Someone is sick, terminally, they are dying. Suddenly, in come some good church people to pray for the ailing person, and amidst their prayers and talking they bring up "It just might be God's will for you to come home"....
STOP
This belief of God as the grim reaper has to go once and for all. Many times in the Bible God says all of the good things that He wants for people, not one place does it ever say that death, sickness, or defeat are His desires for Christians. Ezekiel 18:32 says God has no pleasure with people dying.
In John 10:10 Jesus says that the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but that He is come that you may have LIFE and have it more abundantly.
So how do we know this thief is satan?
We know from Mark 4:15 that satan steals, we know from Job that he at least tries to kill or make your life a living hell, and we know from 1st Corinthians 5:5 that he destroys. It's safe to say that satan is the "thief" spoken of in John 10:10.
So if satan is the one who steals, kills, and destroys, why do you want to credit these attributes to God? Especially now that we are in the NT times, and if you believe that Jesus is God in the way the Bible teaches it, then why do you insist that Jesus Christ is the one doing these things when He says the total opposite?
I know there are objections to this, and many scriptures come to mind, which I will address here, as many as I can.
Like Job 14:5 about God establishing some age that people would live to. Be very careful about getting a doctrine from this book because it's true that they said those things, but what they said was not true. Job and his 3 'friends' argued and debated through several chapters and even had conflicting statements at times. Also be careful with getting a doctrine from the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a book of man's wisdom. In Ecclesiastes 3 you will find it saying that there is a time for peace, war, life, death, love, and hatred....man's wisdom indeed.
Other verses in the Bible like "from dust to dust" in Genesis 3:19 are sometimes used as proof, but they do not indicate that God is the executor, just that He knows all and has seen what will happen. Hebrews 9:27 says it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgement....the emphasis in this verse is not that everyone is appointed to die, but that judgement comes after death. If you believe in the rapture, then obviously some people won't be dying. Also, Enoch and Elijah never died (unless you want to say they will be the 2 witnesses of Revelation). At Christ's return when He sets up the new kingdom, death will be done away with (1st Cor 15:26, Rev 20:14), so plenty of people will never die.
In Job 2:3 we find that satan is the one who moved God to destroy Job, not that God wanted to do it. This verse causes a problem to some people, just understand that this verse proves all power comes from God and satan has none of his own.
Lastly, people misquote the Bible and say that Jesus has the keys of life and death, and then they equate this to meaning that Jesus is some kind of Christian yin-yang symbol, giving life and causing death. Here's what the verse actually says.
Rev 1:18 I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
So, Jesus Christ has the keys of hell and death. He has the keys, NOT to lock you up, but to set you FREE from your imprisonment! I would start listing all of the verses indicating how much God wants good things for you, but they would take up far too much space, and I'm trying to keep this short.
Whatever you may believe about health or nutrition or why you have an illness, I will say that you can rest assured God didn't cause it, and He's sure as anything not trying to kill you.
God is not in control of this world, and when people die, or are murdered for example, it's not because His divine hand made it so, else we could say that sin is of God. God would be the one who makes murderers murder, rapists rape, and thieves steal. With all the evil in the world, we cannot say that God is literally in control, simply because people disobey Him all the time. The only place that God steps in is in the life of the believer, and only to the degree that He is allowed. Proverbs 15:3 says His eyes are in every place beholding good AND evil, so if God were really running this place the way some churches like to pretend, He would be pretty sick and twisted to see all that goes on in every city every day, and let it all happen. Someday, He will be running things, and it will be perfect, but for now....
1st John 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
It would be good for people to find out what God actually wants for people BEFORE they go on tangents attributing and even blaming things on Him that He does not do. Hopefully I have cleared that up in this section.
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