

So I don’t see Satan a doing judgements when God no longer allows His Spirit to temper mankind, but instead, as Satan always wanted, mankind is allowed to fully live according to how they always wanted, which would surely end in eventual self-destruction, whereas in regards to people who claim the name of Christ, Satan actively wants to destroy them and it is only the angelic protective power of God that is preventing these direct/active Satanic attacks. However in Divinely permitted judgements, these will be allowed.

Interestingly enough, in the end, to add to the actual deception of those times, the whole world will want to be Christians, and Satan will have no other choice but to act along these lines. However he will still be destroying the law of God by undermining the Sabbath. This is also why I see that it is God, through angels who will administer the first 6 plagues against those nominal Christians and not the Devil. But in the Last Plague, he will be allowed to, apparently in pure vindictive wrath, seeing then that all is lost.