Deeje,
You may say good people died and bad people were still alive. I think in reality, there are a lot of bad people dies because they are wicked; they died in their wickedness.
Please remember that I was only a teenager when these questions were plaguing me...I have grown up somewhat since then. I understand so much more now after 40 years of study.
Ps 145:20
20 The Lord keeps all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy. NASU
Do you always have such a superficial view of scripture Yoshua? Who are "the wicked" in this scripture?
You do understand that the Psalms are prophetic in many instances and God's destruction of the wicked is the ultimate aim of his original purpose...the very reason for him sending his son as Messiah and bringing humankind back into a peaceful relationship with him....undoing all the damage that Adam's sin brought upon us.
Prov 10:27
27 The fear of the Lord prolongs life,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened. NASU
Same here...in keeping with God's original purpose to "save" the righteous and to "destroy" the wicked, those who are "God-fearing" will live their lives in a way that prolongs it. God's laws to Israel had many health benefits that the nations outside did not enjoy.
e.g today it means not smoking or taking illicit drugs...not drinking to excess, not taking unnecessary risks that put life in jeopardy. Following God's guidelines really does prolong life. The wicked don't follow God's ways at all. Their lives are often shortened by murder and an ungodly lifestyle.
Man may think that when God brings his good people to his side God is unfair. God always has a purpose when there are bad things that happened to good people. Man's thinking is not the same thinking with God. When someone dies or undergo trials, we interpreted it as bad. I believe that spiritual/heavenly and physical are not the same.
This is reason why in 1 Cor. stated this:
2 Cor 4:18
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. NIV
I again see little comprehension of the big picture in your responses Yoshua. There is a good reason why we have a concept of trials being "bad"....that concept was given to us illegally by our father Adam. Bad is always bad because it was something that God initially withheld from his human children because he knew it would cause them distress if they experienced it.
The above scripture tells us how we cope with evil despite having no 'program' to deal with it. We exercise faith in God's promise of a new world where
"righteousness is to dwell" (2 Peter 3:13)
Is this the same answers that JWs told you?
That is such a superficial explanation, it would never have satisfied my curiosity. I wanted to dig deeply into God's word but no one else had the right shovel. When I was handed the right one, gem after gem was uncovered until I felt like the richest person on earth!
Christendom's explanations don't even scratch the surface.
Jesus called His God, Father. Why looking for God's name if God knows who are His children and not His children?
Take a good look at the Hebrew scriptures in the ASV and you will get some idea of how important God's name was to his pre-Christian servants.
In the book of Psalms alone, God's name is used 780 times.729 times in Jeremiah...so they had no problem with God's name.
Jesus prayed that God's name would be "hallowed" or sanctified. Is it today? Even though scholars prefer Yahweh...they still don't say it. How do you sanctify God's name if you never use it?
There is no sanction from God to remove his name from his own book. Men took it upon themselves to do that with the result that the ambiguous terms "God" and "Lord" came to be given Jesus in the wrong way. Christendom does not teach the true meaning of these titles.
Why take so much about God's name when God sent His Son Jesus Christ, above all names? Truly Jesus always pointed it to God, and never Himself because He is God sent, and that is a very logical thing to think about. By the way, I have no problem if I called Him "Jehovah." If there is a KJV that you think that is nearest in translation, then go for it.
I mentioned the KJV because it was the Bible I studied with JW's when I first met them. I did not trust their Bible so I insisted on using my own. They asked me to compare the scriptures in both translations and I came to see which one was true and correct. I don't use the KJV anymore. The NIV is just as bad when it comes to bias in translation.
The relationship is with Jesus Christ, He is the Saviour that God sent. In my ministry, I saw the importance of the name "Jesus" because through His name, every knee shall bow, and even the demons trembled. I saw those things.
Acts 2:21
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. KJV
Acts 4:12
12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. KJV
You fail to see that Jesus is a servant of his God (Acts 4:30)....Jehovah is the servant of no one.
It is God who sent his servant to give his life for obedient mankind. God did not send himself.
In Acts 2:2, Paul is quoting Joel 2:32 where the tetragrammaton is written in the original text...so "the Lord" here is Jehovah, not Jesus.
And Acts 4:12 highlights the fact that Jesus is the savior...sent by the "only true God" to save mankind. (John 17:3)
There is no way that you can push your doctrine on me.....I grew up with that nonsense....I threw it away.