Bro. Luke,
My biggest problem with this theology is that it ultimately puts the cause of sin squarely in God's lap, therefore making Him the Author of sin.
It does not matter what your problem is. That is TOTALLY irrelevant. What matters is what God's Word says.
And I am afraid you are completely ignoring it.
Now your problem can be solved very easily by you doing two things:
1. Abandon your philosophies and trust the Word of God. This requires faith. You must say, "God, it does not matter what I feel. It does not matter what I think. What matters is what you said. You are God and I am not. I TRUST you."
2. Understand that God willed for evil to exist but HIS motive for it was perfect and holy and wonderful. Therefore, he is not sinning by willing that sin should exist. We see this clearly in the greatest sin of all time- the murder of the Son of God.
Acts 4:27-28 For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.
In this theology, we are nothing more than "puppets on His strings", robots that He winds, and do everything that He tells us to do.
That's not true. But if it were true it would be God's prerogative.
But the fact of the matter is that man is free to come and go as he pleases and he does exactly as he wills all day every day. He has a will and he uses it. He makes choices constantly.
But in a mysterious way the Bible makes it clear that while man does exactly what he wants he ALSO does exactly what God wants. But man's motive and God's motive are not the same for the same deeds.
Joseph said, "You meant it for evil but God meant it for good."
That's the way it works. I don't have to understand it. I just have to believe it because God said it. If God said it, that ought to be enough for you. And he CLEARLY said it numerous times.
All you need to do is YIELD to it. Let him be God and his Word be true.
That you are not doing this is plain seeing as how you are abusing the passage in Job to MAKE it say what you WANT to believe.
You have taken this theology to the extreme. I have a feeling that a majority of your DoG Brethern will not follow along with you on this, because they haven't "chimed" in on this thread.
All Calvinists believe what I am purporting. I dare say there is not one on this board who would disagree with anything I am saying in this post.
We can not do one thing on our own,
We do what we want every hour of the day. But that NO being can do anything ON ITS OWN is abundantly clear. All power is God's. The power to do anything, even breathe, comes from God. So NO, we cannot do anything on our own.
If someone blows their brains out with a .38, that was for His glory!!
Deut 32:39 See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
"It is appointed unto man once to die."
If someone beheads a US soldier for their beliefs(believing that by beheading people will give them special favor in heaven), that is for God's glory!!
Romans 11:36 "For of him and through him and to him are all things."
Romans 8:28 "God worketh all things together for good to them that love God who are the called according to his purpose."
I Timothy 4:6 "For I am now ready to be offered, and
the time of my departure is at hand."
If someone takes His name in vain, that is for His glory!! If someone molests an innocent baby, that's for His glory!!
Proverbs 16:4 "The LORD hath made all [things] for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."
If someone "shimmies"(undresses) around a pole for money, that is for His glory!! If someone takes the pulpit, and they are one of Satan's ministers(and he has them, too) and deceives that flock, that is for His glory!! If someone gets slammed, then plows into a church bus and kills 27 people(this actually happened in Kentucky), that is for His glory!!
Isa 45:5-7 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides Me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides Me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
You see where I am going with this?? You are taking this to the EXTREME, Brother!!
Yes. It is based FULLY on emotion and NONE on Scripture.
You can't BEAR to think of things a certain way so it does not matter what the Bible says about it.
But if you will calm down and think with your rational mind and your spiritual mind and understand that God has a wonderful, eternal purpose for all things, even the bad ones, and that no tragedy is random but that God planned it for a glorious purpose as is the case with the greatest of tragedies (the brutal murder of God's Son)- then you will begin to see the light on this matter.
Acts 4:27-28 For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.
