"ACTS of GOD"----- HOW DO YOU VIEW THEM?

by Blueblades 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  Blueblades

  In view of the present hurricane season, I'm thinking about the time that I gave the above talk in November, 1992..Here is the note to the speaker:

  Help the audience to see that:

  ( 1 ) many so -- called acts of God are often caused or made worse by men.

  ( 2 ) true acts of God are often ignored by men to their peril. and,

  ( 3 ) we are facing the greatest act of God in all human history.

  Sub -- Headings:

  Prevalence of disasters, a sign of the times.

  Though Bible foretells them, disasters not acts of God

  What are "Acts of God?"

  Greatest of acts of God yet to befall mankind

  Blessings from future wonderful acts of God.

  If any are interested I will take the time and break this talk down sub - heading by sub- heading for your interest, if not that's ok too. I realized that we left off going to the meetings and are tired of hearing the same old , same old.With the current hurricane season and the tremendous damage it is causing many of our friends who post here, I was wondering if the talk had been given in your old Kingdom Hall lately.

  Blueblades
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  Country Girl

  Regrettable clause in most insurance contracts.

  We are at the will of these "acts of God", or whatever they are. We have no choice but to try to make ourselves as safe as possible, and wait it out. I personally think it's stupid to call them Acts of God... they should be called "Acts of Nature". And a fine, dramatic performance she puts on, too.

  Country Girl
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  Mulan

  Hurricanes increasing could be a result of global warming.

  Other than that, it is "time and unforseen occurrence".
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  talley

  I view "Acts of God" as normal occurances of nature. talley/Judy
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  The Thinker

  A Hurricane is NOT an "Act of God". When God Acts he firstly gets a warning of his incoming act, secondly he gives those who listen to his warning a chance to escape, and thirdly, those who die by an Act of God are ONLY those who did not listen. Hurricane, Earthquake, Fires, Floods, Tornados etc.. kill anyone and anything, good or bad people, they give no warning and no escape. They are Acts of Nature not of God. Its the insurance Companies that call them Acts of God.
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  Narkissos

  A number of Bible "theophanies" (or "god manifestations") feature storm, earthquake, fire and the like. This is quite natural because Yhwh was one Israelite name of Baal-Haddad, the Canaanite storm-god.

  In Yhwh's theophanies (usually coming like the storms from the south, whence the Sinai tradition) the normal order of things is shattered and questioned. Cf. the pretty old text in Judges 5:

  Yhwh, when you went out from Seir,
  when you marched from the region of Edom,
  the earth trembled,
  and the heavens poured,
  the clouds indeed poured water.
  The mountains quaked before Yhwh, the One of Sinai,
  before Yhwh, the God of Israel.

  Interestingly, a kind of nostalgy or longing is felt for this sort of theophany in Isaiah 64:

  O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
  so that the mountains would quake at your presence--
  as when fire kindles brushwood
  and the fire causes water to boil--
  to make your name known to your adversaries,
  so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
  When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
  you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

  We love being scared -- not too much though...

  Btw, in French insurance contracts the "acts of God" are called "natural disasters", of course...
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  OICU8it2

  So, when one prays and gets delivered from a so-called act of God, the prayer really was not answered. That seems the most reasonable explanation.
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  heathen

  I think it funny they use that term . Like God just cursed you with some sort of misfortune . I know the jdubs don't like the term but how do you know you weren't just cursed by God ? Acts of nature does sound a little more like it tho. Interesting how you added that God always warns people ahead of time , is that true or is it more dub speak ? I don't think there is any proof in the scriptures to conclude that . I mean God didn't warn JOB that satan was about to wreak havock because he had some sort of bet with the devil . hmmmmmmmmmmm interesting .
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  DaCheech

  Tell those poor people in Naples and Sicily years ago praying with the crosses in front of them as the lava cam strolling down the slope!

  Many of those ignoramus' though God was going to save them!

  On another note, the WT is always blasting today's science and medical field as "Jehovah will someday fix all this, and today's blah blah blah is never going fix blah blah". But if it was not for science warning people we would have a considerable more amount of deaths from these occurrences!

  I have survived Floydd years ago, they took me out of my house from the 2nd story window on a boat! Blessed be the Fire Dept + red Cross + national guard....... thank you all!

  Also thanks to the local "false religion" for passing around lunches to people gutting and fixing their homes in the aftermath!
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  Kenneson

  I believe God has power over the elements of nature. And I also believe that while he doesn't always answer our prayers as we would like, he does hear them. Take for instance Hurricane Frances. When I heard about it I started a thread requesting prayers for Florida from forum members. The next afternoon I went to the streets requesting prayers. When I returned home it had dropped down to a Category 2. Now, you can say it was going to do that anyway. But, I have no way of knowing that and that is not what the meterologists believed at the time. So, we were praying against all odds. Now when I went back on Saturday and continued to ask for prayers (because I was hoping for it to dissipate) this did not happen. And I became discouraged and doubting and did not continue praying. So,, it didn't happen the way I would have liked (and for all I know, He may have been showing me that He is in charge and not I?) At any rate, the tropical storm came in about 30 miles south of Tallahassee this afternoon, but other than rain and winds that knocked down some trees and power lines, we really have nothing to complain about. But just think if it would have been a Category 4 instead of a 2, it would have been a catastrophe. Certainly for the size of this storm, there were few casualties. So, whereas, it may appear that God was not merciful to everyone, he was merciful to some. Why is that so? I have no clue. If I did, I suppose I would be God.

  Now I hear there is another coming called Ivan. I have a choice to make. Do I ask everyone to pray again for all those in its path or do I just say whatever is going to happen is going to happen anyway, so why waste my time? What do you think? Do our prayers matter or not? Should I say if another Category 4 heads our way, well, this time I'm not going to pray and ask anyone else to pray. Let it rip.

  One more thought. When Charley came through I didn't even think of starting a prayer vigil. Could prayers have brought some intervention? At any rate, it was the pictures of all the devastation that made me think maybe we needed to pray not to have a repeat.