What is the point of God's judgement of America and other countries?

GDL

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Not literally agnostic, for the umpteenth time. :)

Just taking this from your profile on each post. Why not change it if you can?

But why is it not fair by God's standards that humans get to have their own experiments?

It is fair that we get to experiment & He obviously allows it. There would be no free will if He didn't.

That makes it sound like God's own desire and will are most important and negate the "goodness" or gift of our own free will.

His will and desire is most important. It is perfect and all good flows from it. Some of us are growing to realize this to some likely limited degrees. At some point we will see it in its fullness & know what a gift we have been given, and hopefully be fully aware of what we went through to come to the realization. But at some point I think we'll want to forget all the pain and just revel in the new & fully realized condition.

Our own free will is a curse if anything, if it means we can choose to do horrible ungodly things.

Can seem so, but read above again. There are different angles from which to view the matter.

All freedom, liberty, all that which America happened to be traditionally founded on the philosophy of, is moot and not worth defending.

Freedom is of great value, but many turn it into something that it is not meant for. People interpret freedom differently and thus treat it differently than one-another. If all understood it as it truly is and pursued it with zeal, things would be different.

One of Jesus Christ's well-known sayings that is often repeated by many of different beliefs is: You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

So freedom is a result of knowing truth. But the truth of which He spoke, is the truth He gives & teaches. And He was speaking in the context of knowing truth in regard to slavery to sin, which is lawlessness. When we understand how horrendous is slavery to lawlessness, and we understand and pursue the truth of how to be freed from this condition, we can begin to enjoy some of this true freedom.

Part of the freedom we have had in the US is the freedom to openly pursue His truth. Some of our instruction re: prayers for leaders is self-serving - so we can live a quiet/tranquil & well-ordered/peaceful life in all godliness & dignity. In this condition of freedom to live such lives, we can pursue what is truly freedom, much easier than we can under an oppression that strives to deny us this.

We don't want leaders who will strip us of such freedoms we still have. And we don't want leaders who don't know what true freedom is, or where it comes from.

Ultimate freedom is freedom from slavery to lawlessness. His Law is the standard which all lawlessness opposes, and from which we come to understand what is lawless. Via free will to pursue His righteousness (opposite of lawlessness) in a relationship with Him via Biblical Faith in Jesus Christ we can come to know the truth and what is true freedom.

It's ironic how people think freedom is living apart from restraints. True freedom is living naturally according to God's Law and thus not needing law. So, living naturally according to Law is freedom, and living against Law is slavery. In part, by the gift of free will some will get there - to freedom.

Also ironically, through this growth process we can experience the sense that free will seems overrated at times and that we can desire to just turn our free will over to God and let Him take over. But this is just the opposite of willingly turning over our free will to sinful people to be our tyrants. We want as much freedom as we can get to not be ruled by them. Such is worth defending.
 
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VCR-2000

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My other feeling is that I think the message about "there will be a day sometime in the future where you will be persecuted to the point of a living hell on earth, you will all perish in the end" is morbid-sounding for a book and faith that is supposed to give people joy and hope. Does anyone actually want the world to end? I get wanting the extreme suffering and very bad parts to end. But otherwise, this world now is okay or is supposed to be okay. The only one perverting it is Satan and those doing his bidding down here.
 
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