Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 866694)

OK. It has been suggested that God may have caused the earthquake in Haiti. Someone suggested asking God if He did that. I encouraged that, and suggested some reasonable responses in the event that He answered Yes. If God actually made the earthquake happen, in judgment for that pact with the devil (or for whatever reason), I suggested that the proper response should be to back off, and let God take care of it. That is a logical response to what one would claim is God's judgment, is it not? Or should everyone step in and try to alleviate the suffering that God has caused (as some claim, and as others claim could possibly be the case)?

Further, I postulated that God would answer this question in different ways to different people who ask Him, as He seems to do a lot. Of those who ask Him "Lord, did you make that earthquake happen, in judgment on those people?", I predict that God's answer to some would be "Yes, I did", and to others it would be "No, I did not.". Nobody has come forward and disagreed, that I have seen.

Would you like to comment on either of these points?

Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 866529)

Jesus wasn't talking specifically about Haiti, and He made it clear that some will perish likewise. How can you tell this was or was not the case in Haiti?

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple (Post 866697)

What are the Haitians saying about it?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583236,00.html




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AP


Jan. 17: People pray during a mass outside the collapsed St. Louis King of Spain Catholic Church in Port-au-Prince.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Deeply religious Haitians see the hand of God in the destruction of Biblical proportions visited on their benighted country. The quake, religious leaders said Sunday, is evidence that He wants change.

Exactly what change He wants depends on the faith: Some Christians say it's a sign that Haitians must deepen their faith, while some Voodoo followers see God's judgment on corruption among the country's mostly light-skinned elite.

And then there's American evangelist Pat Robertson, who said Wednesday that Haiti had been cursed by a pact he said its slave founders made with the devil two centuries ago to overthrow their French rulers and become the world's first black republic. The White House called his remarks "stupid."

As desperate believers gathered to pray Sunday across the shattered capital, the Rev. Eric Toussaint told a congregation gathered outside the ruined cathedral that the earthquake "is a sign from God, saying that we must recognize his power."

Haitians, he said, "need to reinvent themselves, to find a new path to God."

Some followers of Voodoo, practised alongside Roman Catholicism by the vast majority of Haitians, said the devastation of key symbols of power was punishment for corrupt leaders who have allowed the mostly light-skinned elite to enrich themselves while the black majority suffers.

"If all of a sudden, in 15 seconds, 20 seconds, all the physical representations of corruption are destroyed, it gives you pause for thought," said Richard Morse, a renowned Haitian-American musician whose mother was a singer and revered Voodoo priestess. "The Justice Ministry: down. The National Palace: down. The United Nations headquarters: down."

Unharmed by the quake was the famed bronze statue, "Le Maron Inconnu" — "the Unknown Escaped Slave" — noted Morse, who owns the Oloffson Hotel featured in Graham Greene's novel "The Comedians."

The destruction of every major Catholic church in the capital, including the 81-year-old cathedral, also was a sign, he said: "When there is all this corruption going on, whose role is it in society to speak out? Isn't the Church supposed to say something?"

Most Haitians are Christian — largely Catholic with a small but growing number of Protestants. But most also practice Voodoo, which along with Catholicism is an official state religion.

Several people were seen issuing apocalyptic warnings on the streets Sunday, including a man standing in front of the collapsed National Palace shouting: "Redeem yourselves! The end of the world is near!"

But Morse noted that Haitians are already very religious. His countrymen may suffer many ills, but "when it comes to spiritual strength, Haiti is one of the richest nations in the world."

And in that sense, the earthquake seems to have been counterproductive in terms of salvation.

"How could He do this to us?," cried Remi Polevard, who said his five children lie beneath in the rubble of a home near St. Gerard University. "There is no God."

Sunday night, as downtown residents began burning some of the bodies that have been rotting on the streets for five days, a woman walking by in an orange dress pulled out a copy of the Bible.

She flung it into the fire.

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa (Post 866729)

A lot of mixed reactions. Yet, our Brothers and Sisters here have their hopes raised as they are starting to get more news about their families. :)

In the 2008 Iowa flood, who made a pact with the devil?

How many people you think practice Voodoo in Iowa? :heeheehee

You think the god that some people paint sounds more like an angry alcoholic, just waiting for someone in the family to trip up. Like, everyone is sitting at the dinner table and he has just been having a hard time coming down off a binge. Those of the family old enough to know better, keep themselves real cool and try to dance between the raging silence. Yet, some of the younger members tend to wander off, in their thoughts, and that's when the lighting flashes. The calm is broken, and judgment is peeled out, and pain is left to be dealt with. That is not Jesus, He isn't looking for a reason to make you swallow your teeth at the end of His fist. It is like when someone leaves a congregation, and some make comments when they hear something bad happen to the people who have left. God isn't looking to defend some church families wounded pride. If someone left, then they wanted to leave. We are to pray for them, if they find another assembly, then we will hope they can live for God there. Yet, no one should be foolish enough to hope God is our personal enforcer, just waiting to crush out his cigarette, and find the offender, and bust their kneecaps with a pipe.

The Lord help us. Yet, when we hear about disaster around the world, or our own country. Instead of praying Jesus spare their lives, or Jesus, please protect us and our families. We flip through the prophets, or the book of Revelation to match up verses to blame it on Jesus. People get in the wrong places at the wrong time. I'm not saying that some bad wicked people don't get their heads handed to them at times, or a place full of wickedness doesn't come to the inevitable conclusions. I am just saying that it is not always the fault of God. Job, had his hedge removed, and suffered the penalty of the wicked. He suffered it, and he did nothing to warrant the attack. Yet, his good friends sat around and became incensed when Job wouldn't admit he was a piece of garbage. The piece of garbage, his good friends were trying to convince him he was. You see bad, bad, things, like what happened to Job, can ONLY happen to people who make pacts with the devil. They don't happen to nice people like us.

May the Lord have mercy on our souls.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

Originally Posted by missourimary (Post 866722)

I don't think we need to pray about helping our neighbor. Haiti is a neighbor.

But if your assumptions were correct, and we should pray and ask God if He did this or not, those who survived could be considered the "remnant" that God wants to save. In that case we need to step in, by all means.

Too, have you ever had one of your kids ask you something really, really dumb, that they already have the answer for? You love them, but did you ever just feel like ignoring them when they asked (again, and again, and...)? Sometimes I think God just has to sigh and say "no comment." Here is someone with infinite wisdom, and He knows we don't have much wisdom at all, but there are some things we should be able to get right without asking. I watched a newscaster cry on set last night, trying to describe what he had just seen, as they amputated an elderly American's leg and his other foot to remove him from the rubble. And say he was lucky... he survived. Watched a veteran soldier take some shaky breaths. These people are trained to be unemotional in disaster. If they can be deeply affected by this, can't we have a little compassion stir in us, too?

For your other question, God's answer is often filtered through human biases. It isn't that God says "yes, I did" to some, and "no, I didn't" to others in these types of situations. If we can get thousands of religions from various understandings in one book (Bible) then this doesn't seem unreasonable: It isn't that God is changing, but that people often see things through their own understandings and biases, and come up with a different answer than what God did say.

Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 866694)

OK. It has been suggested that God may have caused the earthquake in Haiti. Someone suggested asking God if He did that. I encouraged that, and suggested some reasonable responses in the event that He answered Yes. If God actually made the earthquake happen, in judgment for that pact with the devil (or for whatever reason), I suggested that the proper response should be to back off, and let God take care of it. That is a logical response to what one would claim is God's judgment, is it not? Or should everyone step in and try to alleviate the suffering that God has caused (as some claim, and as others claim could possibly be the case)?

Further, I postulated that God would answer this question in different ways to different people who ask Him, as He seems to do a lot. Of those who ask Him "Lord, did you make that earthquake happen, in judgment on those people?", I predict that God's answer to some would be "Yes, I did", and to others it would be "No, I did not.". Nobody has come forward and disagreed, that I have seen.

Would you like to comment on either of these points?

Originally Posted by Timmy (Post 866695)

BTW, Prax, I realize that you are not in the group who think God caused the earthquake. But do you have any response to my suggestions directed at those who do, or who think He might have?

Originally Posted by missourimary (Post 866722)

I don't think we need to pray about helping our neighbor. Haiti is a neighbor.

But if your assumptions were correct, and we should pray and ask God if He did this or not, those who survived could be considered the "remnant" that God wants to save. In that case we need to step in, by all means.

Too, have you ever had one of your kids ask you something really, really dumb, that they already have the answer for? You love them, but did you ever just feel like ignoring them when they asked (again, and again, and...)? Sometimes I think God just has to sigh and say "no comment." Here is someone with infinite wisdom, and He knows we don't have much wisdom at all, but there are some things we should be able to get right without asking. I watched a newscaster cry on set last night, trying to describe what he had just seen, as they amputated an elderly American's leg and his other foot to remove him from the rubble. And say he was lucky... he survived. Watched a veteran soldier take some shaky breaths. These people are trained to be unemotional in disaster. If they can be deeply affected by this, can't we have a little compassion stir in us, too?

For your other question, God's answer is often filtered through human biases. It isn't that God says "yes, I did" to some, and "no, I didn't" to others in these types of situations. If we can get thousands of religions from various understandings in one book (Bible) then this doesn't seem unreasonable: It isn't that God is changing, but that people often see things through their own understandings and biases, and come up with a different answer than what God did say.