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God's Dealings With People


Anon

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So I think many good men have different opinions on this but I'm curious to discuss it. How many of you think that God micromanages life? And how many of you think that God just intervenes at times?

I personally am feeling more and more like God does not micromanage life, but He does intervene. He knows what is going on at all times but does not always intervene, but does sometimes.

For instance.....lost people and saved people both get cancer all the time. Some lost people survive and some die. Some saved people survive, and some die. God does say the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Now....I think that God helps Christians through their cancer. I think God may choose to miraculously heal some Christians with cancer. But I believe the cancer in general comes from a sinful world (sinful nature, not specific sins of course) and that it just...well it just happens. Same as everybody gets flat tires and everybody gets colds in the winter. God can CHOOSE to intervene in any given situation...but I don't believe that "God gave me this cold for a reason". I honestly don't believe God gives us colds! He CAN if he wants....but in reality, everybody just gets colds.

I was thinking of this church bus that just wrecked today (look it up, church bus in Indianapolis...Bob Jones related good Independent Baptist Church...very, very sad tragedy). Looks like probably the brakes gave out and caused the wreck. I was thinking about it...and thinking that God knew the brakes were broken. God knew who was going to die. God chose NOT to intervene for His own reasons. And God will help the people survive the grief. Maybe someone will get saved through it. But I do not think God actually made the brakes go bad and made them wreck. I just believe that God doesn't always intervene with the "Natural" progression of sinful earth. He *could* have intervened, I think....but for some reason He chose not to.

Does that make sense? No, I don't mean being Deist....I'm just saying that I don't necessarily think God specifically "allowed" the brakes to fail and chose which people were going to die. I think He knew what was going to happen in His foreknowledge...which is different....

Am I making sense?

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In my experience in regards to the lost, not only does the Lord not manage lives, He doesn't intervene either. The lost world is on their own because they do not walk with God ever.

This same principle applies to all carnal born again believers also and most of the time for even the most Godly of born again folks. It is a rarity indeed to find someone who truly walks with God even half the time. God will guide, intervene, and manage our lives if we ever do get to that point and truly lose our lives in this world and follow Him, sacrificing all.

IMO it is closet calvinism and sever naivety to believe otherwise. Oh it isn't the free will for salvation type of calvinism but it is the principle of calvinism nevertheless. I argue you can't have one without the other.

 

Ever wonder why there were greatly used men and women of God in the past? Ever met someone that was just genuinely Godly, so much so that most of the rest of your IFB members thought they were unreal and weird. In thirty plus years I can count them on one hand, and BTW I surely ain't one the them.

 

If we are not walking with God continually, we are chosing to be victims of chance in this wretched world just like the lost. And victims of chance we all are whether we believe it or not.

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I don't think there is a good way to know how much God "micromanages" life any more than we can know how much or how directly angels interfere. From scripture it is obvious that at times God very carefully controls even little details to bring about certain events but at other times it seems he less directly controls what happens. For example, when God allowed the devil access to Job God allowed the devil to more or less "work out the details" on what the devil wanted to do to Job but specified a couple of things that the devil could not do. Likewise when Christ mentions a tower that fell on some people in the local events of that day and time he said that it wasn't because of anything specific they had done but was more a general warning to that generation.

 

As a side note, isn't that church bus wreck you mention out of a church who's current  pastor ended up taking it after he ended up leaving the church he had been previously pastoring a year or two ago after a anderson cooper news special highlighted him and the church he was then pastoring in a negative way? Not that that necessarily means anything at all but it does seem odd that his church end up in national news again when he moved several states away.    

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 Romans 8:28 says he works all things together for good but there's no mention that all things are a result of God micromanaging.

 

The unsaved are pretty much on their own but I believe God even intervenes in their lives because he is good (Matt. 5:45). With the unsaved it's for the purpose of getting them to repent (Romans 2:4).

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Seth, I'm not aware of that church being involved in any Anderson Cooper thing but then I'm not familiar, personally, with the church or the pastor. And other than Fairhaven I am not acquainted with any other churches who ended up in that series.

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Nothing happens without God causing or allowing. Some of what comes about is indeed a result of sin and the curse from the fall. Even there, that's part of God's plan. How God actually works billions of people and untold numbers of events, both large and small, each and every second of each and every day, so that His will is accomplished, so that all things work together for good to His people, to bring "now" to the appointed end times at His appointed time, is not something God chose to give us details about.

 

We know a sparrow doesn't die without God, nor does a hair fall from our head, turn gray upon our head, without the Lord's involvement as the "cause" or as the one giving permission for it to be so.

 

When it comes to matters of death, we need to remember that death for a Christian means instantly being present with the Lord, which is far better than any aspect of being here on earth. How each particular death fits into the overall puzzle that is God's eternal plan, I don't know and Scripture doesn't reveal.

 

Deuteronomy 29:29 makes it clear there is much God hasn't told us, and we are not to concern ourselves with such, we are to focus upon those things the Lord has determined is most important for us to know. That can be a difficult thing to accept or deal with, but it ultimately comes down to a matter of placing our full trusts in God.

 

If we know everything, then what we do isn't a matter of faith, but when we choose to have faith in God and trust Him, even when we haven't a clue as to what's going on or why, then we are showing and practicing true faith.

 

The more we yield to God, the more we put off our old nature and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the more we pay heed to the Holy Ghost within us, the more we will see God's direction in our lives, the more we will recognize His hand in matters. Too often we are trying to go about things in our own feeble power and in so doing we miss the still small voice of God trying to speak to us, we miss the hand of God in matters.

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Good post. 

We are taught that God knows everything that happens, and this is absolutely true.  It is also true that nothing happens without God's knowledge and/or permission (as in Job.)  It is not always apparent as to WHY God allows things to happen - and this is where trust comes in.  Based upon Biblical principles, it is our job to believe that God has a plan to work out in any given circumstance, even though we cannot see what it is at the moment.  We do live in a sin-cursed world, where the devil has much power.   The Bible is the only religious scripture that gives us any hope for the future, because the Bible is the only religious book (meaning in comparison to other religions - Islam, Hindu, Buddhism,etc.) that tells us that one day the devil and sin will be eradicated, and then eternity future will be sinless (Rev. 21-22).

Does God "micromanage" our lives?  Absolutely not.  God allows us to make our choices - for better or for worse.  Sometimes our choices have devastating affects.  In this instance of the bus crash, my first thought was did anyone keep up on the regular maintenance of the vehicle.  I once went out soul-winning with a church group, and we took a church bus out to a smaller town.  The driver was the associate pastor.  He mentioned to me that he had planned to treat everyone to an ice-cream afterwards, but had forgotten his wallet.  I work in the transportation industry, and know that it is illegal to operate a CDL vehicle without your license and DOT physical card ON YOUR PERSON.  It is not like a normal car.  So I reproved him there for being irresponsible.  He made a choice - a bad choice - that could have had terrible results. 

I give this illustration to demonstrate that God allows us to make our choices, but then expects us to live with the consequences of our decisions.  Galatians 6:7 seems appropriate here. 

Our job as Christians is to grow in grace and knowledge to the point where we begin to see more and more that we are incapable of making even the simplest decisions without God's wisdom.  Thus, as we spend more and more time absorbing the word of God, and we begin to put more and more of the Bible's principles into action, we can be more and more like Christ, who "always did the will of the Father."  As we seek to do the Father's will in even the minutest events - seemingly insignificant decisions - then when the "big" decisions come, we are more and more hesitant to trust our own judgment, and cry out to God for wisdom, discernment, and direction to make the RIGHT choice.  THIS is where the Lord wants to get to in our own lives.  He wants us to CHOOSE to follow and obey HIM in ALL THINGS - but He will not force Himself upon us in salvation or AFTER salvation.  It is a choice we must make.

Even then, this does not eliminate "bad" things from happening to us.  Many times the Lord allows these "evil" circumstances to arise to test our resolve and faith in Him.  And when we remain faithful to him in the midst of sorrow and tribulation, God can use that bad circumstance to bring glory unto Himself - Romans 8:28.

 

I hope this is helpful to you, kitagirl.

 

In Christ,

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Seth, I'm not aware of that church being involved in any Anderson Cooper thing but then I'm not familiar, personally, with the church or the pastor. And other than Fairhaven I am not acquainted with any other churches who ended up in that series.

 

 

I was just going off memory but I checked online and it was an ABC 20/20 special from 2011 not the anderson cooper special. It was indeed the same pastor chuck phelps I was thinking of though, he has been heavily involved in the BJU circles for years but is now pastoring a different church in a different state than he was at the time of the TV special. Apparently from the news today he lost a son and daughter in law in this wreck. Wouldn't see eye to eye with them doctrinally on a ever increasing number of things but it is a tough situation no doubt. 

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Does God "micromanage" our lives?  Absolutely not.  God allows us to make our choices - for better or for worse.  Sometimes our choices have devastating affects . . . .

 

I give this illustration to demonstrate that God allows us to make our choices, but then expects us to live with the consequences of our decisions.  Galatians 6:7 seems appropriate here. 

 

Amen!

 

Concerning such questions on the sovereignty of the Lord our God in the affairs of mankind and of our lives, I have often taught that the Lord our God sovereignly grants us the freedom to make our choices within the parameters that He sovereignly governs, but that He Himself sovereignly governs the circumstances that preceed our choices and the consequences that result from our choices.  Certainly, by sovereignly governing the circumstances that preceed our choices, the Lord our God does limit or broaden the possible choices that we might have available to us.  Yet in so doing, the Lord our God generally leaves us with THE righteous choice and with at least one unrighteous choice to compete with that righteous choice.  What then will we choose in each and every given choice and decision?

 

Concerning the matter of micromanagement -- According to the teaching of God's own Word, it would appear that the Lord our God sovereignly micromanages the exponentially multiplied multitude of details for the existence of the entire created universe, which would include the circumstances and consequences in our individual lives.

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