CHARIS SHALOM

Third try. Something’s wrong with this thingy.
OK. What I wrote was:

Eeeeewwwww, spooky stuff. Voice of God, or just schizophrenia? I have often wondered how many “religious” experiences are caused by abnormal brain activity, or just our all-too-human dark side.

Years ago, I was boastfully told by a Seventh Day Adventist that he woud unhesitatingly kill another human being if so commanded by the Almighty. I asked him why God couldn’t do his own butchery, thereby enabling his followers to obey the commandment which forbids murder. He didn’t like that one scrap. I also asked him how he distinguished the voice of God from the usual chatter that goes on inside his own head and he didn’t like that, either!

Francoise, it is a great question and I would agree that God wouldn’t speak something into our heads that contradicts His written word or that contradicts His nature and character. So, if something in my head/heart told me to kill someone I’d say it wasn’t God. I’d say it either was my own wicked heart or, spookier still, that it was the Enemy… that is Satan. Great comment.

Hmmm, ye-es, but God did command Abraham to kill Isaac, didn’t he?

He did, well before Moses jotted down the Hebraic law. And, He revealed Himself to Abraham through that, prevented the offering, and provided a lamb, just as He provided His own son centuries later.

M’mmmm. I think the story isn’t literally true, and that the ram was symbolic of entering the age of Aries, just as the fish associated with Jesus signified the age of Pisces. The ancients were obsessed with star-gazing and knew heaps about the heavens. They had to!

If you take that story literally, then you’ve still got a problem with this order being indicative of God’s bloodthirsty character, haven’t you?

What I find truly chilling is that Abraham seemd devoid of paternal feeling. Not a whimper of protest, not a squeak of horror. No. Furthermore, he didn’t have to ask for instructions, which seems to indicate that he was accustomed to human sacrifices. Shudder!

Abraham and Isaac would have needed years of intensive therapy upon learning that it was all a ghastly, celestial joke:)

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Francoise,

I take the story literally, but, for me, it is far from a “ghastly, celestial joke.” It is rather an amazing object lesson, which indeed did have its symbolic significance.

God, the Heavenly Father, was, way back at this stage of history, preparing the way for His children to understand something entirely mind-blowing and humanly incomprehensible that theologians call “substitutionary atonement.”

The amazing thing is not the apparent “blood-thirsty character” of God, but rather the great love of God toward us who was willing to do, and followed through with, the very thing He asked Abraham to do: sacrifice His own Son. Of course, Jesus, as the 2nd member of the Trinity, and member of the Godhead, voluntarily shared in this decision as well. He laid His own life down willingly, out of love for you and me.

The ram caught in the thicket shows us that, although each and every one of us, due to our rebellion against the One who created us, deserves to die, God who is rich in mercy, has provided a Substitute, so that we wouldn’t have to pay the consequences of our rebellion.

Also, Abraham, who, if you read the whole story in context, loved his son, Isaac, very, very deeply, and was tremendously affected by what happened, was also the “father of faith,” and, as such, is an example to us in learning to take God at His word, and not put our human emotions and reasoning ahead of His divine wisdom and guidance in our life.

David, I agree and am so grateful for your wise response. Isn’t it amazing how our views of God, how we define God or whether we believe in God at all, greatly impact how we view the rest of all of creation? That helps to explain why it is so foundational for all of us to know God, grow in our knowledge (intimacy with) of God, and truly be people who can represent God because we know Him so well.

Well, Bryan, if you know him so well, what happened to your prayer for rain in my part of Australia? Did he not hear, or not care? Our dams are now at 29%, and the skies are still blazing away.

Next time you chat with him, let him know that we need 3 years of continuous soaking.

Perhaps God desires to hear from you or a few others, Francoise.

Our farmers who still believe in a merciful God are now few and far between. Many have walked off the land or, in some of the more desperate cases, have taken their own lives.

Seems strange to me that a “loving father” would withhold the most vital resource from his creatures. A human father who wouldn’t give water to his thirsty kids would be in jail.

The idea of having to beg and plead for water is abhorrent to me. Either God cares,or he doesn’t. In our case, he certainly doesn’t! Eildon Dam once held EIGHT times the volume of Sydney Harbour! Yes, I know. Mind-boggling, if you know the size of the harbour. Now it’s all gone. So much for the Lord being so good that he lets rain fall on the good and bad alike. Ha!