"God does not kill" Books

[Stefan777]

Sophia7 is correct. Soon144k has misrepresented the view of those who hold to this character of God. I will tell you plainly what it is. In regards to the justice of God Revelation 19:11 makes it clear that God judges in righteousness and doth make war in righteousness. Since God judges in righteousness we have to see how He does this. According to Psalm 119:142,144 and 172 the standard of righteousness is the law of God.The law of God declares thou shalt not kill. This is the prefect law of liberty,life and love that makes this declaration in the sixth commandment. Therefore no argument should be brought forth stating a difference between murder and kill, because both bring forth the end of life. Psalm 36:9 states that God is the fountain of life. Since LIFE comes from God and God alone, it is obvious that death comes from being separated from God. How is mankind separated from God. Isaiah 59:2 states that SIN brings about separation between Creator (Life-giver) and creature (life-receiver). This is how God's divine judgment occurs, it is founded on His 10 commandment law. Therefore God cannot violate His own law to judge humanity and that involves direct execution of them at the end of the world. Seriously take this into consideration and may God open your eyes to who He really is and how He deals with sinners. Here are a couple of SOP statements in support of this position:

"God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself. Everyone who stifles the admonitions of conscience is sowing the seeds of unbelief, and these will produce a sure harvest. By rejecting the first warning from God, Pharaoh of old sowed the seeds of obstinacy, and he reaped obstinacy. God did not compel him to disbelieve. The seed of unbelief which he sowed produced a harvest of its kind. Thus his resistance continued, until he looked upon his devastated land, upon the cold, dead form of his first-born, and the first-born of all in his house and of all the families in his kingdom, until the waters of the sea closed over his horses and his chariots and his men of war. His history is a fearful illustration of the truth of the words that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Galatians 6:7. Did men but realize this, they would be careful what seed they sow." (COL 84)

The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;” “for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan’s vindictive power over those who yield to his control. (GC 35)

The creation belongs to God. The Lord could, by neglecting man, stop his breath at once. All that he is and all that he has pertains to God. (FW 22)

There are even stronger statements concerning the same message by Sis White, I pray God truly opens your eyes and heart to the truth as it is in Jesus.

 

[Sulla]

I have only ever met a handful of people that believe God never kills. A few came to my church but they were not really members or on the Adventist books. Any way all the Adventists I know do not believe that message. Probably because the idea God does not kill is not backed up by scripture.

 

[Swanno]

Like all of us, Adam and Eve had the power of choice and that choice has it’s own reward, God respects that choice whichever way it falls, for it was He who gave it to us to use. It is the character we develop from our choices in life that will be judged, and our willingness to allow ourselves to be guided by God. When sin was committed in Eden, Satan became the prince of this world. Being beguiled by Satan, Prince Adam handed the position given to him on this earth over to Satan. [Romans 6:16. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.]
Now, with Satan as prince of this world we find in Job 1:6- 12 That there was a day when the sons of God [from other worlds] came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them, [lawfully representing our world in the place of Adam] And the Lord said unto Satan, ‘Whence comest thou?’ And Satan answered the Lord, and said; ‘From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.’ Then the Lord pointed Satan to righteous Job of whom Satan accused the Lord of putting a hedge of protection around him and all he owned. So Satan challenged God by saying: ‘If you were to take away all that Job has , the work of his hands and his increase etc he would curse you to your face!’ But God had confidence in Job, He knew Job’s heart, and so He said to Satan, ‘all that Job has is in your power Satan, only don’t put your hand upon his life’. [Satan is limited by God in what he can do.] So Satan was allowed access to all that Job had, and took everything from him including his children in the hope that Job would curse God.. But Job remained faithful to God through the ordeal, proving to all that his faithfulness didn’t come from the protecting hedge around him but by his own choice, knowing with confidence that the Lord had a reason for what He had allowed. Job’s faith upheld him and after the ordeal he was rewarded with more children and possessions than he had before.
Another reference to the prince of this world is found in John 12:31, 6 days before Christ’s crucifixion, Christ said, ‘Now is the judgment of this world: Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. ie; cast out from the position he held as prince of this world, for by His death Christ would redeem this world from Satan who would no longer be Prince nor allowed to enter heaven as it’s representative. Also Satan’s intense destructive hatred towards the Son of God, and his followers and all that God has made, until the deliverance by the voice of God just before the second coming of Christ’s return, allows time for Satan’s real character to be revealed and shows the ugly result of sin to all the unfallen universes, it also at the same time, vindicates God’s Loving Holy Name forever.
The next reference we find is at the time of the last supper a few days later, when Christ is saying to his disciples, hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. [can find nothing in me to respond to him] John 14:30. And because of this sinlessness, Christ could be the Sacrificial Lamb of God, redeeming this world from Satan, taking upon Himself our sins, and we, by uniting ourselves with Him, overcome the known evil in our lives until like our Saviour, Satan will find nothing in us to respond to him.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 What more could God give when He gave His one and only, dearest and closest companion in eternity, the Loveliest of His Love? How sin must have grieved Him for Him to agree to make a decision of such magnitude and give us His Son. Will we ever know what our redemption really cost?
We are of God: he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1John 4:6 He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is Love. And we have known and believed the Love that God hath to us. God is Love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. 1 John 4:8,16
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 9: 32,35,38,39.
There is nothing which can separate us from God’s love for He is Love, even our choice to separate from Him and allow the greatest tyrant there is, to use us as he wills, which ends in eternal death, can’t separate God’s love from us but it will turn our sorrowing grieving God reluctantly away as He withdraws his Spirit from those who reject Him. Like a grieving parent who mourns the loss of a child and cannot forget them, God mourns for those who reject Him. There is nothing more He can do when men become hard and unimpressionable. Because God loves, He will respect your decision whichever it is for He will not force anyone. And when the Presence of His grieving Holy Spirit reluctantly withdraws itself away, there is no more protection against the wickedness surrounding us. [remember the attacking snakes in the desert during the 40 years of wandering] By rejecting Christ’s Spirit we would have made the decision to be responsible for our own outcome and death, however it comes to us, for ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap’. And this is how it has been throughout the whole Bible, it’s the fight between good and evil and how man brings death to himself, but in Christ we have the promise of eternal life. “God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself.” [COL.p84 Chp heading: ‘Other lessons from seed sowing’]
Point in question is the Great flood which covered the whole earth. God saw that the wickedness of man was great. He selected faithful Noah who not only audibly preached for 120 years but preached by his works in the building of the ark to an unresponsive hardened crowd, warning them that their doom was coming in a deluge unless they returned to the Creator and Sustainer of all life. Each time they scorned the messages they hardened their hearts more, until they were so unimpressionable that their lives were cut off by drowning. Hebrews 3:7. To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts

 

[Swanno]

Sodom and Gomorrah are another example: pp138: When Abraham rescued the captives from the Elamites, the attention of the people was called to the true faith. Abraham was not a stranger to the people of Sodom and his worship of the unseen God was a source of ridicule among them. Gen 18:20.Their sin was very grievous in the sight of God. Gen 14:17-24 The King of Sodom had gone out to meet Abraham after the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and Melchizedek King of Salem also met him. Melchizedek, was also priest of the Most High God, to whom Abraham paid tithes. This being the case, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah would not have been ignorant of God or His ways but wilfully sinned their great sin for which they are known, and which will again become worldwide just before the second coming of Christ. Later we find that three wayfarers came to Abraham who welcomed them and told them to rest awhile and take refreshments. During the course of the visit it was told that Sarah would have a son and at the end of the visit it was said in Genesis 18:17. ’Shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I do; seeing Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation and all the Nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? So Abraham was made aware of what was going to happen to Sodom and he asked, ‘will the righteous be destroyed along with the wicked?’ ‘Shall not the Lord of all the earth do right? What if there were 50 righteous there, would it be destroyed? He answered No! - What about 45? No! again - What about 40? Again No! - What about 30? No! - 20? No! - What about 10? No! And when they left off talking the 3 visitors left, two of them towards Sodom.
At Sodom less than 10 righteous people were found in that terrible city, the rest of the inhabitants had completely grieved the Holy Spirit of God away. Only 4 persons were found, Lot, his wife and 2 daughters, and then they had to be taken by the hand and almost dragged out of the city by the two angels! As soon as they were out of Sodom, fire and brimstone from heaven destroyed the whole area, including Gomorrah and surrounding cities. The veil between heaven and earth had opened directly above the area leaving it unprotected from the brightness of the presence of God for a split second which begun the fire. For sin in the Presence of God burns up. Isaiah 33: 14,15. ’ The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the Hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despises the gain of oppression, that shaketh his hand from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.’ Sin burns in the Presence of a Holy God and it always will as long as it is in existence. The book of Jude, says that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah happened as an example of what is to come upon this earth at the end of time. [See also 2 Thessalonians 2:8] ‘Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Jude 7’ The fire is not eternal or it would still be burning today but the effect upon the people concerned is eternal. Fire only burns as long as there is fuel.
The 10 plagues of Egypt and the drowning of the Egyptian Pharaoh and his army is another example. The Israelites when they first arrived in Egypt would have witnessed of Yahweh to the Egyptians but afterwards under a new Pharaoh [ex 1:10-20] they became slaves for 400 years servitude. Many years before this, God had told Abraham, [Gen 15:13] ‘Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;’
At the time of Moses birth, Pharaoh ordered all the male babies to be put to death, Moses was secreted away on the river in a woven ark of bulrushes and floated among the reeds. He was found by Pharaoh’s daughter who brought him up as her own son. Later, when almost 80 years old, Moses entered the scene to be a symbol of their deliverer. Each time Moses approached Pharaoh, Pharaoh hardened his heart to the messages and the messenger saying in Exodus 5:2 ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go… and so it continued through the 10 plagues as God’s Spirit was withdrawing from the national figure and all the nation he stood for. Each appeal rejected was answered with a plague as the protection of God withdrew itself from protecting the nation from Satan’s destroying agents until the Nation was almost totally destroyed. At last it touched the first born of each family and the first born of their beasts, which brought the nation to it’s knees, then they gladly let the Israelites go. Ex. 11:2-6, Ex 12:23 & 1 Cor 10:10
After the initial 40 days of mourning for their 1st born dead [Gen 50:3] Pharaoh and priests in 600 wagons [ex 14:7,9,10] his horsemen and his army of footmen gave chase after realizing they had no slaves to do their work. [ex 14:5] The Israelites were a very strong and sturdy lot after their years of servitude and made their trip of about 400 miles quite comfortably walking about 10 miles per day for 40 days. Pharaoh and his army caught up with the Israelites at the Red Sea and nature was once more called upon to obey it’s Creator. The sea opened up to allow a dry pathway to the opposite bank. Across this pathway the Israelites travelled to Arabia and after all those under God’s care had arrived to the other side, the pursuing Egyptians who didn’t want to acknowledge God’s protection were drowned when the wall of water collapsed upon them. Did God harden their hearts? No He didn’t. They hardened their own against God. Was it a matter of obedience on the part of the exiles or was it faith in God’s words that kept them under God’s protection, for amongst this travelling mixed multitude were many Egyptians who later caused much murmuring and had left Egypt with the Israelites for fear of what was happening to their nation. [Hebrews 3:19 says they could not enter in because of unbelief.]
Now another example: let’s study King Saul. Originally the Prophet Samuel was against Israel wanting a king like the other nations. We find in 1 Samuel 1:6,7.’ The thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord who said, ‘harken to the voice of the people in all they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.’ Once the Lord had spoken, Samuel was a loyal prophet of God’s anointed for as long as he lived.
King Saul started off well but eventually turned aside. So later we find the Prophet Samuel speaking to King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:23,24, 35. ‘For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being King. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.’ ……. And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death:[from that time until Samuel died, Samuel saw Saul no more], nevertheless, during their separation, Samuel mourned for Saul and the Lord repented that he had made Saul King over Israel. [repented: withdrew His Holy Spirit from Saul for Saul had committed the unpardonable sin and this allowed Satan to have his way with him] 1Sam 28:5-25 Saul saw the Philistine army approaching and inquired of the Lord what to do, but the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, or by Urim, nor by prophets. So Saul sought a witch, the demoniac witch of Endor who saw a Satanic shady apparition of Samuel, [2 Cor 11:14.] Who cunningly told Saul what was about to happen and why, devastating him to such an extent that he collapsed. In 1 Samuel 31:3,4 and 1 chronicles 10:3,4 we find the death of Saul. He was first wounded by a Philistine archer, then when his armour bearer refused to thrust his sword through him, Saul purposely falls upon his own sword and dies. Yet in 1 chronicles 10:13,24 we read ‘That God slew him’. Did God really slay him? Of course not. Saul killed himself! So why does it say, God slew him?? Why, Because God loves man very deeply and being his Creator, He feels responsible. [As good parents are towards their children] What man goes through in life is felt by God who is looking forward to the time when He can wipe all tears from our eyes. How can anyone say that God destroys when God is Love and loves us enough to sacrifice His only begotten Son so that we can be personally reunited and reconciled to Him? He loves us with an unfathomable Love, far deeper than man can possibly comprehend. Luke 18:8 Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?
Part of the song the redeemed will sing, is found in Rev 15:3, ‘Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints,’

 

[joeb32]

Okay, another view to add to your views.

Of course, God kills. And only God has the authority to kill as He pleases, because He is the author of life. All life belongs to Him and He can decide if and when to reclaim His own life. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with God choosing to kill. It is His prerogative and His alone. He kills, and He is totally just when He does so.

When God says "Thou shalt not kill," He is saying that we created beings do not have the authority to take anyone else's life, for all life belongs to Him and only He can decide who should live and who should die. This is entirely God's right, not ours.

Just my two cents....

I'd just like to point out that God is the only one who knows the beginning from the end. This life is a time of probation given us by God so that we can choose to accept or reject Him. As He knows the end from the beginning when He chooses to kill He already knows the eternal destiny of that person. This makes His taking of a life a lot different than ours for we have no idea if we are cutting a life short and ending that person's probation prematurely.

The other point about this is that God doesn't kill in hate or passion. He often kills to make sure the devil does not destroy His people. Look at the times He gave Moses and COI orders to wipe out nations. Those nations were unalterably opposed to Him and the COI. To leave them alive was to leave them alive to kill His chosen people and to allow them tempt the COI to stop worshiping Him.