M: Again, we are discussing this quote - “The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits.” (GC 614) She clearly says "God commands". Citing GC 36 implies you believe holy angels exercising "destructive power . . . when God commands" must be interpreted to mean God commands holy angels to withdraw their protection and to ensure evil angels do not exceed the justice and punishment He permits and commands.

T: This is how you read GC 36? Can you quote something from GC 36 which expresses this thought please?

M:No. I was guessing it's how you read it. Did i get it wrong? Do you believe GC 614 means something else?

M: Please explain the difference between what you wrote above and the following insights (highlighted in red in a previous post): "They do not believe a merciful God who made men will consume them with fire because they do not believe the warnings given. This, they reason, is not in accordance with God. . . . The plea may be made that a loving Father would not see His children suffering the punishment of God by fire while He had the power to relieve them."

T: Please consider what I've quoted from GC 36, and 37. The differences between this passage, and what you quoted as the view she is speaking against, are the differences.

M: Do you really want to leave it up to me to ascertain what you believe? Okay, I'll give it a go. Yes, you believe the plea may be made that God is too kind, loving, and merciful to consume sinners with fire.

T: Please be reasonable. I have explained in great detail what I believe, point by point. I've quoted GC 36, and 37. I presume you agree with the passages. I presume you disagree with the red highlighted views. So do I.

M: I get the distinct impression you believe God is too kind, loving, and merciful to consume sinners with fire. Have I misunderstood your view?

T: I answered this. Apparently, yes, somehow you've misunderstood my view, although we've been discussing this for years. When Jesus Christ was urged to destroy His enemies by fire, how did He respond?

M: Again, we are discussing this quote - “The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits.” (GC 614) She clearly says "God commands". Citing GC 36 implies you believe holy angels exercising "destructive power . . . when God commands" must be interpreted to mean God commands holy angels to withdraw their protection and to ensure evil angels do not exceed the justice and punishment He permits and commands.

T: This is how you read GC 36? Can you quote something from GC 36 which expresses this thought please?

M: No. I was guessing it's how you read it. Did i get it wrong? Do you believe GC 614 means something else?

T: How do you read GC 36? Let's start with that. I've said that GC 614 is articulating the same principle as GC 36, so how do you read GC 36?

The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his control. {GC 35.3}

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}

God's judgments will be visited upon those who are seeking to oppress and destroy His people. His long forbearance with the wicked emboldens men in transgression, but their punishment is nonetheless certain and terrible because it is long delayed. "The Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act." Isaiah 28:21. To our merciful God the act of punishment is a strange act. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Ezekiel 33:11. The Lord is "merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, . . . forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Yet He will "by no means clear the guilty." "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked." Exodus 34:6, 7; Nahum 1:3. By terrible things in righteousness He will vindicate the authority of His downtrodden law. The severity of the retribution awaiting the transgressor may be judged by the Lord's reluctance to execute justice. The nation with which He bears long, and which He will not smite until it has filled up the measure of its iniquity in God's account, will finally drink the cup of wrath unmixed with mercy. {GC 627.2}

When Christ ceases His intercession in the sanctuary, the unmingled wrath threatened against those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark (Revelation 14:9, 10), will be poured out. The plagues upon Egypt when God was about to deliver Israel were similar in character to those more terrible and extensive judgments which are to fall upon the world just before the final deliverance of God's people. Says the revelator, in describing those terrific scourges: "There fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image." The sea "became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea." And "the rivers and fountains of waters . . . became blood." Terrible as these inflictions are, God's justice stands fully vindicated. The angel of God declares: "Thou art righteous, O Lord, . . . because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy." Revelation 16:2-6. By condemning the people of God to death, they have as truly incurred the guilt of their blood as if it had been shed by their hands. In like manner Christ declared the Jews of His time guilty of all the blood of holy men which had been shed since the days of Abel; for they possessed the same spirit and were seeking to do the same work with these murderers of the prophets. {GC 627.3}

But you have yet to show anywhere that it applies to the seven last plagues. Per chance are you making the implication, though without support, that "justice" is His strange act?

""To our merciful God the act of punishment is a strange act." In this passage, Ellen clearly applies the principle (see quotes below) named in Isaiah 28:21 to the Amalekites. This principle (mercy ends, justice begins) is not limited to the seven last plagues." In this passage, Ellen clearly applies the principle (see quotes below) named in Isaiah 28:21 to the Amalekites. This principle (mercy ends, justice begins) is not limited to the seven last plagues.

To our merciful God the act of punishment is a strange act.

Jesus said, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." Please note He did not say, "It is evil and unlawful to call on God to consume impenitent sinners with fire."

There can be no more conclusive evidence that we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposition to hurt and destroy those who do not appreciate our work, or who act contrary to our ideas. (DA 487)

Elijah did so twice. See 2 Kings 1. Instead, Jesus specifically rebuked their spirit. When meting out punishment on God's behalf, one must have a godly spirit, not a spirit mixed with ungodliness.

However, you seem to be saying, No, I don't agree with the idea that God is too kind, loving, and merciful to consume sinners with fire. What exactly are you disagreeing with?

M: Jesus said, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." Please note He did not say, "It is evil and unlawful to call on God to consume impenitent sinners with fire."

T: He said it was the spirit of Satan to do so. Isn't that sufficient? Does He have to add to this that it is "evil and unlawful"? Doesn't being of the spirit of Satan cover this? "There can be no more conclusive evidence that we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposition to hurt and destroy those who do not appreciate our work, or who act contrary to our ideas." (DA 487)

M: Elijah did so twice. See 2 Kings 1. Instead, Jesus specifically rebuked their spirit. When meting out punishment on God's behalf, one must have a godly spirit, not a spirit mixed with ungodliness.

T: The whole concept that one would mete out punishment on God's behalf is wrong. This is a really dangerous idea. It smacks of the Inquisition. Those people were motivated by saving the souls of those they were torturing. That sounds like a "godly spirit." It sounds like you're saying that the act (of torture, or whatever) is not evil of itself, but only if it is performed with a wrong spirit. I hear Jesus saying that the whole idea of wanting to do the act is the problem. Jesus explained that He came not do destroy but do save. It was that they wanted to destroy that Jesus Christ identified as the problem, not that they wanted to do so with the wrong spirit. He didn't say, "You want do destroy them. That's OK. But you have the wrong spirit." Rather He explained that they were misunderstanding what He and the kingdom of God was all about. They were misunderstanding God's character and the character of His government, and this is the same issue I perceive we are talking about.

M: However, you seem to be saying, No, I don't agree with the idea that God is too kind, loving, and merciful to consume sinners with fire. What exactly are you disagreeing with?

T: What principle or principles do you see in GC 36?

Tom, you correctly understood the point I was making in response to Kland's post. However, as you know, I believe God has executed justice, punishment in several different ways, one of which is the way you believe is the only way. At one point, somewhere on this forum, I listed them. Just can't remember where. Don't know if I can name them all, but here goes:

1. God permits the firelight of His radiant person and presence to cause death and destruction.

2. God permits natural law to cause death and destruction.

3. God employs the forces of nature to cause death and destruction.

4. God permits cause and effect to run its natural course.

5. God commands holy angels to cause death and destruction.

6. God permits evil angels to cause death and destruction.

7. God permits evil men to cause death and destruction.

God's goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy exercised to His subjects, will not hinder Him from punishing the sinner who refused to be obedient to His requirements. It is not for a man--a criminal against God's holy law, pardoned only through the great sacrifice He made in giving His Son to die for the guilty because His law was changeless--to dictate to God. After all this effort on the part of God to preserve the sacred and exalted character of His law, if men, through the sophistry of the devil, turn the mercy and condescension of God into a curse, they must suffer the penalty. Because Christ died they consider they have liberty to transgress God's holy law that condemns the transgressor, and would complain of its strictness and its penalty as severe and unlike God. They are uttering the words Satan utters to millions, to quiet their conscience in rebellion against God. {12MR 208.1}

In no kingdom or government is it left to the lawbreakers to say what punishment is to be executed against those who have broken the law. All we have, all the bounties of His grace which we possess, we owe to God. The aggravating character of sin against such a God cannot be estimated any more than the heavens can be measured with a span. God is a moral governor as well as a Father. He is the Lawgiver. He makes and executes His laws. Law that has no penalty is of no force. {12MR 208.2}

The plea may be made that a loving Father would not see His children suffering the punishment of God by fire while He had the power to relieve them. But God would, for the good of His subjects and for their safety, punish the transgressor. God does not work on the plan of man. He can do infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God drowned the vast world. Lot would have had no right to inflict punishment on his sons-in-law, but God would do it in strict justice.--Ms 5, 1876, pp. 1-3. White Estate Washington, D. C. January 6, 1983 {12MR 208.3}