what do you make of this?
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Job 12:16
16 With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.
Arthur81
Active Member
Try reading it in broader context. I'll quote another version, the Revised English Bible. Doesn't that match with what the KJV is also saying?
"With God are wisdom and power, to him belong counsel and understanding.’ If he pulls down, there is no rebuilding; if he imprisons, there is no release. If he holds back the waters, there is drought; if he lets them loose, the earth is overwhelmed. Strength and success belong to him, deceived and deceiver are his to use." (Job 12:13-16 REB)
God is all powerful and infinitely wise. He can do all of those things listed, so "deceived and deceiver are his to use" for his overall purpose.
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
Lines up with Isaiah.
God tells us he is the darkness and the light,the evil and the good. He is all things.
Of course.
One creator. All that exists can only be of and from Creator.
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
Job 12:1–25
ESV
Job Replies: The Lord Has Done This
12 Then Job answered and said:2 “No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.
3 But I have bunderstanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know csuch things as these?
4 I am da laughingstock to my friends;
I, who ecalled to God and he answered me,
a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.
5 In the thought of one who is fat ease there is contempt for misfortune;
it is ready for those whose feet slip.
6 gThe tents of robbers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure,
who bring their god in their hand.1
7 “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
8 or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;2
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that hthe hand of the Lord has done this?
10 In ihis hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.
11 Does not jthe ear test words
as the palate tastes food?
12 Wisdom is with kthe aged,
and understanding in length of days.
13 l“With God3 are wisdom and might;
he has counsel and understanding.
14 If he tears down, none can rebuild;
if he mshuts a man in, none can open.
15 If he nwithholds the waters, they dry up;
if he osends them out, they overwhelm the land.
16 With him are strength and psound wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are his.
17 He leads qcounselors away stripped,
and rjudges he makes fools.
18 He slooses the bonds of kings
and binds a waistcloth on their hips.
19 He leads priests away stripped
and overthrows the mighty.
20 He deprives of speech those who are trusted
tand takes away the discernment of the elders.
21 He upours contempt on princes
and loosens the belt of the strong.
22 He vuncovers the deeps out of darkness
and brings wdeep darkness to light.
23 He xmakes nations great, and he destroys them;
he enlarges nations, and yleads them away.
24 He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth
and zmakes them wander in a trackless waste.
25 They agrope in the dark without light,
and he makes them bstagger like a drunken man.
He let Satan break God's own commandment and murder,take the life, of Jobs wife and children. Just to win a bet with the Devil.
Why does it have to be God in control of everything when the whole world from every culture since the beginning of man has spoken about gods, angels, demons, and Satan? Even the Buddha speak about the realm of angry spirits. This the invisible society of spirits do seem to be behind much that occurs in the physical world.
God demonstrated that He alone is the accurate judge of human nature, and what people will do. God had the advantage of omniscience, knowing already how it would come out. The demonstration of God's wisdom was for our benefit.
Much love!
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
Wouldnt your observation deny God's sovereign dominion over his creation? As well as his Omniscience and Omnipotence?
Yep... we are often told that people suffer because they deserve it. And we seem to be able to go into great explanations expressing a confidence in God's absolute sovereignty, defined here as control, that seems to provide many believers with a great deal of security. We teach in our churches that everything is under God's control, and thereby everything is proceeding as divinely planned, and that somehow it all fits together. This concept did not attain the status of a universal explanation for evil until years after a man was born on the planet who was called Augustine.
It's indeed historically true that what has constituted the most frequent explanation in the church and in western culture for why people suffer is due to the fact that a man was born on the planet called Augustine. And so this concept of God being in control of both good and evil is why we often consider a secret "divine blueprint" behind everything that is both good and evil being somehow an extension of God's good (but very mysterious) will. This is the biggest reason why we have trouble accepting the truth concerning the good and evil of the world we experience. A murder is more real to us than devils because the churches do not teach that the world we live in is involved in a state of war that is spiritual.
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
It's in a state because it is God's will.
If God is sovereign and has dominion over all God created, all creation is in God's control.
But,he tells us this doesn't he. We just can't accept God is what he says he is when we see what he is as something we'd rather blame on people getting it wrong. God is the good. God is the evil. God is the darkness and the light.
God created people for Heaven and Hell.
God made those parallels. God made his laws. God determined the meaning of non-compliance and its consequence in violating those laws.
Sin is violating God's laws. God is the author of sin because God created his laws first.
All that Lucifer was in Heaven before the war was of God. God's beautiful,talented,angel.
God cursed the human race for all eternity due to that one ignorant,innocent,mistake of the first ones in God's good Eden.
But he let Lucifer and his follower angels live after they declared war against God in his own Heaven? And then appointed Lucifer, light bringer, as Lord of this world God cast him into so that Lucifer, ha Satan now, would then by God's will and planning be our adversary.
Everything Omniscient,Omnipresent, Sovereign, God does is due to his zeal for his own glory
If everything in the universe is already set? Then the conversation God has with humans is more like that between a ventriloquist and the dummy. Such a dialogue is merely a sophisticated form of talking to oneself. If what God has foreseen is the entire human history at once, then the difficulty is to somehow allow for God's intervention into that history. This raises a serious problem. Does simple foreknowledge imply that God knows in advance His own decisions and actions? If God possesses foreknowledge of His own actions, then the problem is to explain how the foreknowledge can be the basis for the actions when it already includes the actions.
Would it then be impossible that God should use foreknowledge derived from the actual occurrence of future events to determine His own prior actions in the governance of the world? Such a God would then know what He is going to do before deciding what to do. Thus, He would be unable to plan, anticipate, or decide. He would simply know. This seems to call the divine freedom into question, making God a prisoner of His own ability to know what's going on everywhere in the universe at every moment. And if God sees history "all at once" and His actions were not foreseen, then God never foresees any prophets making predictions given by Him.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Is the nature of the God we worship the same as the god's men have created for themselves? If it is not, how is it different?.....and how can one prove/ show it?
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
I think as all religions are man made we might reflect on what our religion,faith, and God has told us , "In the beginning "
God created mankind,womankind,in his image and likeness.
After the tree, God said the man had become like "us". Meaning, having the knowledge,Gnosis,of good and evil,right and wrong.
We are made in God's image and likeness
with the awareness of good,evil,right,wrong.
Now,reflect upon God and his Sovereign acts in the Old Testament. Or, the orders he gave his people to act on his behalf.
God's and our nature are one and the same by God's will.
Of course God is superior to our own nature and such but that's my answer.
Philip James
Well-Known Member
Or perhaps to instruct us in perserverence and enduring His will, even when its not pleasant..
But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust;
And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.
Whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another's, shall behold him,
Hope and trust in God, in any and all circumstances is the way of life...
We know that all things work for good for those who love God
The mystery of suffering..
Happy Feast of Christ the King!
Pax et Bonum
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
so how do we deal with John's statement, 'God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.' 1 John 1:5 ? Is our nature like that?
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
We can presume as we like. However, the text tells us it was to win a bet with the Devil as to Job's level of trust and faith in God.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Gabriel _Arch
Well-Known Member
For my part in that particular matter I credit the Isaiah scripture as accurate.
How do we reconcile a different contradiction in scripture?
God told King David to take a census, 2 Samuel 24.
In 1 Chronicles 21 it was Satan that told King David to take a census.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
the premise the Hebrews rationalised from was that God was responsible for everything, both good and bad.
They didn't know about Satan as a malignant player, they considered him as we would consider a prosecutor; one whose job is to bring out the truth.
Jesus corrected this view by telling us plainly that God is self sacrificing as he demonstrated and that it is Satan who is the evil one who is responsible for evil and death.
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