APL,

If God destroys by withdrawing His protection, wouldn't that mean He withdraws His troops instead of sending them to the battle?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I don't know about SOP, but here's what Ellen White says:


Not sure what you want me to get out of that, but when you say:
and you say we can't be for certain whether He is directly causing or commanding it, then we must not sympathize with sin, or we may lead many or ourselves go down to ruin. Therefore, pass the mashed potatoes.

Or do you think you may have misspoken about Jesus being the one causing and commanding disease, disaster, and death?

Kland, do you have any idea what "SOP" stands for (it is used repeatedly throughout this forum)?

GC, is there a significant difference (in outcome and culpability) between 1) Jesus permitting evil men, evil angels, or the forces of nature to cause death and destruction within the limits He sets and works to enforce, and 2) Jesus commanding holy men and holy angels to cause death and destruction in accordance with His plan and purpose?

I see some difference between those, yes. But the difference depends on the perspective level one looks from.

For example, are you at the level of:

1) Human/sinner
2) Fallen angel/sinner
3) Unfallen beings of other worlds
4) Unfallen angels
5) God Himself (which we cannot properly consider)

This is a controversy on a grand stage before the universe. God does not always do things a certain way for our personal benefit. He is in charge of every level of creation throughout the universe, and ultimately is Himself on trial throughout this sin experiment.

When God allows evil to destroy itself, it shows what evil can do. When God directly intervenes to put a stop to evil, it shows that He is ultimately in control, that He detests evil, and that He is good enough to put boundaries to it, even though sin is on trial in this experiment.

Either one, therefore, God uses for His honor and glory. Both are important and effective in convincing the watching universe of the horrors of sin and of the justice and goodness of God and His law.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I should add that, from my perspective at least, the culpability for destruction is all sin's. The responsibility for checking the evil of sin is all God's. When God destroys, it is good, for it checks the evil of sin. When sin destroys, as it often does, it is also good, for it demonstrates to all the evil of sin.

Note that either way God brings about good, in perfect keeping with the promise we have from Him that "all things work together for good to them that love Him."

Obviously, for those who do not love God, not all things will work out to be good in the end. But for those who do love God, even the "bad" things will be used for good purposes in God's all-wise and perfect plan.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

GC, thank you for sharing. Most assuredly Jesus is in control of the outcome of the great controversy. From the beginning, before He created anything, when it was just the Godhead and nothing else, Jesus made a conscious, informed, deliberate decision to create free moral agents knowing Lucifer, one-third of the angels, and the human race would rebel and require His redeeming blood and six thousand years of great controversy. His only other options was not to create. The great controversy, therefore, exists because Jesus chose to create. For this reason, He is culpable and assumes all responsibility. He leaves nothing to choice or chance. We are free to choose, but He is free to manage the outcome.

The Great Deluge is an example of Jesus working to ensure the great controversy plays out according to His plan and purpose. He intervened and saved the obedient and destroyed the disobedient. In so doing Jesus prevented the human race and the great controversy from ending tragically. Had He not intervened the human race would have been unredeemable and Satan would have won the great controversy. The security of holy angels and unfallen worlds would have been jeopardized. Jesus will never let that happen. Never! Things play out the way they do (disease, disaster, death, etc) because Jesus is managing the outcome of choices and the great controversy. He is in control - not sin, not sinners, not evil angels, not nature.

GC, thank you for posting about the tornadoes. You're right, such record-breaking outbreaks are happening more and more frequently. Eventually people are going to conclude Jesus is punishing the world because the Sunday Sabbath is not being carefully kept.

So why then would He be "punishing" the world? Or when you say, eventually conclude, you mean they will get it correct?

The quote says, "Satan is exercising his power".

But People will say God is punishing the world because they aren't keeping Sunday.

Though I think there is also a third option.
God is allowing sin to operate from cause to effect so all will know where sin leads.

No matter whose theory you follow --
The idea that God withdraws His protection<
or that God stages the weather.
Won't it be a punishment from God.

ALP would say God is withdrawing his protection. So why is God withdrawing his protection? Why? Because they have forsaken God?

So people will think enforcing Sunday will return the country back into God's protective favor.

Are they "converted"?
I don't think so, they seek to appease God by forcing everyone on pain of "no buying or selling" privileges, or even death to keep Sunday.

True conversion is willing, loving submission to God.