Did God Intervene? Evangelicals think so!

Well other than the supreme court justices(supposedly proLife) I am not sure what the appointee has actually done for the evangelicals that elected him.

I hope He intervenes this year cause I don't like the hand we are being dealt.

Originally posted by TroyB
reply to post by PalmTreeLivin

 

OK...given your explaination of 'BUSH' and company...let me ask you this...

I was born and doctors gave me not 3 months to live, but I survived 40 years thus far, in that time I've brought a comatose child from a coma to talk, walk and act like nothing happened. I've befrended someone who nobody believed in, turns out was abused by her brother-in-law.

I'd become involved with someone who was abused by her step-mother, supported her (married her) raised 3 children (one of whom suffers from the same genetic defects I've had, been told the same SPEIL about not having long to live) another child with autism (thanks a alot BIG PHARMA) for vaccines 'FDA approved' which caused it.

She cheats on me, lies to me, took my children, jails me spouting lies...
Is that your wonderful GOD?...not mine, ok sure there's talk of trials and tribulation...but somewhere there has to be a line, if you ask me...GOD crossed it the minute he let me live, only to suffer me with what I have just stated.

Now he leaves me, bitter, cold, uncaring and certainly untrusting of anyone, because every time I've ever reached out to HELP someone, to show gratitude for the miracle of life, SLAPPED in the FACE I was!

There is no GOD, for if I was to believe there was, "it" would have to be the cruelest thing known to exist. Certainly I could understand pain and suffering unto those who do not appreciate life, care for another (not expecting worldly riches to befall them for showing such heart-felt kindness). All I ever did was CARE, what's my reward, to be tossed aside and made to feel like I and the things I have done selflessly do not matter!!

No wonder this rock's going to hell in a handbasket!

Now...I challenge you to explain this in "God's infinate wisdom" where's the compassion, love and understanding?

I hear you dude, similar situation here (although I am medically fit). If god exists I think I'll ask him to step outside when I meet him. Oh and i LOVE watermelon!

During the 2004 elections I actually had a woman tell me that she thought GOD wanted her to vote for bush minor and that if Jesus were around today he would be a card carrying Republican.... It was all I could do to keep from throwing up.

Who would Jesus waterboard?

reply to post by TheRedneck

I voted for Bush in 2000

you have to be congradulated on being brave enough to admit such a thing...I don't know a single soul otherwise who would...even worse is the ones who did it twice...and even worse than that is the ones who are going to a third time with Grandpa...

reply to post by dgtempe


scripture makes plain that satan is the "god" of this world and its governments and its churches(2corinthians4:4/11:13-15)

when Messiah came to pay the penalty for our sins so that we didn't have to die forever for having broken G-D's laws----He was tempted by satan to forget about us and obtain the rule of the earth right then and there(matthew4:9/luke4:6-7)

satan is allowed temporary rule because that is the 1 adam and eve chose to believe and obey when they rebelled against G-D (genesis3)

G-D in heaven does have the ultimate say in what is allowed to take place here on earth(daniel2:21/4:17,32)and satan has to go get permission to be allowed to afflict G-D's servants(job1/2)

G-D has a hands of policy towards this world and allows us to make our own hell most of the time-------but reserves the right to intervene for the purpose of making prophecy be fulfilled and preventing usfrom annhilating all life on the planet before the allotted 6000 years are completed.

reply to post by dgtempe


scripture makes plain that satan is the "god" of this world and its governments and its churches(2corinthians4:4/11:13-15)

when Messiah came to pay the penalty for our sins so that we didn't have to die forever for having broken G-D's laws----He was tempted by satan to forget about us and obtain the rule of the earth right then and there(matthew4:9/luke4:6-7)

satan is allowed temporary rule because that is the 1 adam and eve chose to believe and obey when they rebelled against G-D (genesis3)

G-D in heaven does have the ultimate say in what is allowed to take place here on earth(daniel2:21/4:17,32)and satan has to go get permission to be allowed to afflict G-D's servants(job1/2)

G-D has a hands of policy towards this world and allows us to make our own hell most of the time-------but reserves the right to intervene for the purpose of making prophecy be fulfilled and preventing usfrom annhilating all life on the planet before the allotted 6000 years are completed.

reply to post by skyshow

Thanks, but somehow I think I would rather be congratulated for having been right.

The simple fact is that we have been getting worse and worse choices each cycle, until now we have the terrible three. That in itself tells me that maybe it's men doing the intervening more than a benevolent God...

TheRedneck

reply to post by Cpt. Monty

I have never hear of so much BS about this. There is no way that God would intervine in any way shape or form to help any country. If that be true then why do the Muslims pray to destroy the US and the Christians pray to destroy Muslims. Its free will and nothing more. Please live God alone. God has or wants anything to do with us other than to be good to each other and do no harm. As if that is going to happen.

how can we hope our world to survive when so many people are this stupid and ignorant?

What I want to know is why God intervenes in the bible but not now? Are we not worthy of his divine intervention or what? I don't think he intervened at anytime or anywhere at all. Lightning, thunder, earthquakes or even the winds were gods interventions back in the day but know it's just nature. Maybe it was always nature?

reply to post by Solarskye


why does not G-D intervene right now?-------because the 6000 years given to men to experiment with their own systems of rules with their chosen 'god' and religions are not finished yet.
prophetically 1/4 of the earths population will die from a combination of religious hatred/strife,wars,drought and famine ,disease epidemics and at the same time the nations will gang up against the jews and jerusalem/israel and interfere with the jews lives supossedly to bring peace, while following a new hitler and his religious partner ,a renewed "holy"roman empire that will once again start up the inquisition/ holocaust against those that refuse to submit to their rule.
when these 2 deceivers begin this buisness G-D will intervene by sending 2 of His prophets to oppose them(revelation11)
this is the begining of a 3 1/2 year period which sees another 1/3 of whats left of humanity waring themselves to death.
G-D only intervenes from time to time down thru history just to prevent us from exterminating ourselves any sooner than up to this point.
G-D does not force anyone to keep His laws yet,which would give us peace,so we have to be allowed to experience the results of breaking those laws now,so when the dead are all resurrected (ezekiel 37) they will be able to compare what their lives were like to what their new lives will be like-------living in enforced peace(isaiah30:21)

reply to post by dgtempe


I remember feeling the same way when I heard a preacher call for president Clinton to be blessed! It's actually scriptural and even common sense to pray for your leaders, even if they are scumbags.

In the case of Bush, it's pretty clear he is but a puppet and is opposed to christianity. He continues to support various muslim dictatorships and he did nothing to help free Americans from the dictatorship of government controlled education.

Nevertheless we should pray for our leaders, because in fact it could have been a lot worse and probably will get worse.

This reminds me of the movie Jesus Camp and why all religions can be twisted into being dangerous. I would like to point out that there are people in the religious community that use religion to push their own agendas and twist the words of the Bible, Koran, Torah etc into something that suites their own agenda. Sadly this happens a lot in the evangelical community, not because evangelicals are all stupid or whatever some people may say, but rather because they are so passionate about their religion that they believe their preacher's word to be THE word....when it's not. I'd really like to see the leaders of all the religions to come together and show people that each religion isn't all that different.

On a side note, George W. Bush is a horrible president, but I don't have much doubt in my mind that he isn't a bad person, I watched his White House correspondence dinner last night and he seemed like a man of good humor. I think the evil of this administration is with Dick Cheney more that George Bush.

[edit on 27-4-2008 by yellowcard]

Funny, I thought the fundamentalist and evangelical churches abandoned the party post haste 2004.

As of Now, you got three presidential candidates that all believe the same thing with a few mi nut differences. The evangelicals might try to support a third party like the constitutional party.

Of course, I think God\Sophia\Whomever has cursed us with presidents that think Big Government is God. And now we get three losers from the two party oligarchy. I would rather vote for the libertarian chick running for congress, She's more agreeable and pleasing to the eyes.

Originally posted by TroyB
reply to post by PalmTreeLivin

 

OK...given your explaination of 'BUSH' and company...let me ask you this...

I was born and doctors gave me not 3 months to live, but I survived 40 years thus far, in that time I've brought a comatose child from a coma to talk, walk and act like nothing happened. I've befrended someone who nobody believed in, turns out was abused by her brother-in-law.

I'd become involved with someone who was abused by her step-mother, supported her (married her) raised 3 children (one of whom suffers from the same genetic defects I've had, been told the same SPEIL about not having long to live) another child with autism (thanks a alot BIG PHARMA) for vaccines 'FDA approved' which caused it.

She cheats on me, lies to me, took my children, jails me spouting lies...
Is that your wonderful GOD?...not mine, ok sure there's talk of trials and tribulation...but somewhere there has to be a line, if you ask me...GOD crossed it the minute he let me live, only to suffer me with what I have just stated.

Now he leaves me, bitter, cold, uncaring and certainly untrusting of anyone, because every time I've ever reached out to HELP someone, to show gratitude for the miracle of life, SLAPPED in the FACE I was!

There is no GOD, for if I was to believe there was, "it" would have to be the cruelest thing known to exist. Certainly I could understand pain and suffering unto those who do not appreciate life, care for another (not expecting worldly riches to befall them for showing such heart-felt kindness). All I ever did was CARE, what's my reward, to be tossed aside and made to feel like I and the things I have done selflessly do not matter!!

No wonder this rock's going to hell in a handbasket!

Now...I challenge you to explain this in "God's infinate wisdom" where's the compassion, love and understanding?

Well, first of all, I am sorry you have had it so rough. I can't imagine how difficult your life has been. I'd definitely be jaded, too. I empathize for how you must feel.

But if you're truly looking for an explanation, I'll give you one. Whether you're open to hear it, I don't know. Some people are looking for truth. Others just want to state their opinion and consider nobody else's. I am not sure how open you are. But I'll try to explain.

Before I begin, I must preface by saying you've asked a very deep question. I can't answer it in just a few sentences. So this will be a long post......

Your basic question is; If there were an all-loving God, why would he allow bad things to happen to good people? There are a couple of ideas or concepts that would help you understand why this might happen.

First, let's go back to the idea of free will. Let's suppose God created a universe that was free of evil and suffering. Then let's suppose that God created man perfect; with the ability to freely love or totally reject the God who created him. Free will. And for free will to be valuable, it had to be totally free. That is, man had complete free will to live a life where he was always kind, always loving, always friendly, always good. Conversely, man was also free to be always mean, always hateful, always vengeful, always destructive, always evil. AND ANYTHING IN BETWEEN.

He did this because if he had put any strings attached (e.g. stopped you as you began to harm others) then that would limit your free will. You wouldn't be REALLY free to harm because you'd always get stopped every time you tried. Look at it this way; suppose you wanted a pet bird that would always come back to you. So you put a bunch of birds your house and never open the doors. How do you know which one will come back? You'd have to open the doors and allow the birds to go free in order to end up finding which ones will come back voluntarily. Of course, you give them clues to find their way back home. But....

they are free to use those clues or ignore them and go there own way. If you caged those birds they'd stay near you. But you'd never know if they were doing it on their own volition or just because they had no other choice. Maybe you let them out of the cage but not out of the house. You will still never know if they are sticking with you because they want to because they still have no other choice. Let's assume you put a mile-long leash on each bird. They could fly away for a while but they could only go a mile away. They were still made to always stick close to you, within a mile at most. You'd STILL never know if they were sticking close by because they liked you or just because they were on the leash. In order for you to ever find out which birds stayed with you because they truly loved being with you and living in your house, you'd have to let them go totally free.

Let's assume it's like that with God. He gives us total free will to go our own way or come back to him. Complicit with that concept is the fact that we, as humans, are totally free to be good or evil at any given moment. And God wouldn't want to stop us from being evil or make us be good because that would violate the whole purpose of the test he puts us through. Also complicit in this concept is that while we may chose to be good, we are left to live in a place where we could become the victim of others who chose to be evil. Not that God would ever want anyone to be evil, just that he has to allow it - temporarily - in order to test everyone fairly.

So if we assume all of this, it helps explain why God would allow harm to come to us from others.

Before I continue that thought, I want to digress. Let's consider this logically. There are really only 3 choices;

1) Evil Exists, God Doesn't.

2) God Exists, Evil Doesn't.

3) Evil Exists, God Exists.

I am arguing for the 3rd. But it sounds like you're convinced the 1st is true. First of all, that's a very sad and bleak outlook. Our lives are totally pointless, void, and lacking purpose if that's true. But let's look at our two positions. Yours being #1 and mine being #3. For now, I think we'd both agree that #2 is silly and ludicrous.

Let's take your theory (#1, above) to it's logical conclusion. You probably conclude the following; a) If God is all-powerful, He CAN destroy evil. b) If God is all-good and all-loving he WILL destroy evil c) But evil is not destroyed so d) therefore, there is no all-good, all powerful God.

The flaw in that theory is that you assume that just because God HASN'T YET destroyed evil, he must not exist.

Now let's take my theory (#3, above) to it's logical conclusion. I would argue that a) God is all-powerful and He CAN destroy evil b) God is all-good and all-loving and He WILL destroy evil. c) Evil is not yet destroyed so d) Therefore evil will be destroyed one day.

The only real difference between your theory and mine is I haven't given up yet and you have.

The other common misconception is that if God created everything, and evil exists, then God must have created evil. It's hard to imagine how this could not be so unless we consider it this way;

Let's suppose you've manufactured a $500,000 computer and delivered it to a big corporate CEO to use. You install it yourself and make sure it's up and running perfectly. You leave operating instructions, illustrations, and an operations manual. But as soon as you leave, the yahoo CEO begins randomly press buttons until finally the machine malfunctions and shuts down. The potential for misuse of the equipment was always there, but you had done everything in your power to help prevent that and warned of the consequences of misuse. Whose fault is it the computer broke down? Would you blame the operator or the creator?

I would argue that we're the same way. We're made perfect but through misuse and not following instructions, we can bring about destruction and unwanted consequences for us and everyone else......

So again, the difference in my theory and yours is that you've given up hope and I haven't. That's part of "The Test" I spoke of before in my first post. I believe God uses the situations of life to test us in several ways. He uses some situations to see how we treat others while on this Earth. It doesn't mean he places the old lady in the crosswalk. But it does mean that he watches that incident and takes note of whether we help her across or shove her aside.

He also watches how we respond to calamity. In this way, he can see how faithful we are - whether we lose our hope in Him and resolve to wait for Him or whether we keep our faith and wait for the day he comes to fix things.

I think he watches those who are blessed with health and abundance too. He looks for what we will do when much is given to us. Will we use our healthy bodies to help those who are weaker? Will we share our riches or abundance with others or keep it selfishly to ourselves? Will we find solace and peace in material things and forget Him or will we keep Him first in mind and thought despite being relatively comfortable?

But just because God is watching us and it's telling him about our character doesn't mean he's orchestrating it all. I think that's a premise most people start with. Most people assume that if there is a God, he must be orchestrating everything. And if that's true, I see why you'd have reason to resent him. But if it's not true. if God is NOT orchestrating everything. Instead he's just allowing us to live in a fallen world, then it starts to make sense why bad things could happen and he doesn't just jump in and save the day.

Again, just because he hasn't jumped in to save the day yet, doesn't mean he still doesn't intend to. Perhaps it just means that he's giving us more time and gathering more and more data before he comes in with a final judgment.

I hope that helps and gives you some things to think about.

[edit on 28-4-2008 by PalmTreeLivin]

[edit on 28-4-2008 by PalmTreeLivin]

reply to post by TheRedneck


You could be right? I don't, however, see them as the "terrible three". I think that McBush *ahem* McCain and Clint'n are probably much more entrenched with establishment politics representing moreso the big international corporatists and international financial interests. While that may be the case, and while they may indeed both be standing under the same umbrella they still represent two vastly differing ideologies insofar as how the agenda is implemented...each one would have cabinets made up of entirely different folks and backgrounds. To further add contrast we have Obama who still has financed his campaign with a lot of the same money, however, you have a completely different message and background here.

With McCain we get "four more years" ...god help us!!! With the other two I really feel for the new administration who will definately have their work cut out for them cleaning up this huge mess and having a grumpy economy to contend with...

Compairing and contrasting those two is interesting...they may speak a similar language idealistically, but there are differences. The March 20 edition of Rolling Stone magazine (available at the library) has an incredibly good cover story on his campaign well worth the reading.

All that said, and I venture to say more than 50% of ATS'rs identify more with the Libertarian viewpoint, a Ron Paul candidacy would have added some more demention to the "great debate"...with Clinton it's a given, McCain we know is establishment, but with Obama, it's like he almost goes there, but stops just short of talking about some of the things Paul did (re: fed. reserve system). Does anyone have any information of Obama on the record regarding the federal reserve? It is one thing I don't know where stands on???

One things for sure, it's either going to be business as usual, or we are going to have change. If we do get change, and I think we will, the question becomes, will it be enough, or too little too late?