Re: Making money from Java

"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> If you were of a questioning nature you might ask why an infinitely
> powerful God, who can blaze the fundamental principles of what he wants
> into tablets of stone for Moses (without requiring scribes or
> intermediaries), would take such a painful, error prone, drawn out, and
> devious method to reveal Himself to ordinary folk... Look at all the
> people who have died awful and painful deaths because of differing
> opinions about what exactly was being revealed.

I do have a questioning nature, and I do wonder about those things. Even
though I believe the Bible is God's inspired Word, the Bible doesn't give us
all the answers. There are lots of things I don't understand about God. But
it would have to be a pretty small and insignificant god that a human could
completely understand, would it not? :-)

You pose a couple of interesting questions there, and I wonder if you have
considered those questions from God's viewpoint, assuming God as the Bible
describes Him? Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Bible is true,
and that God is as the Bible describes Him, and take a look at those two
questions of yours in that contaxt, to see if the Biblical scenario makes
sense. Please bear with me, I can't say this in two or three sentences. :-)

Okay, why does God seem to hide Himself? Well, what has happened in the past
when He did not? Remember, we're assuming the Biblical account is correct
here. Initially God created Adam and Eve, and the Bible says God walked and
talked with Adam in the Garden of Eden, apparently every afternoon. Because
Adam and Eve were completely without sin originally, they could be in God's
presence without being destroyed. So how did our original parents respond to
God's clear and regular presence? They waited until (from Adam and Eve's
perspective) God was not immediately present, then they both disobeyed God's
one and only rule, and ate the forbidden fruit. Okay, so God ran them out of
Eden. Adam and Eve, now being sinners, would perish in God's immediate
presence, so out of mercy God backed off from immediate contact with them.
And how did that work? Cain, the first human being ever born became a
murderer and killed his brother Able. This trend continued until, in
apparent disgust at the rampant evil of mankind, God destroyed the entire
human race with a flood, except for the righteous man Noah, and seven other
people. Even after that dramatic judgment, people continued to be evil. So
God selected a man of great faith, Abraham, and through him God started a
people whom God intended to deal with in a more direct manner. After 400
years, Abraham's descendents the Jews were slaves and many were worshiping
the gods of their captors, so God sent Moses to deliver them from slavery
and take them to the land He had promised to Abraham. God proceeded to
practically demolish the Egyptian economy through a series of ten
spectacular 'plagues', then saved the Jews by literally holding back the
Egyptian army with a wall of fire, and opening up a dry valley through the
Red Sea, with the water heaped up on each side. Then every day for *forth
years* God's presence was visible as a cloud that covered them by day, and
fire by night. Six days a week they woke up with the ground covered with
food (manna), which would spoil if you kept it overnight, except for the
Sabbath. There were no atheists among the Jews in those days, because God's
presence was astoundingly obvious. What was the result? Only a few months
after the parting of the Red Sea, God spoke to the whole nation from Mt.
Sinai. This scared the Jews so much, they asked Moses to deal with God for
them. So when Moses went up Mt. Sinai to hear what God had to say, by the
time Moses returned in 40 days, the Jews had already made a golden calf and
were worshiping it! These people had just witnessed the most fantastic
series of supernatural events since the Creation, they had seen God's
undeniable presence every single day, and they were worshiping a gold calf!
This cannot be overstated: GOD'S OBVIOUS DAILY PRESENCE DID NOT PRODUCE
FAITH IN MEN! Why? The only answer I can think of is Jeremiah 17:9: "The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know
it?" Men simply have evil hearts, and they do not believe or disbelieve in
God because of proof or lack of proof, but because of what men want in their
hearts. I believe this clearly illustrates why simply dazzling us with
miracles *does not* accomplish what God apparently wants, and that is for us
to have faith in Him. One other illustration while I'm on this point.When
thinking about the story Jesus told of Lazarus and the rich man (Like
16:19-31), I used to have trouble accepting that people would not believe,
even if someone whom they knew was dead, came back and told them about God.
But over the years, I have seen with my own eyes that people are just that
obstinate. I know people who have been miraculously healed, medical evidence
and all. One of my very oldest and dearest friends had stomach cancer. They
did multiple CAT scans and x-rays, including the day before surgery, and the
cancer was there. My friend was a minister (now retired), and his whole
church was praying for him. The surgeon said after surgery that when he went
in, he saw lesions on the stomach wall where the cancer had been, but the
cancer was completely gone. Now, if my friend came and showed you those
medical records, would it make you a believer? :-)

So, why do so many people suffer, if there is a God, and He is good? You're
not the only one to pose this question, many Christians have asked the same
thing, particularly when enduring great suffering. If you were a believer, I
would recommend C.S. Lewis' book "The Problem of Pain" but this book might
not be satisfying to a non-believer. I will take a stab at it, but this is a
very difficult subject, and I'm no expert. Again, for the sake of argument,
let's assume the God of the Bible. I believe the answer lies in
understanding three things, one that God decided to give man free will, two
that our time in this world is short, particularly when compared to the
eternity that follows, and three that there really is a Satan out there and
his purpose is "to kill, steal and destroy" (John 10:10). When God created
man, He gave man dominion over the earth. But when man (Adam and Eve)
listened to Satan and sinned, man, through Adam, abdicated his dominion to
Satan. Since that time, Satan has been "the ruler of this world" whom Jesus
has defeated (John 12:31), and who will be eventually thrown into the Lake
of Fire for eternity. The Bible doesn't spell out precisely what powers
Satan has to work mischief here, but it is apparently significant. Were
diseases created by Satan (e.g. by mutating harmless bacteria & virus), for
example? We can only speculate. But because of man's fall, God cursed the
earth (Genesis 3:17-19). I have often wondered if what we perceive and
express as "Murphy's Law" (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) is
actually God's curse at work? :-) Anyway, man has sinned against God, and
there are direct and indirect consequences of that. There are also the
specific consequences of the sins themselves (e.g. adultery leads to
divorce). And all the while, Satan causes all the mischief he can, helped by
hosts of fallen angels whom the Bible calls demons. At the very least, Satan
tempts and encourages men to evil acts. Now, against this background, God
has limited Himself by the decisions He has made, such as to give man free
will, and dominion over the earth, which man abdicated to Satan. We can only
speculate about the principles on which this abdication took place; how
Satan obtained and currently has dominion. But if the Bible is correct about
these things, it makes sense, at least to me, from that standpoint. God is
more interested in our condition at the time we meet Him, than He is about
what we experience here, and He will willingly see His people suffer here,
if that helps to perfect them. If God were to simply remove all suffering,
that means all the direct and indirect consequence of sin, would He not by
that very act, undermine what He has said about sin, that the consequences
of sin are death? I realize this is only a partial answer, but I hope it
gives some insight into why the God of the Bible might not do more to
alleviate suffering.
--
Judson McClendon judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."


.

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