No doubt there are truly diabolical persons in this world. Yet even as we are forced to make that admission we are also forced to admit that none of us can see into anothers heart and thereby know with certainty that they are. Not even their actions are proof positive! That being the case anyone that claims to be a true worshipper of the God of the Bible should carefully avoid the usual human tendency of assigning motives (improper judging) and that which, all to often, closely follows doing so, that is thinking and then loudly declaring, The only good Indian is a dead Indian. Especially should we avoid that tendency after we consider Gods clearly demonstrated willingness to use the most unlikely, from a human standpoint, of persons, Saul of Tarsus.
You may remember that even though Saul had for a time had close relatives that were members of a new religion that was different than his own, Saul had chose to become an accomplice to the brutal murder of and directly involved in abducting and torturing members of his relatives religion, viz. the religion later known as Christian. No doubt if Saul of Tarsus were around today he would be referred to as a religious extremist and as a terrorist. Please carefully consider for a moment this possible scenario: Had the inclination been there, it would have been quite possible for those early Christians to have come to know that Saul, still breathing threat and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, in order that he might bring bound to Jerusalem any whom he found who belonged to The Way [as it was then called], both men and women (Acts 9:1-2), and knowing that Saul was going to be on that road to Damascus they could have setup an ambush. Today, given that set of facts and those circumstances, that is exactly what one would expect to happen and what most Christians would enthusiastically advocate, well perhaps not an ambush but at least a Predator UAV drone equipped with a Hellfire missile. Is that not what you also would advise?
But is that how the God of love and free will or choice handled the matter? No, not at all! If those early followers of Jesus, later called Christians, had thought and acted like the vast majority of professed Christians think and act nowadays we would be missing a great deal of the Bible for Saul from Tarsus later became the apostle, Paul, who wrote several books of the Bible. Unfortunately, the lessons taught by God in that situation and recorded in the Bible for 2000 years now are lost on the majority of people, of all religions, who seem bound and determined to go on repeating the mistakes of Eve and Cain while, no doubt, operating under the same influence. Please read and compare Genesis 3:1-4:16, Luke 4:6, John 8:42-47, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 Timothy 2:14, 1 John 3:11-12 and Revelation 12:9 and then please explain those lessons to me.
If you have read and compared the above-cited verses you should be able to answer: What had Cain done that warranted a warning from God? Can you tell me? Let me give you some help.
The Bible does not provide in-depth details but it is plain that Cain had fallen into false worship by doing what displeased God in his worship. Read it again and you will see that the problem involved Cains worship. We do know for sure that Gods displeasure was clearly communicated to Cain because Cain got mad and then depressed about it. Rather than doing the right and good thing and contemplating how to obey and to conform to what would please God and warrant His favor, even His praise, Cain instead contemplates the violent removal of his religious rival. Again in-depth details of Cains thinking are not provided but perhaps Cain sincerely believed his mothers mistaken or false religious idea that she was the woman and therefore her one of her children, and most likely the firstborn, was the seed (Genesis 3:15 compare Genesis 4:25-26), thus he may have sincerely thought that God would be pleased with and accept any form of worship, WRONG. In any case Cains actions are detailed for us and there are definite and identifiable differences between Cains actions and worship and Abels and those must be the basis of Gods displeasure. At this point God steps in and directly warns Cain. But even a direct warning from God had no effect for Cain chooses to ignore the warning and proceeds to kill his religious rival, his sibling. That brings up these questions: Is true and false worship as clearly identifiable today as it was back then? And today, are most worshippers also ignoring Gods warnings regarding their false worship thus accounting for the bad state of affairs we find so common in religion nowadays? What do you say?
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You may remember that even though Saul had for a time had close relatives that were members of a new religion that was different than his own, Saul had chose to become an accomplice to the brutal murder of and directly involved in abducting and torturing members of his relatives religion, viz. the religion later known as Christian. No doubt if Saul of Tarsus were around today he would be referred to as a religious extremist and as a terrorist. Please carefully consider for a moment this possible scenario: Had the inclination been there, it would have been quite possible for those early Christians to have come to know that Saul, still breathing threat and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, in order that he might bring bound to Jerusalem any whom he found who belonged to The Way [as it was then called], both men and women (Acts 9:1-2), and knowing that Saul was going to be on that road to Damascus they could have setup an ambush. Today, given that set of facts and those circumstances, that is exactly what one would expect to happen and what most Christians would enthusiastically advocate, well perhaps not an ambush but at least a Predator UAV drone equipped with a Hellfire missile. Is that not what you also would advise?
But is that how the God of love and free will or choice handled the matter? No, not at all! If those early followers of Jesus, later called Christians, had thought and acted like the vast majority of professed Christians think and act nowadays we would be missing a great deal of the Bible for Saul from Tarsus later became the apostle, Paul, who wrote several books of the Bible. Unfortunately, the lessons taught by God in that situation and recorded in the Bible for 2000 years now are lost on the majority of people, of all religions, who seem bound and determined to go on repeating the mistakes of Eve and Cain while, no doubt, operating under the same influence. Please read and compare Genesis 3:1-4:16, Luke 4:6, John 8:42-47, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 Timothy 2:14, 1 John 3:11-12 and Revelation 12:9 and then please explain those lessons to me.
If you have read and compared the above-cited verses you should be able to answer: What had Cain done that warranted a warning from God? Can you tell me? Let me give you some help.
The Bible does not provide in-depth details but it is plain that Cain had fallen into false worship by doing what displeased God in his worship. Read it again and you will see that the problem involved Cains worship. We do know for sure that Gods displeasure was clearly communicated to Cain because Cain got mad and then depressed about it. Rather than doing the right and good thing and contemplating how to obey and to conform to what would please God and warrant His favor, even His praise, Cain instead contemplates the violent removal of his religious rival. Again in-depth details of Cains thinking are not provided but perhaps Cain sincerely believed his mothers mistaken or false religious idea that she was the woman and therefore her one of her children, and most likely the firstborn, was the seed (Genesis 3:15 compare Genesis 4:25-26), thus he may have sincerely thought that God would be pleased with and accept any form of worship, WRONG. In any case Cains actions are detailed for us and there are definite and identifiable differences between Cains actions and worship and Abels and those must be the basis of Gods displeasure. At this point God steps in and directly warns Cain. But even a direct warning from God had no effect for Cain chooses to ignore the warning and proceeds to kill his religious rival, his sibling. That brings up these questions: Is true and false worship as clearly identifiable today as it was back then? And today, are most worshippers also ignoring Gods warnings regarding their false worship thus accounting for the bad state of affairs we find so common in religion nowadays? What do you say?
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