That the One law above all, the Royal Law, is subject to ridicule and scoffing even on these pages ought be suggestive of something.
Perhaps if we understood that Love-even the least crumb or minutest drop- will circle the universe and eventually return, never in vain we would be more willing to apply it universally. Maybe we don’t really have faith in love, after all, to not demand immediate gratification or otherwise payment. Wages-or gift. It is a simple choice. Love-no matter the immediate or apparent cost. Love without measure, and the God who is love promises to gift you far beyond mere wages.
1 Like
Tim,
I would challenge you to reply on this point with the “leaders” being pastors and SS teachers.
I am currently reading “Mind, Character & Personality” …again (after almost 40 years) and am getting more sensitized to how inept, irrelevant and superficial SS presentations and sermons are. Especially with “Peace & safety sermons”
For example I detect an increasing antinomian trend in presentations and the fantasy that we are safe, in a worldly /secular, Laodicean mode to save as long as we claim to Christ’s robe of righteousness.
Also…would you personally mention after all of the conflict, discord, crime, SDA focus on eschatology paranoia, that …"GOD is in control " to any audience?
Sometime I think we misunderstand what it means “God is in control”.
God gives us free choice. We make choices. We experience the consequences of those choices. God uses the outcomes from our choices to further the spreading of His gospel.
God is in control = God can use any situation to further the spreading of His gospel. It doesn’t mean He causes or allows everything that happens. That would take away our choice.
1 Like
One of the Readings for Sunday is in Hebrews 13. vs 3 says, “Remember
those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoner [cell mate], and those
who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”
vs 6 quotes Psalm 118:6,7. “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?”
Other places we have the litany of sufferings that Paul endured.
All these things happened even though they were “Good” and “keeping
the commandments”.
The readings at Synagogue tomorrow are the Blessings and Cursings prior
to entering Canaan. Do all the “good” things and God will bless you. Do the
“bad” and see how many bad things happen in your life.
THEN the Rabbis and the Scribes wrote The Book Of Job. Was blameless
and still horrific things happened to him. Friends kept saying, “You have a
secret sin” that is WHY God is punishing you.
The Book of Job was written as an Opposing to the “Blessings” read by
Moses. One can be blameless and still have bad things. And God will
not apologize. Just tell you, “I run the world”.
One can be faithful and be delivered from the lions. One can be faithful
and be sawn in two.
Read Hebrews 11.
2 Likes
It goes farther than a misunderstanding.
The wrong concept leads to disappointment, depression, slandering God, fanaticism, idolatry and even atheism. This topic is related to the doctrine of Theodicy.
This safety net, parachute notion that God is control has become a subconscious cry of desperation of those who are stuck in a perverted, depraved, carnal, worldly state of sanctification failure.
Another aspect is that it is a cognitive projection from those who are control freaks living in fear.
It is a typical state of mind generated by warped or unbalanced eschatological teaching that is prevalent in SDA and JW denominations.
Since Tim Jennings is tuned into behavior science…I would be very interested in his analysis of the usage of “God is in control”.
I would recommend a book…“The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” by Johnson and Vanvonderen
That book would give readers insight into what Jesus faced and challenged in his dealing with oppressive religious leaders of his time and what is often griped about on this forum.
Tim–I challenge you to write an article…something titled…HOW MUCH IS GOD REALLY IN CONTROL?..FACTOR IN 1 JN 5:19 …
“We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the CONTROL of the evil one .”
AND EG White’s input on the civil war account of the battle of Manassas.
2 Likes
Actually Robelle, “not allowing” takes away our choice. He even establishes parameters on that, I suggest. He finally took away “allowing Hitlers choices” by the normal forces of international civil authorities that bore the sword.
No consequences hardens in ignorance and rebellion.
Robert,
The key to understanding essentially all theological questions, including what does it mean “God is in control,” is how one understands God’s law. If one views God’s law functioning like the laws humans make up—imposed rules requiring the ruling authority to impose punishments—then people view God making everything happen and inevitably form wrong theology. A variety of different errors are formed such as teaching that God brings tragedies, or causes molesters to abuse people, or hurricanes are from God, or God hardens certain hearts, to Universalism which teaches that because God is love and wants all to be saved and He is in control, then in the end all will be saved. These errors all stems from the lie that God’s law functions like our law and God is imposing His will to maintain the “justice” of His government by enforcing His law.
The truth is realized when we accept that God is Creator and His laws are the protocols upon which reality is built to operate: laws of physics, law of love, law of truth, worship, liberty, exertion, laws of health, the moral laws and so many more. It is how reality works.
Thus, God is in control of what God controls—and God controls Himself and all His laws. He sustains reality, He keeps things running on the protocols He built it to run upon. And one of those laws is the law of liberty, which grants real freedom to sentient beings, for love only exists in an atmosphere of freedom.
This is how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex 4:21, 7:3), yet Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex 8:15, 32). God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by presenting truth and leaving Pharaoh free to accept or reject it. The accepting or rejecting will cause the end result. Without the truth presented and the freedom to reject it, Pharaoh’s heart would not have become as hardened. So, God hardened his Pharaoh’s heart by the laws of truth and freedom, presenting truth and leaving him free. God controlled His laws—but Pharaoh exercising his own will and choosing to reject the truth hardened his own heart. This is how reality works and how God is in control.
5 Likes
actually the reason we have science and theories seeming to contradict the creation story is because science has discounted that story as its starting premise…everything is interpreted in terms of evolutionary dogma now…and you can’t hope to be accepted by mainstream science unless you toe the evolution line…it’s really that bad…
Depends on which side of the fence the consequences fall. I don’t think God took away Hitler’s choices. I think He allowed the choices of other nations to be followed through. The US could easily have stayed fully neutral before December 1941, but chose to be less neutral.
1 Like
My meaning —He took away Hitler’s future choices to harm ( was Killed in Berlin)…assuming he didn’t escape to South America. All Europe would now be speaking German. 
I believe God does work on leaders, sometimes deceiving and sometimes convincing to accomplish His purposes. Nothing in His Character and Biblical history requires Him to sit by passive.1 Kgs. 22: 20-23. ; Rev.17:12-17;
2 Thess.2:11.12.
In this way, God not only predicts history, He forms it thru primary and secondary means.
Nobody has said He sits by does nothing. The real issue is we want to judge people’s actions but to do that we need to be able to discern their motives (impossible). In doing so we class them (the motives) as good and evil, and by definition someone who has evil motives is evil. We can’t see where God intervenes or where He might choose to stand back. A classic example is Christian v Muslim. Both claim God is on their side. More correctly He is on neither side (but who really knows).
The concept of God in Control stems from the concept of an all powerful God. If He is all powerful, then He is in control. If He is in control then He causes/allows some things and doesn’t allow others. But what if He doesn’t work that way? In the Bible it says “I know the plans I have for you”. We are free to walk that plan or not. It doesn’t change the plan but it can change what happens along the way.
“God is in control”. A sentence full of hope, full of assurance and promise but what does it mean in practical, everyday terms? I am not saying God isn’t in control. I am saying we don’t really know what that means.
5 Likes
And you base your reply on what data? Can you point me to a source?
Just my thoughts dont want to hijack this authors direction.
Before Dec 7, '41 there was Lend-Lease, but even with that there were
stipulations on how stuff was to get to England.
Tim Jennings inputted on that somewhat and yet your “full of hope, full of assurance and promise” is loaded with ambiguity.
The usage of “God is in control” without explanation/elaboration generates a quickly evaporating false sense of security and confusion.
Think of even Rom 8:28 where the conditions are love God and called according to his purpose and Rom 5:4 where endurance and character transformation generates hope.
SDA teaching methods are so institutional driven & warped due to inept exegesis…so they come up with fantasy cliches, obscure phrases like “God is in control” after blasting members with eschatological paranoid doctrine.
See how Tim has to explain about Pharaoh to make sense of this topic.
Until the SDA & other denominations/churches get clues to understand what NEH 8:8 is driving at…churchgoers will continue in their ignorant fanatic mindset.
Like Jesus said>>>> “blind leading the blind”
BTW that is institutionally and prophetically supported by EG White who claim that the SDA church is poor, blind and naked.
Some who are biblicaly tuned into what God is really like will state that God is in charge and involved but will not use the misleading phrase…“God is in control”
At a macro level not a micro level.
Humans have guardian angels and yet each individual, including converted Christians can grieve and/or quench the Holy Spirit or go into apostasy.
It appears at first glance that you missed the meaning of my statement. Read the whole part you quoted to get the full context. I am not arguing against you.
Understood.
.My usage of “your” should have been …"the implied meaning ".
I was actually spring boarding off your input
All good… I get too much exercise jumping to conclusions 
1 Like
academic persecution for faith-based beliefs is relatively well-known:
https://evolutionnews.org/2005/12/academic_persecution_of_scient_1/
check this out, from a few yrs back:
here’s a quote:
“It’s part of a pattern. There is basically a war on anyone who dissents from Darwin and we’ve seen that for several years,” said John West, associate director of Center for Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.
here are other cases:
https://world.wng.org/2013/02/teaching_intelligent_design_goes_on_trial_in_ohio
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/01/ball-state-intelligent-design_n_3688857.html
https://creation.com/expelled-new-movie-exposes-persecution-of-anti-darwinists
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1461