"Love me or I'll kill you" has always seemed to me to be the skeptics' argument against God's love. I never really thought it could be true. But in the statements I see posted above from the Bible, I'm coming to see there's a lot more truth in it than I might ever have thought. Wow.

Of course, God doesn't express it exactly in that manner. But it is still a fact that those who do not love God will perish.

Thank you all for the scriptures.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Green - there is not doubt that those that do not love God will perish. The question is, if you do not love God, then does God execute you? So far from this thread, the vote is, 3-YES, God executes sinners if you do not love Him, and 2-NO.

EGW is clear, you can not command love. Is EGW wrong??? MM and Green think so, IF I have read this thread correctly.

I think, APL, it is the devil that wishes there were no requirement of love in God's law. Are you defending his position?

I don't think EGW meant what you are asserting. There are other statements that add to her teaching on the topic, and perhaps the one you refer to is applicable within a certain context. Here is a balancing statement.



Would you like to know what Mrs. White says about the teaching that God is love and does not execute judgment, APL? She sees it as a species of "spiritualism." Look carefully at the following quote.



Again, this is Satan's teaching that we are addressing in this thread, and the very title of the thread puts the topic in the light that Satan would have it. He wants us to believe that God is burdening us with unloving laws. Satan would have us think that God's requirement of love is unjust, unfair, and that He is not loving. Of course, the opposite is true.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Green - I agree with you. This thread is addressing the teaching of Satan. It is Satan that says, if you do not follow God, He will kill you.

You say, "I don't think EGW meant what you are asserting.". Really?? She says, "love cannot be commanded". But you say this means love can be commanded? Can love be forced? NO, I think I interpreted EGW right.

The quotation from DD 22.1 should be read in context. It is from the same book I quoted, The Great Controversy. After all, this is one of the issues of the controversy; Does God execute those that disagree with Him?


What is the "weak sentimentalism" EGW it talking about? It is that God will not really allow the natural consequences to take place. God is love, and will save all! No, He will not and He CANNOT. That also would be a violation of His character. Continuing in Great Controversy, "All who indulge sinful traits of character, or willfully cherish a known sin, are inviting the temptations of Satan. They separate themselves from God and from the watchcare of His angels; as the evil one presents his deceptions, they are without defense and fall an easy prey. Those who thus place themselves in his power little realize where their course will end. Having achieved their overthrow, the tempter will employ them as his agents to lure others to ruin. {GC 558.3}"

How is the ruin brought about? Does God then step in an execute sinners? NO. Sinners reap that which they sow. The punishment is intrinsic. It is really you Green that is saying sin does not have consequences!!! You say the only reason there are consequences is that God has to enforce them. If God did not enforce them, then there would be no consequences. Wrong. The wages of sin is death, not execution by God. Romans 6:23. Sin, which IT is finished, brings forth death, James 1:15. This was demonstrated by Christ. Christ was not executed by God.

This is precisely where your logic leads you astray, and probably many others similarly. You equate "command" with "force." This is a fallacy of logic that renders the rest of the equation false.

God gives us commands. I'm sure you would agree that indeed the Bible gives us many of God's commands. But God does not force our choice, does He? We are free to choose to obey the law, and live according to God's will and plan, or to break the law, and with it face the penalty of the law. This is our choice.

It is NOT our choice to choose what the penalty of the law will be. That is God's sole domain. We can merely choose whether or not we will live in compliance with God's requirements.

To say that God is not fair in enforcing the penalty of the law, when God has already freely permitted us to choose another path and we have despised it, is to accept Satan's argument that God is not fair. This is, according to Mrs. White, a form of spiritualism.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

She was not wrong she was stating the facts. If God withdraws His protection from men, even if this is all He did it, it would be like snuffing out the flame of a candle, they are cursed and they are marked for destruction in the second death, is this not God's right?

But what happens to those who do not love God?

A marriage is between two parties not one. So there is an agreement between us and God. If we do not break the covenant then we are loving God. If we break the covenant we are loving Satan, and what is going to happen to Satan?

quoting APL "DID God destroy Jerusalem? NOPE. What happened to Jerusalem is very instructive and should be studied and understood."

You obviously do not believe in the Spirit of Prophecy...
I am going to be forward here so please do not edit this response.

"For nearly forty years after the doom of Jerusalem had been pronounced by Christ Himself, the Lord delayed His judgments upon the city and the nation. Wonderful was the long-suffering of God toward the rejectors of His gospel and the murderers of His Son. The parable of the unfruitful tree represented God’s dealings with the Jewish nation. The command had gone forth, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” (Luke 13:7) {GC 27.3}

So the fig tree with no figs is a parable for the Jewish nation, and the early church and the Christian church (This all can be proven) So why did the tree die? It was because of their hatred for God in their actions thoughts and words.

"Christ uttered against it a withering curse. “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever,” He said. The next morning, as the Saviour and His disciples were again on their way to the city, the blasted branches and drooping leaves attracted their attention. “Master,” said Peter, “behold, the fig tree which Thou cursedst is withered away.” {DA 582.1} Christ’s act in cursing the fig tree had astonished the disciples. It seemed to them unlike His ways and works. Often they had heard Him declare that He came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. They remembered His words, “The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Luke 9:56. His wonderful works had been done to restore, never to destroy. The disciples had known Him only as the Restorer, the Healer. This act stood alone. What was its purpose? they questioned. {DA 582.2}
God “delighteth in mercy.” “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Micah 7:18; Ezekiel 33:11. To Him the work of destruction and the denunciation of judgment is a “strange work.” Isaiah 28:21. But it is in mercy and love that He lifts the veil from the future, and reveals to men the results of a course of sin. {DA 582.3}
The cursing of the fig tree was an acted parable. That barren tree, flaunting its pretentious foliage in the very face of Christ, was a symbol of the Jewish nation. The Saviour desired to make plain to His disciples the cause and the certainty of Israel’s doom. For this purpose He invested the tree with moral qualities, and made it the expositor of divine truth. The Jews stood forth distinct from all other nations, professing allegiance to God. They had been specially favored by Him, and they laid claim to righteousness above every other people. But they were corrupted by the love of the world and the greed of gain. They boasted of their knowledge, but they were ignorant of the requirements of God, and were full of hypocrisy. Like the barren tree, they spread their pretentious branches aloft, luxuriant in appearance, and beautiful to the eye, but they yielded “nothing but leaves.” The Jewish religion, with its magnificent temple, its sacred altars, its mitered priests and impressive ceremonies, was indeed fair in outward appearance, but humility, love, and benevolence were lacking. {DA 582.4}
The treasures of truth which God had committed to them, they did not give to the world. In the barren tree they might read both their sin and its punishment. Withered beneath the Saviour’s curse, standing forth sere and blasted, dried up by the roots, the fig tree showed what the Jewish people would be when the grace of God was removed from them. Refusing to impart blessing, they would no longer receive it. “O Israel,” the Lord says, “thou hast destroyed thyself.” Hosea 13:9. {DA 583.2}
The warning is for all time. Christ’s act in cursing the tree which His own power had created stands as a warning to all churches and to all Christians. No one can live the law of God without ministering to others. But there are many who do not live out Christ’s merciful, unselfish life. Some who think themselves excellent Christians do not understand what constitutes service for God. They plan and study to please themselves.
By Christ’s act in cursing the barren fig tree, the result was shown. They had determined their own destruction. {DA 584.2}
For more than a thousand years the Jewish nation had abused God’s mercy and invited His judgments. They had rejected His warnings and slain His prophets. For these sins the people of Christ’s day made themselves responsible by following the same course. In the rejection of their present mercies and warnings lay the guilt of that generation. The fetters which the nation had for centuries been forging, the people of Christ’s day were fastening upon themselves. {DA 584.3}
In every age there is given to men their day of light and privilege, a probationary time in which they may become reconciled to God. But there is a limit to this grace. Mercy may plead for years and be slighted and rejected; but there comes a time when mercy makes her last plea. The heart becomes so hardened that it ceases to respond to the Spirit of God. Then the sweet, winning voice entreats the sinner no longer, and reproofs and warnings cease. {DA 587.1}
That day had come to Jerusalem. Jesus wept in anguish over the doomed city, but He could not deliver her. He had exhausted every resource. In rejecting the warnings of God’s Spirit, Israel had rejected the only means of help. There was no other power by which they could be delivered. {DA 587.2}
The Jewish nation was a symbol of the people of all ages who scorn the pleadings of Infinite Love. The tears of Christ when He wept over Jerusalem were for the sins of all time. In the judgments pronounced upon Israel, those who reject the reproofs and warnings of God’s Holy Spirit, may read their own condemnation. {DA 587.3}

"A single angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning. When David offended against God by numbering the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was punished. The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits. There are forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desolation everywhere. {GC 614.2}

This is where you are wrong. The penalty of sin is intrinsic. Sin pays it wage. You see God as the executioner. Sin is a legal problem. One who keeps the law of a sense of obligation merely, indeed does not keep the law.

Did God destroy Jerusalem? Did God execute Christ? NOPE.

I just love the selective reasoning of men who say stuff like "if you don't love me I'll kill you" in regards to God's justice.

You quoted this much of a statement from Ellen White... "love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority."

But if continue on in that exact same quote, she then says this near the end;

Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. “With His stripes we are healed.” {DA 25.2}

Jesus suffered second death, being cut off from the Father so we do not have to suffer it ourselves yet you think this had nothing to do with God and His righteousness.

It is as if you believe as the Vatican teaches that Satan is in control of hell. Satan will burned with fire just as the wicked will and this punishment comes directly from the Father.

Love cannot be commanded and love cannot be fabricated.

It is by love that we learn to love and this separates those who truly love from those who try to earn salvation through keeping the commandments. That was what she was saying.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.

Realizing our fate is in the hands of God leads us to repentance.

When we see His love we learn to love but this is not a part of us from birth, we are born WITHOUT this love, so it is a learned element of faith. Not something from ourselves so in essence without the guidance and example of God through Jesus it is impossible to truly love unselfishly.

So there is NO MARRIAGE without the love of Christ guiding us to God.