Thread: Seventh-Day Adventist World Church Vote Statement on Transgender

Originally Posted by Colonel

Do you think their belief in annihilationism is tied to that sentiment ?

Perhaps it might be for the fringe group that believes it. But most SDAs reject that particular message. They believe that God has directly killed and directly destroyed.

It holds interest for me because I have believed that God does not directly kill or destroy since the mid-80s thanks to the teaching of the Faith Movement. However, I do not believe in annihilation. I believe that hell is literal and eternal (as the majority of Word-Faithers do). So if there is a connection it certainly is not a necessary one.

Originally Posted by fuego

So what happened in the mid 80s that caused God to quit directly killing and destroying? That was an abrupt change of mind for Him all of a sudden wasn't it?

Or did I read that wrong?

WOW! That was so funny I forgot to laugh



Anyway, you can browse through this blog and look at some Hagin quotes if you have not read his books on healing in a while:

The Spiritual Quest for the Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin’s Robert Young Book, “Hints and helps to Bible Interpretation”
http://cvbibleteachingcenter.blogspo...kenneth-e.html

Originally Posted by Colonel

He was still at it here at least :

Acts 12:23 Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died.

From pages 156-157 of my book, "Does God Send Sickness?"

Herod Struck by an Angel
When Herod allows himself to be exalted as a god he is immediately smitten by an angel for failing to glorify the true God:

And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost (Acts 12:21-23)

We have already studied the Scriptures that tell us that God smites by removing His protection from a person and allowing the destroyer to have access to them:

For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you (Ex. 12:23)

His angels operate in the same manner: “I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea ….to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea” (Rev. 7:1-2). The four angels are holding back the winds. Their only means of “hurting” would be to stop holding them back.

In Daniel, we learn that it is by removing their protection the watcher angels let Nebuchadnezzar become insane: “Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him” (Dan. 4:16). This is permission and not causation. Herod’s failure to glorify God caused the angel to remove his protection over Herod. This left him at the “mercy” of the forces of sickness and disease.

Originally Posted by Colonel

In the OT there is confusion about who is doing what, God or Satan. Satan operates within God's permission and based on his powers as Accuser. Not so in the NT. The angel who struck Herod was God's angel and struck is an active verb, not a permissive one. Same with the lake of fire, unless Satan is supposed to torment himself.

There are many versions of judgment in the Bible. In my opinion you are simply trying to eradicate the version where God actively imposes judgement apart from natural circumstances and the workings of Satan. Vindicating God from what he does not do is one thing, making the approach totalitarian is more like creating an anthropomorphic version of God, one that thinks and feels more like human beings do. I suspect that there is an element of humanism and emotionalism involved.

You and I are not reading the same New Testament then. In more than one place the New Testament carries over the idea of God's causation:

Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,*He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.*(John 12:39-40)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.*(Matt. 6:13)

Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.* (Rom. 9:18)

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:*(2 Thess. 2:7)

More could be cited on this point. The New Testament used many of the same "Hebraisms" that were used in the Old Testament. Furthermore, just like the New Testament, the Old Testament always clarified in other places what actually happened as far as God is concerned:

And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.*(2 Sam. 24:1)

And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.*(1 Chron. 21:1)

Sorry, but your dispensational hermeneutic is proven wrong on this point.