Your "time" to die

[Danette]

If our actions have no ability to shorten our days, what does I Cor. 11:29-32 mean?

At the same time, the Word does say that God knows the number of our days.

It's a conundrum I don't exactly know the answer to. This one thing I do know, I have no fear of death due to catastrophe that doesn't come through the hand of God. In that sense, at least, I will not die humanly until my time and purpose on this earth are complete.

-- Danette

 

[Danette]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>There is little doubt (biblically) that God caused the attack on America on 9/11/01. It was in His divine plan to serve a Divine purpose. No one who died that day or shortly thereafter ever had the slightest chance of not dying. Yet God did not sin - He cannot - but He used the sinful actions of sinful men to fulfill His greater purposes, whatever they may be (judgment, revival, etc). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with the conclusion of this statement with one small(big) difference. I don't believe God caused it. I believe He allowed[\i] it. God doesn't cause evil; He has allowed it. We humans made our sin choice with the fall (God didn't cause that, He allowed it) and all the evil that occurs on this earth is a result of our sin choice. The awesomeness of God is that in His sovereignty and omnipotence He provided a way of redemption. This character of God holds true throughout the span of time. No matter what evil Satan devises, God has a way to "work all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." That is part of His character as Redeemer. No evil catches Him by surprise - His foreknowledge isn't compromised. But it is against His character to "cause" evil.

When we look back at events of 9/11, in the midst of the "tragedy" there is much evidence of God at work to turn evil for His good purposes. The entire nation has heard the gospel again through this event. Anyone who watched the news throughout the days following 9/11 saw testimony given to God's supernatural work in operation. God gave a widow a national platform to testify of Him. The nation watched the national day of prayer service where Billy Graham presented the gospel (granted, the religious hand-holding was too much, but God got His Word in there anyway). It has also given believers wide-open opportunities to share Christ with people who have suddenly been brought face-to-face with their mortality. And we have a wonderful opportunity to share about a God of LOVE, who has provided salvation from just such evil because He loves mankind too much to abandon us without hope to our natural evil end. What happened 9/11 was a little peek at the nature of Satan and his hatred for mankind. Who wants to spend their earthly days fearing that and their eternity living it? (All this, of course, in the context that no one can choose God who hasn't been drawn by Him!)

Even in the moments of the attack, there were believers on those planes sharing Christ with their seatmates. There were believers in those buildings who stayed behind to share Christ with a panicked co-worker. We each have a purpose on the earth and God knows that some of those believers fulfilled their purpose in their final moments -- being the one to share Christ with a lost soul just minutes before they went to be with the Lord. Those stories we will never hear on this earth. But God used what Satan meant for evil for His positive purpose, like Chris said.

-- Danette

 

[Chris Temple]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Danette:


I agree with the conclusion of this statement with one small(big) difference. I don't believe God caused it. I believe He allowed[\i] it. God doesn't cause evil; He has allowed it. We humans made our sin choice with the fall (God didn't cause that, He allowed it) and all the evil that occurs on this earth is a result of our sin choice. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

God is God, and we are not. As the Great First Cause, God is the Cause of all things, even evil. However, God uses secondary causes and that is why he is not the author of evil. He did not merely allow Adam, to sin, but planned it in the awesome sovereignty of his perfect will, for the purpose of his plan of redemption. If man had never fallen, he could never experience redemption. This is why the Puritans called the Fall the Blessed Fall . And its why the New Heavens and New Earth will be greater than Paradise in Eden. This is why John Piper has written:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Many Christians are speaking this way about the murderous destruction of the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001. God did not cause it, but he can use it for good. There are two reasons I do not say this. One is that it goes beyond, and is contrary to, what the Bible teaches. The other is that it undermines the very hope it wants to offer.

First, this statement goes beyond and against the Bible. For some, all they want to say, in denying that God "caused" the calamity, is that God is not a sinner and that God does not remove human accountability and that God is compassionate. That is true - and precious beyond words. But for others, and for most people who hear this slogan, something far more is implied. Namely, God, by his very nature, cannot or would not act to bring about such a calamity. This view of God is what contradicts the Bible and undercuts hope.

How God governs all events in the universe without sinning, and without removing responsibility from man, and with compassionate outcomes is mysterious indeed! But that is what the Bible teaches. God "works all things after the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11).

This "all things" includes the fall of sparrows (Matthew 10:29), the rolling of dice (Proverbs 16:33), the slaughter of his people (Psalm 44:11), the decisions of kings (Proverbs 21:1), the failing of sight (Exodus 4:11), the sickness of children (2 Samuel 12:15), the loss and gain of money (1 Samuel 2:7), the suffering of saints (1 Peter 4:19), the completion of travel plans (James 4:15), the persecution of Christians (Hebrews 12:4-7), the repentance of souls (2 Timothy 2:25), the gift of faith (Philippians 1:29), the pursuit of holiness (Philippians 3:12-13), the growth of believers (Hebrews 6:3), the giving of life and the taking in death (1 Samuel 2:6), and the crucifixion of his Son (Acts 4:27-28).

From the smallest thing to the greatest thing, good and evil, happy and sad, pagan and Christian, pain and pleasure - God governs them all for his wise and just and good purposes (Isaiah 46:10). Lest we miss the point, the Bible speaks most clearly to this in the most painful situations. Amos asks, in time of disaster, "If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?" (Amos 3:6). After losing all ten of his children in the collapse of his son's house, Job says, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). After being covered with boils he says, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10).

Oh, yes, Satan is real and active and involved in this world of woe! In fact Job 2:7 says, "Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." Satan struck him. But Job did not get comfort from looking at secondary causes. He got comfort from looking at the ultimate cause. "Shall we not accept adversity from God?" And the author of the book agrees with Job when he says that Job's brothers and sisters "consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the LORD had brought on him" (Job 42:11). Then James underlines God's purposeful goodness in Job's misery: "You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful" (James 5:11). Job himself concludes in prayer: "I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted" (Job 42:2). Yes, Satan is real, and he is terrible - and he is on a leash.

The other reason I don't say, "God did not cause the calamity, but he can use it for good," is that it undercuts the very hope it wants to create. I ask those who say this: "If you deny that God could have 'used' a million prior events to save 5,000 people from this great evil, what hope then do you have that God could now 'use' this terrible event to save you in the hour of trial?" We say we believe he can use these events for good, but we deny that he could use the events of the past to hold back the evil of September 11. But the Bible teaches he could have restrained this evil (Genesis 20:6). "The LORD nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples" (Psalm 33:10). But it was not in his plan to do it. Let us beware. We spare God the burden of his sovereignty and lose our only hope.

All of us are sinners. We deserve to perish. Every breath we take is an undeserved gift. We have one great hope: that Jesus Christ died to obtain pardon and righteousness for us (Ephesians 1:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21), and that God will employ his all-conquering, sovereign grace to preserve us for our inheritance (Jeremiah 32:40). We surrender this hope if we sacrifice this sovereignty. See
Why I Do Not Say, God Did Not Cause the Calamity, But He Can Use It for Good <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is also what the Second London Baptist Confession affirms:

The London Confession of Baptist Faith, Chapter V:Of Divine Providence

I. God the good creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all His creatures and things,[1] from the greatest even to the least,[2] by His most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created, according unto His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will; to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.[3]

1. Heb. 1:3; Job 38:11; Isa. 46:10-11; Psa. 135:6
2. Matt. 10:29-31
3. Eph. 1:11

II. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly;[4] so that there is not anything befalls any by chance, or without His providence;[5] yet by the same providence He ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.[6]

4. Acts 2:23
5. Prov. 16:33
6. Gen. 8:22

III. God, in His ordinary providence maketh use of means,[7] yet is free to work without,[8] above,[9] and against them[10] at His pleasure.

7. Acts 27:31, 44; Isa. 55:10-11
8. Hosea 1:7
9. Rom. 4:19-21
10. Dan. 3:27

IV. The Almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence, that His determinate counsel extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sinful actions both of angels and men;[11] and that not by a bare permission, which also He most wisely and powerfully boundeth, and otherwise ordereth and governeth,[12] in a manifold dispensation to His most holy ends;[13] yet so, as the sinfulness of their acts proceedeth only from the creatures, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.[14]

11. Rom. 11:32-34; II Sam. 24:1; I Chr. 21:1
12. II Kings 19:28; Psa. 76:10
13. Gen. 1:20; Isa. 10:6-7, 12
14. Psa. 50:21; I John 2:16

[ October 27, 2001: Message edited by: Chris Temple ]