The first test of Free Choice and God’s mercy
We all know and agree including myself, that God is all knowing and perfect in everything, BUT, I keep asking myself, knowing this of God. Is God infallible?
If he is, infallible, then how did Lucifer con him into giving man free choice, and the right to choose?
For the life of me, I can’t fathom this. He created man as creations who would worship and love and obey him, just as he did, every other thing he created. Mountains will bow down at His command, Seas will calm at his command, or part, Lion and lamb can lie in peace together, Life would be so simple without free choice.
Genesis 2: 16-17 God’s first Rule
“And the Lord God commanded the Man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Here is God’s first ever law or commandment to mankind. And of course, as soon as Lucifer hears this proclaimed by God, he puts his plan into practice, to test man’s loyalty and love towards God.
Genesis 3: 1-5 Satan’s First Lie
“Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the Garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall surely not die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3: 9-23 Genesis 5: 5 Man’s First Sin and God Replies With Mercy
As soon as God discovers that Eve has lied and tricked Adam to eating of the forbidden fruit, he questions them, already knowing what they have done, and then shows them mercy. Although they are not killed, they are made to struggle, through life and banished from the garden. We discover in Genesis 5:5 that God displays mercy on Adam and he lives to be 930 years old.
Genesis 7: 1, 4, 10-12
God’s Frustration Ends in almost Total Destruction of His “Good ” Creations
After several hundred years of watching man, living in the vilest of sin, and debauchery, defilement, and idol worship, God says enough is enough and calls upon Noah to build an Ark and bring all of the beasts of land air and sea, as well as his immediate family onto the ark and He, God is going to destroy all life that remains by flooding the land for 40 days and 40 nights, which he ultimately does.
Genesis 11: 1-9
God is Frustrated Again so God Takes Action
Noah and his family have left the Ark, and each little family is going about it’s own little thing, and of course since they are all one big family, they all speak the same language. They arrive at a place the Bible calls Shi-nar (Gen.11:2) and begin to build a city and a tower. Now we do not know how God thinks, or why but we learn that either God is not happy with what He sees or does not like the fact that they speak only one language, so God decides to confound their language and then scatter them, and the tower was named Babel.
Genesis 18: 23-32 God Displays His Tolerance and Leniency
God and Abraham are having a discussion and God has declared that he plans to destroy all of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, because they are all sinful and are living in debauchery,defilelment, lasciviousness, even adultry. Abraham, seeking to see just how lenient God can be pleads 6 times, if you find 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10, righteous within the city will you still destroy the city and all of its inhabitants, God agrees to spare the city if 10 are found.
God’s Temptation: Approval, Love, and Grace Displayed
Genesis 22: 1-18
God has kept his promise of a child to Abraham, but to test the strength of Abraham’s willingness, to serve and please God, God asks Abraham to take his only son Isaac, into the mountains to make sacrifice unto God. What Abraham does not tell Isaac though, is that, he is the intended sacrifice. He tells Isaac, that God will provide a sacrifice, So off they go.
When they arrive, they set up a rock as an altar, and lay wood on it, and then Abraham lays his son Isaac across a rock to stab and kill him in obedience to God, and as he is ready to bring the knife down, suddenly, an angel messenger from God stops Abraham and spares Isaac. God through His angel then makes a covenant with Abraham to multiply his seed like the multitude of stars in the sky. It is also here that God’s promise of a Messiah is made in verse 18.
EXODUS: 7:19, 8:2, 8:16, 8:21, 9:3, 9:8, 9:18, 10:4, 10:21 AND 11:4-5, EXODUS 14: 19 TO EXODUS 15: 4
God’s Patience, Anger, and Justice
Our God is a patient God but when He is mocked, and put to the test He can become angered and mete out justice too. Moses has been chosen by God to secure the release of the Hebrew captives from Pharaoh and lead God’s chosen people out of Egypt. Pharoah, believing that his gods are more powerful than the Hebrew’s unknown God, mocks Moses and mocks God. Big mistake!
10 times Moses requests the release of the Hebrew people and Pharoah doubting the power of God mocks both Moses and God. ( 9 ) plagues are visited upon Egypt through Moses, orchestrated by God. The plague of water turned to blood, then, frogs over the land, then gnats and lice,then flies, then livestock diseases, then boils, followed by thunder and hail, then locust, then darkness over all the land. The 10 th. and final plague is ordered by Pharoah’s own mouth as he orders the death of all of the first born of the Hebrews, children as well as livestock, and God reverses it and kills the first born of Egypt. Finally Pharoah freed the Hebrew Slaves of Egypt.
Pharoah’s wife began to taunt him and mock him and the Egyptian gods causing pharoah to anger, so he rides after the Hebrews with all of his charioteers in a last ditch attempt to catch and kill them. Again Pharoah is thwarted though. He manages to drive the Hebrews to the Red sea and it appears that the have no escape and will be slaughtered, or forced back to Egypt.
Again Almighty God shows His powers though, by blocking the chariots with a pillar of fire, and parting the Red sea so the Hebrews can escape. Once they are safely on the other side of the sea, God then permits the chariots to ride into the sea bed, then releases the waters of the sea drowning them all.
In each instance man is permitted by God to choose his destiny. Man chooses wrongly.