APL, it is very evident you are convinced Jesus punishes sinners by withdrawing His protection and permitting nature, evil men, and/or evil angels to accomplish His purposes. I am content knowing what you believe. No sense in discussing it further.

Jesus commanded holy men in the OT to kill criminals and combatants. He blessed them in miraculous ways on the battlefield. Holy angels aided them in war. Not once did Jesus forbid it. You insist it wasn't Jesus' plan. And yet neither the Bible nor the SOP say so.

Hm - no sense discussing it further, but then you do! :-)

It is interesting to me that you can not see the parallel between the killing and the adultery. James 2:10-11 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law.

Did God give laws for divorce? Yes. Does this mean God wanted divorce? Malachi 2:16 "For I hate divorce, says the LORD, the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless." Did God give laws for polygamy? Yes. Does this prove that God desires polygamy? Matthew 19:8 He said to them, "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. The same applies to killing.

Oops! I'm sorry my last statement felt like further discussion. It was meant to be a final summary.

God gave laws to regulate these things, but He never commanded someone to divorce or to take a second wife. The same can't be said about killing idolatrous nations.

Deu 20:10 When you come near a city to fight against it, then shout peace to it.
Deu 20:11 And it shall be, if it makes the answer of peace and opens to you, then all the people found in it shall be forced laborers to you, and they shall serve you.
Deu 20:12 But if it will make no peace with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it.
Deu 20:13 And when Jehovah your God has delivered it into your hands, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword.
Deu 20:14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, all the spoil of it, you shall take to yourself. And you shall eat the spoil of your enemies, which Jehovah your God has given you.
Deu 20:15 So you shall do to all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.
Deu 20:16 But of the cities of these people, which Jehovah your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes.
Deu 20:17 But you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; as Jehovah your God has commanded you,
Deu 20:18 so that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done to their gods. So you would sin against Jehovah your God.

So Rosangela, do you believe it was God's plan to have the Israelites fight their way into Canaan?

I have stated all along, God did give them guidance in their fighting, have I not? This is because the people did not have enough faith to let God do it for them. Did the people fight their way out of Egypt? No. Did the people fight their way across the Red Sea? No. Have you read 2 Chronicles 20? Luke 9:54ff? Even more importantly, do the teachings of Jesus tell us that we are to fight with the sword? Is there something about God's character that we do not learn from the life of Jesus?

"When Satan is permitted to mold the will, he uses it to accomplish his ends. He instigates theories of unbelief, and stirs up the human heart to war against the word of God. With persistent, persevering effort, he seeks to inspire men with his own energies of hate and antagonism to God, and to array them in opposition to the institutions and requirements of heaven and the operations of the Holy Spirit. He enlists under his standard all evil agencies, and brings them into the battlefield under his generalship to oppose evil against good." {MYP 54.2}

APL you are saying that God uses evil to accomplish His means and this is absolutely wrong.

Matthew 12:24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

God uses righteous angels or men to accomplish His goals when it suits Him.

You said recently that it was not God's will that Israel fought the heathen.

"Abraham learned from one of the fugitives the story of the calamity that had befallen his nephew. All his affection for him was awakened, and he determined that he should be rescued. Seeking divine counsel, Abraham prepared for war. From his own encampment he summoned three hundred eighteen trained servants, men trained in the fear of God, in the service of their master, and in the practice of arms. His confederates, Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner, joined him, and together they started in pursuit of the invaders. The Elamites had encamped at Dan, on the northern border of Canaan. Flushed with victory, they had given themselves up to reveling. The patriarch came upon the encampment by night. His attack, so vigorous and unexpected, resulted in speedy victory. The king of Elam was slain and his panic-stricken forces routed. Lot and his family, with all the prisoners and goods, were recovered, and a rich booty fell into the hands of the victors. {EP 81.3}

Should I mention the army of Gideon? 300 men again prepared for battle. Did God call them to battle for themselves or for Him?



Dear children, live for God—live for heaven, so that when the wrath of God shall come upon the earth, Jesus may say to the destroying angel, Spare those praying... {AY 58.2}

So if you think the destroying angel is Satan then you think God is in collaboration with Satan in the end. God has Satan do all His dirty work then kills him too?

Wow what a mess.

James - 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} Most do not understand this. Why?

APL,
Please explain the following quote according to your view:

Moses had been filled with grief and indignation at the deceitful wiles by which Israel had been enticed to sin and thus bring upon themselves the wrath of God. In the command to make war upon the Midianites, Moses saw not only the justice of God in visiting his judgments upon the guilty, but his mercy in giving Israel the victory over a people who were seeking by every hellish art to accomplish their destruction. The Israelites were to engage in this warfare, not to gratify malice or revenge, but as God's instruments, to do his bidding, being influenced solely by zeal for the divine glory.
Men do not understand what they are doing, when they permit themselves even for a moment, to doubt the wisdom and benevolence of God,--to regard as a species of cruelty the judgments visited upon the stubborn and rebellious. Few realize the malignity of sin. It is a deadly leprosy, contaminating all who are brought in contact with it. If men persist in showing contempt for divine authority, God, who created them, and whose property they are, has a perfect right to take from them the blessings which they have abused. God's name and authority as ruler in the universe must be maintained. When idolatry is rearing its proud head, when blasphemy and rebellion are strengthening, then God reproves the sins of the nations, and the manifestations of divine anger which they had provoked come upon the transgressors of his law. The Most High delivers his word of doom, and chooses the instruments to perform his will. These messengers of God are required to faithfully perform the work appointed them, however repugnant it may be to their natural feelings. Sacred history records no instance in which these men were reproved for too great thoroughness and severity; but God has many times reproved his servants for lack of faithfulness in executing his judgments. In all this, God would teach us the lesson that in the future Judgment retribution will surely be visited upon "every soul of man that doeth evil," "according to the deeds done in the body." ...
While the victorious Israelites completely destroyed the armies of Midian, they spared all the women and children, and brought them into the camp as captives. When Moses ascertained this, he became alarmed and indignant, and thus reproved the officers of the host: "Behold they caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord." There had been a lack of thoroughness in executing the commands of God. The war against Midian had been a just retribution upon a guilty people, of whom the women had been the principal criminals. Had these idolatrous, licentious women been preserved as captives, their presence would have constantly endangered the morals of Israel. The sympathy which would spare these transgressors was contrary to the will of God. {ST, January 6, 1881}

Rosangela - what has been the experience of the people since leaving Egypt. It was one of rebellion. You know the stories. The Golden Calf. The manna. The quail. The fiery serpents. Why did the people spend 40 years in the desert? Because of the faithfulness? Did Baalpeor happened because of their faithfulness? I have said this recently and perhaps you have not read it. When the people left Egypt, were they armed? NO. When, just before their final departure, God impressed the Egyptians to liberally provide the travelers with everything they would ever need on their journey, He did not put it in the hearts of their former masters to give them weapons of war. It was a people for whom God had made every provision, who went out of Egypt, “unarmed and unaccustomed to war” {PP 282.1} In taking the promise land, EGW writes: "So terribly blinded had they become by transgression. The Lord had never commanded them to "go up and fight." It was not His purpose that they should gain the land by warfare, but by strict obedience to His commands." {PP 392.3} Read that again! God did not purpose that they should gain the promise land by warfare! But the people did arm themselves.

I have quoted and some have rejected as uninspired the words of EJ Waggoner. "But the children of Israel did fight throughout all their natural existence, and under God's direction, too," it will be urged. That is very true, but it does not at all prove that it was God's purpose that they should fight. We must not forget that "their minds were blinded" by unbelief, so that they could not perceive the purpose of God for them. They did not grasp the spiritual realities of the kingdom of God, but were content with shadows instead; and the same God who bore with their hardness of heart in the beginning, and strove to teach them by shadows, when they would not have the substance, still remained with them, compassionately considerate of their infirmities. God himself suffered them, because of the hardness of their hearts, to have a plurality of wives, and even laid down rules regulating polygamy, in order to diminish as far as possible the resulting evils, but that does not prove that He designed it for them. We well know that "from the beginning it was not so." So when Jesus forbade His followers to fight in any cause whatever, He introduced nothing new, any more than when He taught that a man should have but one wife, and should cleave to her as long as he lived. He was simply enunciating first principles--preaching a thorough reformation. {1900 EJW, EVCO 385.2}

Matthew 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Did this not apply at all times? Yes! But God meets people where they are. God did give instructions in how to wage war. But this was because of the hardness of the people's heart and the blindness of their eyes.
Rosangela, I have quoted three passages from EGW that show God true ways. "Rebellion was not to be overcome by force." {DA 759.1} "Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power; but from Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is banished" {AA 12.2} and "God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown" {GC 36.1}.

Waggoner writes: One thing, however, which should never be lost sight of by people who are disposed to cite God's commands to the Israelites as sanctioning wars either of defence or conquest, is the fact that God never told them to destroy any whose cup of iniquity was not filled to the full, and who had not irrevocably rejected the way of righteousness. In the end of this world, when the time comes that the saints possess the kingdom, judgment will be given to the saints of the Most High (Dan. vii. 22), and the saints will judge not only the world, but also angels. 1 Corinthians 6:2-3. They will also, as joint-heirs with Christ, have a share in the execution of the judgment, for we read:-- {1900 EJW, EVCO 386.1}

"Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written; this honour have all His saints." Psalms 149:5-9 {1900 EJW, EVCO 386.2}

Since Christ associates His people with Himself in the kingdom, making them all kings and priests, it is no more incongruous for His saints, in connection with Him, and by His direct authority, to execute just judgment upon the incorrigibly wicked, than it is for Him to do it. And so, when we remember that the deliverance from Egypt was the beginning of the end, and that God was then purposing to give His people the very same kingdom which He now promises to us, and to which Christ will call the blessed when He comes, we can well understand that a righteous people might then, as well as in the future, be the agents of God's justice. {1900 EJW, EVCO 386.3}
387

But that would not be a war of conquest, even for the possession of the promised land, but the execution of judgment. But it must not be forgotten that God Himself personally gives directions when such judgment is to be executed, and does not leave men to guess at His will in such a case. Moreover, only those who are themselves without sin can execute judgment upon sinners. Let him that is without sin, cast the first stone. {1900 EJW, EVCO 387.1}

Additionally: Yet one more thing must be remembered in connection with this question of fighting and the possession of the land of Canaan, the promised inheritance, and that is that the children of Israel did not get it after all, with all their fighting. The same promise that was given them, remains for us; "but if Joshua had given them rest, then would He not afterwards have spoken of another day" in which to seek and find it. Hebrews 4:1; Hebrews 4:8. (NOTE TO GREEN - JOSHUA) The reason why they did not get it, was their unbelief, and that was why they fought. If they had believed the Lord, they would have allowed Him to clear the land of its totally depraved inhabitants, in the way that He proposed. They in the meantime would not have been idle, but would have performed the work of faith which God set them. {1900 EJW, EVCO 387.2}