Johnnyboy

No. But YHWH is one.

Sheshbazzar

I am a Believer in Yahweh, The Elohim of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and post often in this forum.
As a Nazarene Believer, I remind you of these words;

"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has a great recompence of reward.
For you have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of El, you might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith: but if [any man] draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. "
But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that BELIEVE, to the saving of the soul." Hebrews 10:35-39

You are a compassionate person, one who is justifiably concerned about the Heavenly Father's care for innocent little children, and this concern speaks well of you.
You have said that you ... "believe in God"..., but what does that statement mean to you?

Do you at all believe in the words, and in the compassion of this "compassionate" Elohim?......

"But he, [being] full of compassion, forgave [their] iniquity, and destroyed [them] not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath." Psalm 78:38

"But thou, Lord, [are] an EL full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth." Psalm 86:15


"He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: YAHWEH [is] gracious and full of compassion. Psalm 111:4


"Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: [he is] gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous." Psa 112:4


"YAHWEH [is] gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy." Psalm 145:8


"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Isayah 49:15


"And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land." Jeremiyah 12:15


"But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassionaccording to the multitude of His mercies." Lamentations 3:32


"He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.' Micah 7:19


The question that you need to pose to yourself as a professed believer, is do you trust, accept and believe that He, whom you say that you believe in, has a greater capacity for compassion than yourself ?
Or do you really believe that your own measure of compassion IS greater than His?
If so, you are not believing in His words, but that -you- are greater in compassion than Him. And who is that one thinking himself greater in any ethical matter than The living Elohim?
Is this really a state you desire to engage yourself in, to become the adversary of The Elohim of life?

All who believe and keep His sayings, are not so easily shaken in their confidence in the greatness of His compassion, and in His ability to deliver all of the innocent into everlasting life.


"Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." Matthew 10:29-31

We all die, some sooner, some latter, some violently, and some peacefully, some painfully, and some unconscious of pain,
yet we all alike return unto that dust from which YAHWEH Elohim formed each and every one of us.

A landowner who has a field, is he not the lord over that field?
Has he not the right to cut the grain, the weeds, the flowers, and the vine according his will and pleasure in the time that he chooses?

In his own vineyard, has he not the right to prune the branches
in the time when he chooses to prune the branches?

Does the grass, grain, or flower rightly accuse him of mass murder?
or the pruned vine condemn him?

He will gather and glean what he will, and when he will.
Winnow what he will and when he will,
Gather into his granary and into his wine vats,
what he will and when he will.
And he will cut down the weeds, and the cut out dead vines,
and burn up the refuse as he will, and when he will.


"YAHWEH gave, and YAHWEH has taken away; blessed be the Name of YAHWEH.
In all this Job sinned not, nor accused Elohim foolishly."
Job 1:21-22
Now I must go, for this day I have much grass, and many weeds to cut down, and the vines are in need of further trimming.

Larsguy47

Good question. But you have to look at the BIG PICTURE and thus the end result. That is, every man who was born has a second chance at life that was lost in Eden. Children get life or death according to what their parents do, is the "children rule." Therefore when the parents are righteous their individual dependent children benefit; if not, the otherwise.

But basically since everybody who was born will come back on Judgment Day for a chance at eternal life, in that way an untimely death simply cuts them out of what would have been say the last 10-70 years of their 80-year old life. That is, basically, everybody expects to die around 80 or so anyway. So if some children come back and can live out the rest of their 80 years, whether they end up getting eternal life or not, God would have made up for killing them early.

Furthermore, since all must die first once anyway, sometimes people's personal lives are cut short for various reasons. LIke soldiers in war, like many of God's servants who died as martyrs and like God's son, himself, the innocent Jesus Christ who was allowed to be killed, so that all can have a chance at eternal life.

So everything from Eden until Judgment Day is like a time of testing and payment for the chance at eternal life in a world without Satan. Basically Satan had killed everybody off before they were even born. In order to give them a chance at life again, through the "ransom sacrifice" all those children over just under 6000 years would have to be born and then die. Being born gave them a chance at the resurrection. So they will have as much chance as anyone for eternal life in the end.

So yes, it's tragic and traumatic when a person is "killed" for sure, but when you think about them only living to 80 years of age, if they are fortunate not to die from sickness before or from "accident", if they get those years back, then all is even. Plus via their birth they get a chance at eternal life, and that's a grand second chance that outweighs them dying "early" in their personal life as this drama between Christ and God vs Satan is worked out.

But essentially those minors specifically killed by God were put to death because of the choices of their parents.


LG47

Paul2

So what you're saying is it's wrong to question God's actions or motives because God says he's a greater authority on ethical matters?

Selsaral

It's important to understand that God was conceived of in an entirely different era. The people who lived in the middle east 2000-4000 years ago had entirely different lives and moral codes than we have.

To the ancient jews (and many other nearby cultures), it was expected that the gods would demand obedience over all else. If you consider this reading the old testament I think you will see that many of those seemingly cruel stories are actually communicating the moral message that obedience to God is more important than anything else, and more moral than anything else. Human life was completely secondary and this was normal and expected.

I also think you will find a glaring contradiction between the idea of free will and complete obedience to god. The concept of free will simply doesn't exist in the old testament, and barely in the new testament.

Sheshbazzar

No, not really, In fact it is only natural for the person who believes that YAHWEH exists and hears their prayers, and knows of their innermost thoughts, to both question, and to "consider" all that their Elohim has caused to be written concerning Him and His doings. And to daily question the reasons for all of those the things that He has and is causing to happen, both those things that appear to be good and praiseworthy in the sight of men, and also those situations and happenings that bring us to grief.

Yet it is humility, to accept that we are all of us, participants in what transpires in this world only by the choice of the sustaining power of the reality in which "we live, and move, and have our being"
Elohim is not limited as we are, there has never been a thought, that YAHWEH Elohim has not known, and no, never shall be.
Every ethical thought that men have ever had, or ever will have, was known to Elohim from the beginning.
Ever present, He has more knowledge, and more understanding, and more wisdom than any man or any group of men.

Thus, while my El might (and rightly) claim to be the greatest authority on ethical matters, That claim would be of little matter to me, if I were to despise the claim.
But the claim that I make on His behalf, does not come from Him so dictating my own thoughts to me.
My testimony, concerning His authority, His compassion, and the manner of His working His will among men, arises from within me and proceeds from out of the musings of my own mind, heart and conscience, as I look upon and see what He has wrought, and hear what He has spoken.
I acknowledge in all humility, that the Power in which I place my trust, has motives and goals of His own, that far exceed my small human minds ability to ever fully grasp, or to ever fully understand.
That is why He IS greater than me, and always will be, unto everlasting.
He is The Good Shepherd, and we that believe, are the sheep of His pasture, and that suffices, it it is not so ordained, nor necessary that mere sheep should reach that level of understanding, or become as equals with their Shepherd and Master.

(YAHWEH my Elohim has sent rain upon my fields and pastures today, thus those wayward vines, dead vines, and poisonous vines, that I was of a mind to cut down, He has seen fit to spare for another day.)

aa5874

Isn't this 'match fixing'.

Paul2

I'm going to reply to this with my interpretations of what you said, and then respond at the end in total. Please correct me if i've gotten something wrong. It was really hard to figure out what you're really saying through all the preaching, the apparently random capitalizations, and the doublethink.

Ok. You say that a believer can "consider" what is written, and question the reasonings behind the actions of God both good and bad.

You say here, if i'm reading you correctly, that all of us, and everything here are only here because God chose to do something and chooses to sustain us.

You're also saying that God knows everything, understands everything, and knows the ethical implications of everything, because he's got all wisdom/knowledge.

You're saying here that God claims to be the greatest authority on ethical matters because of reasons stated above ( he knows all, etc). You're saying that a person can choose to accept or deny Gods claim, correct?

You're saying that this next quote is a claim that you are making, and your God isn't forcing you to make it, correct?

Ok, so you're saying that you're making this up as you go, from the musings of your own mind based on what you see, and apparently from what you hear God himself say?

Ok so this is the part where you choose to accept God's claim, mentioned a few quotes prior, that he says he is the highest authority. Correct me if i'm wrong.

Ok, this is what I got from your writings.

You read in the Bible about this fellow called God. In it you read that he's all knowing, all powerful, etc. All he wants from you is to accept this and then he'll reward you with heaven, but he's not going to force you to accept. You then accept his word that he's the best thing since sliced bread, and then you get to the part about killing babies. You question that, and then think to yourself, well jeezy peet, God said earlier that he's already thought about all the ethical ramifications about everything and that I don't, so it must be ok for God to kill babies.

My questions to you:

What came first, your acceptance of the God of the bible, or you reading the bible in its entirety, including the parts about killing every man woman and child (and then of course, accepting God's claim)?

Were you raised to believe that the God of the bible was the one true god, or was this a later discovery of your own?

If you could, please take a look at this from an unbelievers standpoint. Would you really be convinced of your argument? Would you accept that it's ok for God to kill babies because God says it's ok? Would you be convinced because some random person says so?

Why would things such as killing babies be bad for humans to do, but totally ok for God to do? Why does God have a double standard?

Why does being the ultimate authority on ethics and morals give him the right to kill innocent babies?

Is being the ultimate authority on ethics and morals, and killing babies, really a good reason to worship a god?

Sorry yo, but I don't buy it. I used to believe in the same God that you believe in now. However, after I read the bible, and not just the parts that they teach in Sunday school, my faith really went downhill.

Gwen

Hey wait, I thought that the children weren't supposed to be punished for the sins of their parents.
Besides which, God is totally O.K. with, for instance, killing Job's children (when the whole point was that Job was righteous), and allowing Lot (the Righteous) to offer his daughters up for gang rape and to have sex with them himself, and with ordering Abraham (righteous) to kill his son--and even though God said "PSYCH! You can let him go because I'm, like, infinitely merciful" Isaac's relationship with his father had to be totally screwed up from then on out. God seems to specifically target the children of righteous parents--including his own son--when he's thinking to himself, "whom shall I unleash my mighty awesomeness on today?"

Double standard. Why should we take the parts of the Bible that says that God is compassionate at their word when you don't even take the parts of the Bible that's pretty clear on God not being compassionate (I'm a jealous god, fear my wrath, I'ma gonna pour down the fires of heaven on you, fiery pits of torture, baby-killing is fun!, keep the virgin women for yourselves but kill everyone else, stone that person! stone that other person! stone, stone, stone everyone!, haha Job you sucker, you thought I'd be nice to you didn't you?, &c.)? I mean, sure God gives out cake in some parts of the Bible, but he also gives out death, and in far greater quantities. Why should we characterize God as the Divine Cake-Giver when he's pretty clearly giving out death more often?

How do you tell the difference between a baby dead because "it was in God's plan" and a baby dead because "the evil devil did it"?

EarlOfLade

god?

A sadist, a baby killer, a racist responsible for ethnic cleansing, responsible for genocide.

A truly great fantasy figure to worship! *puke*