Faith of a Child

by jb » Fri Apr 06, 2007 4:28 am

Faith of a Child.

Tonight my family reflected on some prayers that God has answered for my son. He’s a young boy that has placed his faith in Jesus Christ several months back. Each night before we go to bed we have what he calls “Jesus story” time. Afterwards we pray and then go to bed.

Last night he prayed that God would allow him to find a prize egg. They were having an Easter egg hunt at school and he wanted to find a prize egg. Apparently this was important to him. So…. my thoughts were…silly boy…. until he came home with a prize egg. God never ceases to amaze me. I’ll not go into all the answered prayers with you but it’s just great to see the faith of a child.

All this talk tonight about faith and prayer made me think of Moses and the Bronze Snake. (Numbers 21: 4-9) Venomous snakes bit these people and Moses, under God’s instruction, puts up a Bronze snake so that anyone bitten could look at this Bronze Snake and live. Then the story ends. I wondered how many people refused to look at the Bronze Snake because it sounded ridiculous. Were there families that refused to look at the Bronze snake just as there are families who refuse to look to Jesus Christ to be born again. (John 3)

The words of Jesus are so clear to me and I guess I’ll never fully understand how some lose the faith of a child and never believe that Jesus offers eternal life.

by **SouthernFriedInfidel** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:28 am

jb wrote:All this talk tonight about faith and prayer made me think of Moses and the Bronze Snake. (Numbers 21: 4-9) Venomous snakes bit these people and Moses, under God’s instruction, puts up a Bronze snake so that anyone bitten could look at this Bronze Snake and live. Then the story ends. I wondered how many people refused to look at the Bronze Snake because it sounded ridiculous.

Wait a sec, if you don't mind. This story in Numbers is one of my favorites. Seems to me that these folks were violating a commandment by having a graven image of a snake. Would it not be reasonable for folks who were concerned about getting zapped by God for having anything to do with a graven image to keep away from it? Obviously, if you're told "This graven image of a snake is supernatural," wouldn't a commandment-follower want to have nothing to do with such voo-doo?

by **RebelSnake** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:15 pm

Exodus 20:4 (King James Version)

4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

What's this?? God is telling people to break his own commandments?? Rather confusing isn't it?

by **SouthernFriedInfidel** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:21 pm

RebelSnake wrote:
Exodus 20:4 (King James Version)

4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

What's this?? God is telling people to break his own commandments?? Rather confusing isn't it?

Well, it's hardly a rare thing in the Bible. God ordering murders, or doing it himself -- that's scattered all around the book. Makes one wonder about the editors' ability to check internal consistency.

by jb » Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:33 am

You guys are missing the whole point. There should be nothing confusing about it. God is the giver and taker of life. Just because someone dies does it really mean……God murdered??. You are never going to get past calling God a murder until you can fully grasp the fall of man in Genesis. People die. We know they die. Genesis tells us why they die. (2:17) Disobeying God caused death.

Explain why you have a problem with how you die. If a tree falls on your head and you die…..GOD is a murder? You have a heart attack and die……….GOD is a murder? You get bitten by a snake and die…….GOD is a murder? You die in your sleep……..God is a murder?

God planned salvation from the beginning.
Gen 3-- The War,
Gen 3:15-- the Victory and the struggle.
Isaiah 7:14-- Foreshadow of the Messiah’s Birth. Psalm 2216-18 Foreshadow of the Messiah’s Death. Isaiah 9:6-7 The Messiah’s identity.

The people in Numbers recognized their sin and God sent NOT AN IDOL but a way to be healed for repentance. These people were not worshiping the snake in place of God but they were obeying God by looking at the snake.

by **RebelSnake** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 11:46 am

jb wrote: These people were not worshiping the snake in place of God but they were obeying God by looking at the snake.

Nobody said a word about worshipping the snake. The second commandment is quite clear on this matter.

4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Your god explicitly ordered them to violate the 2nd commandment and then condemned to death anyone that refused.

by jb » Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:27 pm

You are correct in saying the verses is clear, but it is you who misunderstanding it. Maybe Deuteronomy 4:23-24 will clear things up. Don't make an idol for yourselves in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. God did not forbid the Snake to be made. On the contrary he it was made by him to symbolize the coming messiah. Anyone who placed there faith in God and did what he obeyed…look at the snake…would be healed. Just like anyone who places there faith in God the Son (Jesus) will be saved.

by **SouthernFriedInfidel** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 2:04 pm

jb wrote:People die. We know they die. Genesis tells us why they die. (2:17) Disobeying God caused death.

It's an explanation. I grant you that. But it is insufficient, mythological. It makes no real sense, telling us that before "the fall" humans were immortal, and one act caused all bad things in the world to happen.

Explain why you have a problem with how you die. If a tree falls on your head and you die…..GOD is a murder?

My father died as a result of a fall in his bathroom at the age of 88. In my view of the world, it was an accident -- no further explanation needed.

But... If God caused that fall, isn't that murder, by the usual definition of the word? Only when you accept God's existence, and that God causes every event, only then can you call God the only murderer.

by jb » Sat Apr 07, 2007 4:06 pm

You said “If God caused that fall, isn't that murder, by the usual definition of the word?”
No. The command was You shall not murder…I shall not murder. We shall not kill someone as in a premeditated and deliberate act. Again, God in a sense brought us into this world and God can take us out and it’s not murder. (That last line sounded like a Bill Cosby joke.)

by **SouthernFriedInfidel** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 6:31 pm

jb wrote:You said “If God caused that fall, isn't that murder, by the usual definition of the word?”
No. The command was You shall not murder…I shall not murder. We shall not kill someone as in a premeditated and deliberate act. Again, God in a sense brought us into this world and God can take us out and it’s not murder.

The bible says that God is the originator of all events, and predestines every one of them. So nothing that ever happens is not a "premeditated" act by God, according to your holy book.

I ask you -- since the Bible says that all events are caused by God, does that not lead to the conclusion that all deaths are murders by God? If you say that God can't "murder," then there's no such thing as murder... assuming you believe in all that predestination stuff in the Bible.

Now, are you saying that God is exempt from the rules of morality, and murdering humans is no problem for him? I seem to recall reading somewhere that "God is love." What sort of twisted, inhuman definition of "love" does this give us?

by **RebelSnake** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:14 am

Now, are you saying that God is exempt from the rules of morality, and murdering humans is no problem for him?

Sounds to me like the one with the power makes the rules and if we don't like it, that's just too damn bad.

by **SouthernFriedInfidel** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:58 am

RebelSnake wrote:Sounds to me like the one with the power makes the rules and if we don't like it, that's just too damn bad.

I often hear the concept that humanity, like all the rest of the universe is owned by God, so he has the right to do anything he wants, including infinite torture. You know -- the old "potter can make and break clay as he sees fit."

My response to that is: sure, it's fine to do whatever horrible thing you want to your inanimate toys. Microwave your plastic soldiers, blow up your Hot Wheels cars with firecrackers. (BTW John... please don't show this post to your kid.

) But when you're dealing with things that are self-aware and have conscious minds, one can't be so careless or heartless. It certainly isn't consistent with the whole "God so loved the world" business we hear all the time. Heck, I love my cats more than a potter who crushes his pots does his creations!

by **RebelSnake** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 11:48 am

Owned by god? Sounds like a neat little justification for slavery there. If god can own people, why can't we?

by **SouthernFriedInfidel** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:07 pm

RebelSnake wrote:Owned by god? Sounds like a neat little justification for slavery there.

It occurred to me as I was reading the Bible that the entire volume is written from a perspecive in which slavery is a natural state of affairs. Not one statement in the Bible even questions whether slavery is right or not, let alone condemns it.

But that's a subject for other threads, I expect...

by **Questioner** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:00 pm

RebelSnake wrote:Sounds to me like the one with the power makes the rules and if we don't like it, that's just too damn bad.

A tribe's leaders would from time to time, make some very bad decisions that resulted in poor outcomes for their followers. To maintain one's own power, it is essential that the leader must turn the people's attention away from his own failurs and bad judgment and focus their attention on something else. The most effective strategy is of course, to point out your critic's sins and blame the disaster on God punishing all the people for the sins of your critics. For example, consider if for a nomadic people, the camp was struck by a lightening storm and many people were killed. Now as a leader, you are going to be blamed for choosing a bad camping site unless you can find somebody else to blame. And accusing your critics of a terrible sin like worshipping a golden calf is a quite handy and effective attention grabber.

That way, people forget that the leader had them camp on a high hill instead of a more protected valley. Instead of holding the leader accountable and perhaps replacing him with somebody with more wisdom, their anger is turned toward the guys accused of worshipping the golden calf. "Naturally God struck our camp with lightening! It was a punishment for those guys who broke God's law!" is a fine way to get out of being held responsible for a bad decision about locating the camp.

Sort of sounds like a strategy devised by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, don't you think?

by **RebelSnake** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 10:43 pm

Questioner wrote:Sort of sounds like a strategy devised by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, don't you think?

I don't think I've ever heard of any politician owning up to any mistakes. Most recently Nancy Pelosi comes to mind. It seems to be the nature of the beast.

by jb » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:29 am

The bible says that God is the originator of all events, and predestines every one of them.

What scripture and verse are you referring?