How willing to do the bidding?

I think I would have to pass on that one....

sentipente said:

If God were to turn to you and give you the honor of setting the fires of hell to burn the wicked, would you accept that honor?

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How realistic do you consider this hypothetical scenario, since Romans 12:19 reminds us:
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Also, I'm not too keen on using "honor" as the noun of choice.

This is not an unfair question.

Think of the destroying angels that have been "ordered" to kill in the name of the Lord. Such as when the first born of Egypt were killed.

If the Lord asked me to do it I would have to have faith in His decision. But in my opinion God himself will rain fire down on the earth at the end of time. Just my opinion.

sentipente said:

He would only be asking you to do His will. The decision to burn them is not being passed on to you.

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You're addressing the subject as if it were a fait accompli, and you never answered the question I left for you:
How realistic do you consider this hypothetical scenario?

VictorC said:

You're addressing the subject as if it were a fait accompli, and you never answered the question I left for you:
How realistic do you consider this hypothetical scenario?

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have you asked a question to keep from answering the question?

sentipente said:

VictorC, what makes you so certain that it ain't gonna happen?

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There are several references to the vengeance that God promises to those who hate Him, and the song of Moses contains probably the most detail on this subject:

Deuteronomy 32:19-43
19 ¶ And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
26 ¶ I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.
28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.
39 ¶ See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.
43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

This passage is filled with personal references to God in the first person, speaking as I kill, using my sword against them that hate me.
There isn't a hint of God offering His sword or arrows to anyone else, nor does He delegate His natural ownership rights based in I live forever, speaking again of God in the first person.

Psalm 94 continues in this same vein:

1 ¶ O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.
2 Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.
3 LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
4 How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
5 They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.
6 They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
7 Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.
8 Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?
9 He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?
10 He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?
11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.
12 ¶ Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law;
13 That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.
14 For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
15 But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
17 Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.
18 When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.
19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.
20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.
22 But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.
23 And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.

The verses I highlighted in blue appeal to those natural ownership rights that God alone has as Creator. This isn't a right that is shared with anyone else, and there is no hint that this right is to be delegated.

It goes on and on...
Isaiah 61:1-2 contains Messiah's prophecy, and note the bolded words that pick up right where Jesus stopped reading from this passage in Luke 4:17-20:

1 ¶ The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn...

This is a reference to the Day of the Lord, and it is a veangeance that offers no hint of delegation to another entity. I have no reason to expect any change to this same structure of authority reigning over the lake of fire.

This can be found at the other end of the Bible, as well. Even in the favorite SDA "three angels" chapter, where Adventist usually don't notice those angels bearing sickles of mass destruction:

Revelation 14:19-20
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

The slaughter of the wicked has been delegated to angels, but in this description they only harvest those wicked and toss them into the winepress of -who?- God's wrath, and those angels aren't the ones stomping blood out that press. The rest I will leave for those with morbid imaginations.

If you believe that the wrath of God is to be delegated to those who are the posterity of those recipients of vengeance, whom you have no natural right over, it is incumbent on you to find something in Scripture that helps your idea along. I really don't think you're going to be offered the chance to toss a match at your parents or anyone else.

Victor

StormyOne said:

have you asked a question to keep from answering the question?

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No, but since senti made a two-point response, I chose to make one in like manner. This post asked why he didn't answer me; my answer to him took a bit more time, and if you scroll down just a wee bit, you'll see that an answer is now posted.

mva1985 said:

This is not an unfair question.

Think of the destroying angels that have been "ordered" to kill in the name of the Lord. Such as when the first born of Egypt were killed.

If the Lord asked me to do it I would have to have faith in His decision. But in my opinion God himself will rain fire down on the earth at the end of time. Just my opinion.

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This is just my carnal rambling, not an appeal to Scriptural authority.
There is a flow of authority from the elder to the junior that is normative in Scripture, and asking junior to toast his own elder rubs me the wrong way. We have no such authority.

Delegating destruction to a race of angels doesn't violate that natural flow of authority, as they aren't related in lineage to anyone that is toasted.

If it were just satan in the pool, I would toast his bootocks in a heartbeat.
But that isn't the scenario postulated in this hypothesis.

Victor

VictorC said:

No, but since senti made a two-point response, I chose to make one in like manner. This post asked why he didn't answer me; my answer to him took a bit more time, and if you scroll down just a wee bit, you'll see that an answer is now posted.

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I was just messin... I figured you would get around to answering it at some point....

While, I do not believe that plausibly the God I worship would ever ask such a thing, I can say that I'd most likely just do what the GOD of everything asked of me to do. If there was an option to pass, then I would probably pass however.

Some are called to be apostles, some not. Some to speak prophecies, some not. Some to set fire to burn the wicked, some not

sentipente said:

Strange that you only consider hell to be morbid material when you become personally involved in it. You certainly don't find it to be morbid when you use it to scare people into accepting your way of life. That is worthy of contemplation.

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hm, use it to scare people into believing what he believes?

Adventist beliefs on hell pertain nothing worse than atheistic beliefs, that when we die, we cease to exist. This is the atheistic viewpoint, and this is the fate that adventists believe will be for the wicked, however not all and that some will be saved.

Now then, how can you call it scare mongraling?

Now true, adventists add the factor that God will destroy the unsaved for the final time with fire. But wow, thats hardly a major addition to the extremely morbid fate that atheists have left us to believe in.

In fact, one could actually I believe argue that the traditional viewpoint of an eternal torturous hell may be better than the idea of ceasing to exist forever. Maybe. Its a very tough one, neither are particularly nice fates.

sentipente said:

Strange that you only consider hell to be morbid material when you become personally involved in it. You certainly don't find it to be morbid when you use it to scare people into accepting your way of life. That is worthy of contemplation.

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I see that you didn't answer my question, and looking at the manner of your response leads me to believe that you never really intended to.
Many people will shrink away from this particular morbid topic and find an alternate philosophical paradigm, drugs, or a hobby to avoid dealing with it.
Some will accept the reality of the topic portrayed in the oracles of God and find a means to escape the otherwise inevitable lake of fire. That is the motivation behind the Gospel: Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men (2 Corinthians 5:11).

You're the one who brought up this particular morbid topic, senti.
How you choose to deal with it is up to you.

John 3:16-21
16: 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.
17: For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18: He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19: And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20: For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21: But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Victor

sentipente said:

Victor, I am surprised you would think it a great question to ask how realistic it is that the Creator of the universe would ask you to light a match while you believe he would ask Abraham to kill his son.

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And yet you cannot provide an answer nor tackle the topic yourself.
How realistic is the scenario you hypothesized?
And, are you willing and able to torch your own parents?

Victor

sentipente said:

Victor, I am surprised you would think it a great question to ask how realistic it is that the Creator of the universe would ask you to light a match while you believe he would ask Abraham to kill his son.

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Senti and I usually do not agree but I think that he has made another good point here.

mva1985 said:

Senti and I usually do not agree but I think that he has made another good point here.

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Perhaps you could explain senti's point to me, as it eludes me.
Abraham has authority over Isaac as his parent.
God didn't ask Isaac to sacrifice Abraham.

Victor