Questions from Yahoo Answers #27

[James Blankenship]

Why is the God in the Bible such a sadist?

Look at some of these Bible verses:

I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you- Proverbs 1:26

Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
- Deuteronomy 28:63

And what's up with this one? Gods admitting he's jealous?:
for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. - Deuteronomy 6:15

There are many more. What's up with God. He really seems to need to see a psychiatrist.

This is a very common situation on Yahoo Answers: Atheists just taking a random verse from Scripture, & making it it look like this is what God is really like.

They obviously don't understand what the phrase "taking something out of context" means.

Let's look at these 3 verses:

I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you- Proverbs 1:26

If this person had actually taken the time to READ Proverbs, Chapter 1, they would see that this verse, is from the section of Scripture that talks about what a fool those who mock God's Words & wisdom are.

This is NOT God saying to those who belong to Him, that he will laugh at the troubles that we go through.

Scripture is very clear that those who Do choose to belong to God & follow Him WILL be heard by God, as seen here:

James 4:8 (New International Version)

8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Then this person gives us this verse:

Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.- Deuteronomy 28:63

The Book of Deuteronomy is Moses' final message to the Israelites, before they cross into the Promised Land.

Moses warns them that, if they do not follow the LAW, (that was laid down by God-from the 10 commandments & all the Levitical laws), God will allow them to be conquered & destroyed. When one reads from the book of Joshua on, we see that as long as they DID follow the LAW, they were unstoppable.

But, as many know, the Israelites didn't, & it ended up, time & time again, that they WERE repeatably conquered, & uprooted from the very land that God had promised them.

For those who belong to Christ, He does not ruin & destroy us. Like a loving Father He disciplines us, but He does not destroy us, nor allow us to be "uprooted".

Finally, we have this verse that this person uses:

for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. - Deuteronomy 6:15

This is typical of atheists/non-believers. They take THEIR understanding of what jealousy is according to human standards, & try to apply that same definition to God.

The problem with this is-that human jealousy is influenced by human imperfections-selfishness, greed, envy, whatever.

These are NOT the qualities of God, because He is perfect, ie; Free from any of these human imperfections.

In the OT, when God judged the Israelites, He did so, only because they disobeyed His laws. They were well aware of what they had to do.

They had experienced God's miracles, one after another.

And yet, even after seeing God's power displayed on their behalf, again & again, they STILL turned away from Him.

God said that destruction would come upon them. He gave them fair warning. They were without excuse.

Also, since God is without human imperfections, when the term "jealousy" is used in Scripture, it means that that God is possessive & protective of that which is His.

And the Isrealites were indeed God's chosen people.

God, by His very nature, will not let anything happen to that which belongs to Him. He jealousy protects that which is His-that which belongs to Him.

It is NOT out of selfishness, like human jealousy-it is out of the love & protectiveness that He has for those who belong to Him.

The love that any good father would have for their own children.

When you look at these verses in the CONTEXT that they were written, I see no evidence whatsoever of God being a "sadist".

James