Do you have no answer for this quotation? Yes, it is pretty powerful. And there are more!

Cause and effect, "according to their works". No mystery. God is not the executioner. God is the restorer. Satan is the destroyer. The very attributes that belonged to the character of Satan, the evil one represented as belonging to the character of God. Jesus came to teach men of the Father, to correctly represent him before the fallen children of earth. Oh, that men might open their minds to know God as he is revealed in his Son!

He keeps them alive or He lets them die. That would be the case with or without sin. God has always been, and will always be, in charge of who lives and dies. To say that He is powerless to prevent death is incorrect.

Some SABBATH day thoughts on our non-violent God. Rest in Him.

"There are but two powers that control the minds of men—the power of God and the power of Satan. Christ is man’s Creator and Redeemer; Satan is man’s enemy and destroyer. {Te 276.3}
 
If He [Christ] lets go His hold of us for one moment, Satan stands ready to destroy. {15MR 104.1}
 
Satan, knowing that the empire he had usurped would in the end be wrested from him, determined to spare no pains to destroy as many as possible of the creatures whom God had created in his image. He hated man because Christ had manifested for him such forgiving love and pity, and he now prepared to practice upon him every species of deception by which he might be lost; he pursued his course with more energy because of his own hopeless condition. {3SP 194.2}
 
The only safeguard against his power is found in the presence of Jesus. Before men and angels Satan has been revealed as man's enemy and destroyer; Christ, as man's friend and deliverer. His Spirit will develop in man all that will ennoble the character and dignify the nature. It will build man up for the glory of God in body and soul and spirit. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7. He has called us "to the obtaining of the glory"--character--"of our Lord Jesus Christ;" has called us to be "conformed to the image of His Son." 2 Thessalonians 2:14; Romans 8:29. {DA 341.1}
 
God bears long with the rebellion and apostasy of His subjects. Even when His mercy is despised and His love scorned and derided, He bears with men until the last resource for leading them to repentance is exhausted. But there are limits to His forbearance. From those who to the end continue in obstinate rebellion, He removes His protecting care. Providence will no longer shield them from Satan's power. They will have sinned away their day of grace. {RH, September 17, 1901 par. 7}
 
God keeps a reckoning with the nations. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His notice. Those who work evil toward their fellow men, saying, How doth God know? will one day be called upon to meet long-deferred vengeance. In this age a more than common contempt is shown to God. Men have reached a point in insolence and disobedience which shows that their cup of iniquity is almost full. Many have well-nigh passed the boundary of mercy. Soon God will show that He is indeed the living God. He will say to the angels, "No longer combat Satan in his efforts to destroy. Let him work out his malignity upon the children of disobedience; for the cup of their iniquity is full. They have advanced from one degree of wickedness to another, adding daily to their lawlessness. I will no longer interfere to prevent the destroyer from doing his work." {RH, September 17, 1901 par. 8}
 
In this warfare there is no release. Satan's agents never pause in their work of destruction. Those who are in Christ's service must guard every outpost. To save perishing souls from ruin is our object. This is a work of infinite greatness, and man can not hope to obtain success in it unless he unites with the divine Worker. {RH, May 3, 1906 par. 11}
Satan is the destroyer. God cannot bless those who refuse to be faithful stewards. All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his destroying work. We see calamities of every kind and in every degree coming upon the earth, and why? The Lord’s restraining power is not exercised. 6 T. 388, 389.
 
It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this life. Every affliction was regarded as the penalty of some wrongdoing, either of the sufferer himself or of his parents. It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God's law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God,--as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin. Hence one upon whom some great affliction or calamity had fallen had the additional burden of being regarded as a great sinner. {DA 471.1}
 
Thus the way was prepared for the Jews to reject Jesus. He who "hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" was looked upon by the Jews as "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;" and they hid their faces from Him. Isaiah 53:4, 3. {DA 471.2}
 
God had given a lesson designed to prevent this. The history of Job had shown that suffering is inflicted by Satan, and is overruled by God for purposes of mercy. But Israel did not understand the lesson. The same error for which God had reproved the friends of Job was repeated by the Jews in their rejection of Christ. {DA 471.3}
 
You will always find Satan on the side of the oppressor. God does not oppress. God does not bring them [people] in by persecution, for He has let them live all this time, but when Satan gets the lines in his hands, he takes the spurious sabbath and sets it up against the perfection of Christ and [says] you have got to keep it. That is the spirit of persecution and oppression and bondage. {5MR 47.1}
 
In the time of trouble just before the coming of Christ, the righteous will be preserved through the ministration of heavenly angels; but there will be no security for the transgressor of God's law. Angels cannot then protect those who are disregarding one of the divine precepts. {PP 256.1}
 
It is God who holds in his hands the destiny of souls. He will not always be mocked; he will not always to trifled with. Already his judgments are in the land. Fierce and awful tempests leave destruction and death in their wake. The devouring fire lays low the desolate forest and the crowded city. Storm and ship-wreck await those who journey upon the deep. Accident and calamity threaten all who travel upon the land. Hurricanes, earthquakes, sword, and famine follow in quick succession. Yet the hearts of men are hardened. They recognize not the warning voice of God. They will not flee to the only refuge from the gathering storm. {ST, September 10, 1885 par. 8}

Others, however, fail of a satisfactory understanding of the great problem of evil, from the fact that tradition and misinterpretation have obscured the teaching of the Bible concerning the character of God, the nature of His government, and the principles of His dealing with sin. {GC 492.1}

The understanding of the people of God has been blinded, for Satan has misrepresented the character of God. Our good and gracious Lord has been presented before the people clothed in the attributes of Satan, and men and women who have been seeking for truth, have so long regarded God in a false light that it is difficult to dispel the cloud that obscures His glory from their view. Many have been living in an atmosphere of doubt, and it seems almost impossible for them to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel of Christ. . . . {1SM 355.1}

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}

With these words of light and truth before them, how dare men neglect so plain a duty? How dare they disobey God when obedience to His requirements means His blessing in both temporal and spiritual things, and disobedience means the curse of God? Satan is the destroyer. God cannot bless those who refuse to be faithful stewards. All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his destroying work. We see calamities of every kind and in every degree coming upon the earth, and why? The Lord's restraining power is not exercised. The world has disregarded the word of God. They live as though there were no God. Like the inhabitants of the Noachic world, they refuse to have any thought of God. Wickedness prevails to an alarming extent, and the earth is ripe for the harvest. {6T 388.3}


Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no ficklenss, neither shadow of turning.

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 Thus said the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24 But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, said the LORD.

Romans 5:6-8 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

1 John 4:9-10 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? or has he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Psalms 34:21 Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.

Psalms 145:17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.

Nevertheless, Jesus lets go if and when He chooses, not because He was forcibly made to let go. He can keep even the most hardened sinner alive indefinitely if He so chose. So whenever Jesus does let go, it is always with the knowledge that Satan is waiting to destroy.

God is not arbitrary in when He let go.

This is an example of you applying your claims and attributes onto me, much like satan applies his attributes upon God. Why are you doing this? Why did you say that I am saying this statement when I said you are the one causing God to be regarded as a tyrant?


Fair enough. If not eternally, how long do you think God is going to torture people who disagree with Him at the end?

I agree that God is not arbitrary when He lets go. But do you agree that neither is God surprised when He lets go? He knows what will happen when He lets go.

Ellen White says God caused the fire to kill those children. That God did not merely "permit" it is evident in the facts presented in the first paragraph, where the children who were made to jump through the flames were not ordinarily killed.

God is clearly punishing the parents here by killing their children as a consequence for their perversion of the sacrificial types and their observance of idolatrous practices.

NOTE: It is evident that the parents had not intended for their children to die, for, as Mrs. White says, "they did not go to all the lengths of the heathen nations." They would not have sacrificed the burned children themselves, to cause their deaths--they just wanted to make them jump through the flames.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Numbers 21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

God "sent"? No, God permitted.

The Israelites, up to this time, had been preserved from these serpents in the wilderness by a continual miracle; for the wilderness through which they traveled was infested with poisonous serpents. {1SP 315.1}

Moses told the people that God had hitherto preserved them, that they had not been harmed by the serpents, which was a token of his care for them. He told them it was because of their needless murmurings, complaining of the hardships in their journey, that God had permitted them to be bitten of serpents. This was to show them that God had preserved them from many and great evils, which if he had permitted to come upon them, they would have suffered that which they could call hardships. But God had prepared the way before them. There was no sickness among them. Their feet had not swollen in all their journeys, neither had their clothes waxed old. God had given them angels' food, and purest water out of the flinty rock. And with all these tokens of his love, if they complained, he would send his judgments upon them for their ingratitude, and make them to realize his past merciful care for them, of which they had been unmindful. {1SP 315.2}