APL, you believe every act of punishment fits the withdraw and permit principle of punishment. I agree nothing happens without Jesus' say so. Evil angels are not free to wreak havoc as they please. They must have Jesus' permission to tempt or to destroy. Their hands are tied until Jesus unties them. Do you also believe the death and destruction wrought by evil angels when Jesus permits represents the natural cause and effect consequence of sinning?

On another note, you have refused to post inspired passages you believe depict Jesus commanding His chosen people to wage war, to kill His enemies with the edge of the sword. I'm curious as to why. Why won't you post them? Please explain why you have refused to post them. Do you truly believe it? If so, why not post the passages that say so?

Also, you have not explained why you believe nature is self-acting, why you believe all Jesus need do is withdraw His restraining hand and the forces of nature will act in and of itself to cause the death and destruction Jesus is willing to permit. Why do you think nature can act in and of itself when the SOP plainly says it is not so? And, do you think it represents the natural cause and effect consequence of sinning?

MM - by taking your reasoning, God is the cause of everything, good and bad. God is the cause of all disease. God is the cause of all death. God is evil and good. I wonder if you think there is free will or not...

But you cannot distinguish between the two, can you?

People believed Hitler was a god, or at least someone in control. He told them to "kill criminals and combatants". Does that mean it was right?

You are saying that both Hitler and God told people to do acts. The exact same act. But because of one, of your choosing, you whitewash that act into "right". Someone else may choose Hitler and consider it was "right". In fact, many did. That does not make it right. You need to prophesy again, to go and understand what was happening in Israel's day, why they got to that point. I keep coming back to who killed Saul. But that will do no good to ask you as you have already said you believed God planned, intended, overruled events to directly and intentionally kill Saul.


The Inquisition is the same way. That's why your attitude, whether expressed by yourself or others, is why it did happen and why it will happen again.

Because you, and they, make no distinction between right and wrong.

All I can say is wow.

Kland and APL seem to think God is on the same level as fallen men or Satan, or even Hitler.

God sees everything, and He is perfect in Mercy and truth while in no wise aquitting the guilty.

You take the statements that say God is not the cause of sin and twist it to mean God will not execute justice against the wicked.

The Father cannot be contained by the highest heaven yet you can discount all the direct statements in scripture that said God destroys the wicked by sending His angels and instead you build your whole argument based off of the Testimony taken out of context, yet both of you agree that we should go to scripture first.

You both have a very unballanced way of delivering the testimonies. When there seems to be a discrepancy between the record of the Testimonies it is only because of our perception. You have not answered why there are so moany direct quotes from scripture and the Testimonies to support how God destroys the wicked yet you cover your ears and go "bla bla bla" and avoid the direct contradiction of your beliefs that you are trying to teach to others in God's name. Interesting...

james - consider the following carefully.

God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself. Everyone who stifles the admonitions of conscience is sowing the seeds of unbelief, and these will produce a sure harvest. By rejecting the first warning from God, Pharaoh of old sowed the seeds of obstinacy, and he reaped obstinacy. God did not compel him to disbelieve. The seed of unbelief which he sowed produced a harvest of its kind. Thus his resistance continued, until he looked upon his devastated land, upon the cold, dead form of his first-born, and the first-born of all in his house and of all the families in his kingdom, until the waters of the sea closed over his horses and his chariots and his men of war. His history is a fearful illustration of the truth of the words that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7. Did men but realize this, they would be careful what seed they sow. {COL 84.4}

As the seed sown produces a harvest, and this in turn is sown, the harvest is multiplied. In our relation to others, this law holds true. Every act, every word, is a seed that will bear fruit. Every deed of thoughtful kindness, of obedience, or of self-denial, will reproduce itself in others, and through them in still others. So every act of envy, malice, or dissension is a seed that will spring up in a "root of bitterness" (Hebrews 12:15), whereby many shall be defiled. And how much larger number will the "many" poison. Thus the sowing of good and evil goes on for time and for eternity. {COL 85.1}

God destroys no man; but after a time the wicked are given up to the destruction they have wrought for themselves. {YI, November 30, 1893 par. 6}

What you are quoting describes the Jury instructions from God to the saints, proving how God judged in righteousness.

Everyone who is destroyed (BY LIGHTNING FROM HEAVEN) will have destroyed himself.

The total blame is upon everyone who slighted God's mercy.

God is not responsible for their disobediance. They are responsible. That is how everyone who is destroyed destroys himself.

Consider this carefully, APL. By your words, I can imagine the wicked reaching into their own rib cages and grabbing out their own hearts. But if a fire were to devour them, then they had not destroyed themselves--something else did that, didn't it?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I wonder how Ellen got it so wrong...

I see. God destroys no man, and God is not responsible when He does destroy them. Yeah, makes sense.

We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every transgression of the law of God, is a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all who are trifling with the offers of divine grace and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy. Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty. {GC 36.1}

The Saviour's prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God's mercy and trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart sickens, and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the past,--the long procession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions, the "battle of the warrior . . . with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood" (Isaiah 9:5),--what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the results of Satan's rule. {GC 36.2}

The wicked alive at the second coming have to go through a death by fire experience twice. They are consumed by the lightning from heaven at the seocnd coming AND the second death.

"Before the Son of man appears in the clouds of heaven everything in nature will be convulsed. Lightning from heaven uniting with the fire in the earth will cause the mountains to burn like a furnace and pour out their floods of lava over villages and cities. Molten masses of rock thrown into the water by the upheaval of things hidden in the earth will cause the water to boil and send forth rocks and earth. There will be mighty earthquakes and great destruction of human life.—The S.D.A. Bible Commentary 7:946 (1907). {LDE 26.3}

Lightning from heaven is the angels of God.

One of the most exalted order of angels is sent from Heaven; his countenance is like the lightning, and his garments white as snow. He parts the darkness from his track, and the whole heavens are lit with his resplendent glory. The sleeping soldiers start simultaneously to their feet, and gaze with awe and wonder at the open, lighted heavens, and the vision of brightness which approaches. The earth trembles and heaves; soldiers, officers, and sentinels all fall as dead men prostrate upon the earth. The evil angels, who have triumphantly claimed the body of Christ, flee in terror from the place. One of the mighty, commanding angels who has, with his company, been keeping watch over the tomb of his Master, joins the powerful angel who comes from Heaven; and together they advance directly to the sepulcher. {3SP 191.2}