><>...Good evening Mark...><>
You wrote:
However, I still dont understand why god would ever choose torture over love. there
are only certain things that torture can achieve more effectively than love, retribution and
revenge. given that god can achieve anything, why would he choose torture?
God does not choose torture Mark! We do! God does not choose anykind of punishment for us Mark. We do!.. The will of God is very clear;
2 Pet 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Mark if you had a rebellious, maybe even violent person living in your house with you,(maybe even one of your grown children, brother or sister,mother or father, makes no real difference), would you not do all that you could to protect all others in your house, even if it meant telling the non-rehabilitative one they had to leave?
I suppose after all methods of changing a person's heart and rebellious behaviors, including and foremost love,have been tried and failed, one could go to a brain surgeon and have that part of the brain (the agressive lobe) cut out, and leave the person in a partially catatonic state. Or one could subject the non-rehabilitative person to a life-time of additive drug therapy with the same semi-vegatative condition.
Mark, God with all His powers and supernatural abilities would never attempt to use them in such a way as to control anyone's real will, not even by instilling a fabricated kind of half hearted love. For then God has taken free choice from him, and all that's left is something fake and unpredictable.
Suppose for the sake of argument, that your adult son or daughter made a decison to "hitch-hike around the world", and further they wanted to do it in 6 months, (For the sake of gaining world recognition.) After researching the subject you find that no one has ever done it before and lived. Now suppose there was a drug (probably is) that you could slip into their food or drink that was guaranteed to alter their will, but in a general sense, and not specifically. So that all decisions they made, post medication, were prompted by the effects of the drug, and further the drug had to be continually administered.
Also suppose that you could do the reasonable thing as a loving parent, which is to provide them with all necessary information concerning the dangers involved and the odds against succeeding, which are Zero.. And after all is said and done they still insist that their choice is right. So you decide to allow your mature adult offspring to do as they choose. But your heart is heavy and you are not very joyous So you send them off (inspite of it all) with a big hug and all the love you can muster up, along with all the necessary information, and Printed materials on how no one has ever survived. You also slip into their back pack, a map on how to retrun home from anywhere at any point, just in case they change their mind. Then you just patiently wait and pray that they do change their minds and return home. But you do not rest until they do. Because you know that they will either return home or they will die at some point on that forbidden journey.
And so too are the ways of God, a truly and most loving Father!
Also Mark remember that the first death is of the flesh. The second death is of the soul. The death of the soul will not take place until after the 1,000 reign of Christ! Do you understand what the 1,000 yr. reign of Christ was provided for?
Sincerely,
Shalom...><>
BTW I hope everybody had a most joyous and blessed Christmas...Jesus is the reason for the season!!...All praise and glory be to God! |
