Are we experiencing Chastisement?

[RNRobert]

The Bible tells us that we should not reject God’s discipline,
because it means God stills loves us enough to try to correct us.

In C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, Lewis writes that pain is God’s megaphone, His way of shouting to get our attention.

 

[steveandersen]

…
And…it is my firm belief that the United States will fall and be erased if we do not turn from our corporate sin–and that turning back to God needs to happen very, very soon or it will be too late!

Nations and governments and even peoples come and go

Do you think that God cares which polity is around or not?

 

[Tom317]

Nations and governments and even peoples come and go

Do you think that God cares which polity is around or not?

Yes.

 

[Tom317]

In C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, Lewis writes that pain is God’s megaphone, His way of shouting to get our attention.

Yes, and sometimes that megaphone can be very painful.

 

[LilyM]

I further submit you do yet fully understand the book of Job. Satan did the sinning, he was the “person” who wanted to tempt and test and create trials of Job to show God that Job was not righteous. Satan, at his usual best, did all sorts of sinning before God in that account just as he did in the garden.

And when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to test his righteousness was that also because the devil was the one wanting to shake Abraham’s faith? Absolutely not. Sometimes God himself directly tests our faith - no sinful devil or other third party involved, and not as punishment for any sins of our own.

I’m not saying God never chastises or that he is all mercy and forgiveness and not about justice - but he does have ETERNITY in which to affect that justice, does he not? What makes you so obsessed with thinking he’s got to do it in this earthly time?

 

[JimR-OCDS]

That is just frankly wrong, and it ignores revealed truths of the faith. God NEVER is forced to allow any soul to go to hell; He was not forced to destroy Sodom and Gommorah; He was not forced to pronounce that Adam and Eve’s sin lead to death for all humans; on and on the list can go. God is not forced to allow anything bad to happen us. God could have creatd us perfect, without any faults at all and without any inclination to sin. Yet, that is NOT how God wanted us to be, He built in the ability to freely choose and He created us as free creatures with an ability to make our own choices. The Ten Commandments is a list of things we are absolutely not to do, and there are consequences for breaking those rules and God is the only one to create the consequences.

No where did I say God was forced to do anything. How you came up with that idea from what I wrote is beyond me. God created a natural world with all the complexities involved. Drink poison, and it’s not God who is poisoning you, nor is it God’s fault for creating the poison which you drank that kills you. It’s the natural consequence of drinking poison. God can intervene and prevent the poison from killing you, but God rarely works against the nature he created. So it is with sin. The consequences of sin, God did not create. It’s the natural consequence of sin. God can intervine and save us from sin, as he did in Jesus Christ, but the consequences are not punishments from God, but the results of sin.

God is all about love and forgiveness and justice. Many modernists like to say God is only about love and forgiveness and that is pure nonsense imo. If that were true then no-one would ever go to hell and for that matter hell would not exist, neither would purgatory, neither would any sort of suffering at all. The fact that suffering an sin exists means God allows it for His greater purpose, He is God and He could erase si and suffering in a second.

God is all about love, forgiveness and justice, but not in the sense of justice in the legal system. Justice is within the context of the natural order. When we chose evil were are chosing against the natural order which God created and the consequence is hell, but it’s not God who created hell as a sort of judicial system of punishment.

No, I could not disagree more strongly. Sin leads to death, God determined that sin leads to men, we cannot determine what is eternally just for our own souls. We can only choose to love and obey, or not. God judges us on our hearts “and” on what we did in this life. Then, according to the judgment we either are saved or condemned. Jesus (God) does the judging, we do not judge our own destinies.

Sin leads to death I agree. But it is not God who destroys us, but rather sin itself.

Jim

I think JP2 was right, we choose God or satan, Heaven or hell. Yet, we must be careful to think God has no role in this. God made the rules and He made the punishment and then He told us what the rules and punishment are with the hope that all humans will listen, obey and love.

God gave us commandments to follow in order that we would avoid the consequences of sin. The commandments are tools of freedom, not bondage. Obeying God because of the fear of hell spiritual immaturity. We obey God because we love Him, and chose not to offend Him

The Bible is filled with accounts of God’s discipline/chastisement upon humanity and to say it does not is simply wrong.

And the Bible is also filled with accounts of misunderstanding by the prophets who received God’s word. Jesus taught the truth about what God revealed, and it wasn’t a teaching of condemnation and judgment, but of forgiveness and mercy.

For over 1900 years the Church preached the truth of God’s righteous wrath, it is only over the last 30-40 years of history that people have started to reject that God righteously disciplines us. The Bible tells us that we should not reject God’s discipline, because it means God stills loves us enough to try to correct us.

The Church also got involved in helping God carryout the so-called wrath that they thought God wanted, i.e. torture, witch hangings, Papal wars and you name it.

The Bible says we should not reject God’s will, and what is his will?

Jesus gave it to us. We are to love God with our entire being, and our neighbor.

Following God’s commandments because you fear hell, isn’t love of God. I follow God’s commandments because I love Him.

Jim

 

[Tom317]

And when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to test his righteousness was that also because the devil was the one wanting to shake Abraham’s faith? Absolutely not. Sometimes God himself directly tests our faith - no sinful devil or other third party involved, and not as punishment for any sins of our own.

I’m not saying God never chastises or that he is all mercy and forgiveness and not about justice - but he does have ETERNITY in which to affect that justice, does he not? What makes you so obsessed with thinking he’s got to do it in this earthly time?

It is very simple really. If we trust God’s Word and His Church, then God’s justice comes immediately after our earthly death–we either will be saved or condemned immediately after death.

What we do and how we love (God and others) will create the foundation of how God judges us right after our death. God uses pain, suffering and chastisement/discipline to help us come to Him, it is a sign of God’s mercy and love that He allows and sometimes sends chastisements.

Your example of Abraham’s test has nothing to do with chastisment, do I am not sure why you sighted that account.

 

[spauline]

in all historical chastisements prior to the one of the very end, God’s intent is not to condemn but to restore one to love of Him. but in the end of the world, it WILL be the wrath and condemnation of God, seeing as humanity will no longer have an excuse for its rejection of the Gospel.

But, currently, the modern man has a partial excuse for their apostasy: the sin of scandal and division amongst Christians. but after God heals these rifts through the coming chastisement and gives to humanity the fullness of the Gentiles, there will be no excuse when the Gentiles fall away a second time, AFTER the age of peace. Then they will truly experience wrath and damnation.

 

[Tom317]

The consequences of sin, God did not create. It’s the natural consequence of sin. God can intervine and save us from sin, as he did in Jesus Christ, but the consequences are not punishments from God, but the results of sin.

Yes, they most certainly are, and you are just flat wrong about God not creating the consequences. Everything that is has been allowed or been created directly by God. The consequence of dying from ingesting poison comes from God because He created us in a way that cannot tolerate poison. God does not force us to consume the poison, but He alone places the boundaries and rules about everything He personally created. Nothing that is would exist, and no consequence would exist, if God had not created it.

God is all about love, forgiveness and justice, but not in the sense of justice in the legal system. Justice is within the context of the natural order. When we chose evil were are chosing against the natural order which God created and the consequence is hell, but it’s not God who created hell as a sort of judicial system of punishment.

So, satan created hell? What utter nonsense. God created hell as a just punishment for those souls who have rejected Him in such a way that only hell is their propet justice. .

Sin leads to death I agree. But it is not God who destroys us, but rather sin itself.

Then why does God’s Word tell us to fear the one who can destroy our souls?

God gave us commandments to follow in order that we would avoid the consequences of sin. The commandments are tools of freedom, not bondage. Obeying God because of the fear of hell spiritual immaturity. We obey God because we love Him, and chose not to offend Him.

I agree completely that we should obey God from love, not from fear. Yet, God being God knows that fear also works and many people have been saved because they a healthy fear of the Lord. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the fear of the Lord. I do not walk in front of moving vehicles because I fear being killed or hurt. Likewise, many people try to follow God because they fear going to hell. You have a very modernist view of God and His justice–imo. God perfers we love Him, yet having faith in God, following Him and obeying Him will lead to a person being saved, even if they never attain real love for God in this life. In fact, it is close to impossible for any of us to love God properly this side of Heaven because we are imperfect and sinful creatures.

And the Bible is also filled with accounts of misunderstanding by the prophets who received God’s word. Jesus taught the truth about what God revealed, and it wasn’t a teaching of condemnation and judgment, but of forgiveness and mercy.

So, are you saying you do not trust God’s Word, that has never been protected from error by the Holy Spirit?

Jesus warned us of condemnation, He commanded us to do a great many things and told us that condemnation would befall us if we reject Him (God). Hell and everything to go along with it was taught by Christ. Jesus’ message was NOT just about love as many modernists like to say.

We are to love God with our entire being, and our neighbor.

Yes, agreed. Yet, people are imperfect and faith and obedience will lead to salvation even if love is not yet there.

Following God’s commandments because you fear hell, isn’t love of God. I follow God’s commandments because I love Him.

“Fear of the Lord is the begging of wisdom.” Guess who said that? God said that!

 

[Tom317]

in all historical chastisements prior to the one of the very end, God’s intent is not to condemn but to restore one to love of Him. but in the end of the world, it WILL be the wrath and condemnation of God, seeing as humanity will no longer have an excuse for its rejection of the Gospel.

But, currently, the modern man has a partial excuse for their apostasy: the sin of scandal and division amongst Christians. but after God heals these rifts through the coming chastisement and gives to humanity the fullness of the Gentiles, there will be no excuse when the Gentiles fall away a second time, AFTER the age of peace. Then they will truly experience wrath and damnation.

Yes, agreed. God loves us so much that He allows and sometimes causes us to suffer in order to come to Him.

 

[spauline]

I haven’t read everything in this thread, but I’d say from a cursory analysis that Tom717 is the one who is mostly right. For one, the Church defines dogmatically (AFAIK) TWO aspects of hell: the first is the pain of LOSS, and, admittedly, that is the worst pain. But there is also a POSITIVE, ONTOLOGICALLY EXISTENT second pain, the pain of SENSE. That is, God positively creates a PUNISHING pain of sense on the damned. And this is precisely by JUSTICE. It’s not just that persons in hell “choose to go there.” In part, this is true.

But there is also the inescapable reality that they deserve a POSITIVE punishment precisely because every mortal sin is IMMEASURABLY insulting, first and always to God, who is immeasurable Love, and secondly to creaturely victims, who, while not being infinite, nevertheless possess IMMEASURABLY dignity!

It’s not just that Adam and Eve “took the fruit”. It’s what they are SAYING by that: that a mere FINITE pleasure (gluttony) is to be PREFERRED to INFINITE Truth and Love (God), which is to imply that the piece of fruit (metaphorically) is SUPERIOR to God, which, then is INFINITELY insulting.

If somebody believes that God does not positively punish people in hell, let them read the following article by me, and then get back to me with their “God never punishes anyone” liberal mush.

Darth Vader, Lust and Hell

 

[Writer]

For one, due to contraception we are literally screwing ourselves off the face of the earth because people are not having children. Second there is an invasion from the south, at this point Mexicans are a larger minority than Blacks and they continue to grow. At least they are Catholics.

To one degree or another I believe all of this mess is due to Protestantism.

Very possible. The immigration is certainly masking the demographic crisis. 60-Minutes ran an interesting segment on the nation’s finances and the expected effect of low domestic birth rates.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Very possible. The immigration is certainly masking the demographic crisis. 60-Minutes ran an interesting segment on the nation’s finances and the expected effect of low domestic birth rates.

Scary stuff.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

The scriptures say that loving fathers chastise their sons. God is our Father and sometimes–yes He does chastise.

We aren’t able to know when he INTERVENES and chastises or when He just sits back and let’s the consequence of our sin chastise us.

Look at it this way: if someone murders enough people eventually in all probability they will have to pay for it–that is true without a divine intervention.

On the other hand God did INTERVENE and bring specific chastisement to Sodom and Gommorah.

Look at Katrina: many of the good people suffered as well as the bad. Did the fact that many people had sinned in New Orleans for many years have ANYTHING to do with the hurricanne happening or God NOT INTERVENING to prevent it from happening?

No one can say that! God allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust as the scriptures tell us–but God also sent the flood in the time of Noah!

God is just and we can’t say that He would have punished the evil with the good or allowed the punishment of the evil with the good or if it was just a consequence of natural events that God always lets happen in the world.

All I can say is this–if anyone sins long enough–either in this world or the next—they will have to answer to God.

And if nations or cities or groups of people SIN ENOUGH and LONG ENOUGH–eventually either here by Divine intervention–or by God just letting others on Earth execute His justice or He Himself having to exercise judgement after those nations or cities or groups of people who sinned have died–NOT the innocent ones after death–they WILL eventually have to pay.

We don’t know WHEN or HOW God will chastise but we do know WHEN He does it will be perfectly JUST and there is no escape from REAPING what we sew if we don’t repent!

So are we in a period of chastisement now? Who knows? The main thing we should always do is REPENT and as Our Lady has purportively said many times DO PENANCE in reparation for the sins of the world and the conversion of sinners.

If we do that the world may become a nicer place even exactly now. Even if the world doesn’t get to be a nicer place–the maximum amount of people who God wills to be saved will be saved and we will be saved also–by the perfectly Just Chastising God who is also the Perfectly Merciful God!

Who can know God’s ways? Job asked that and could get no answer but Job was smart enough to just repent and rely on God! That’s the real answer!

 

[Tom317]

The scriptures say that loving fathers chastise their sons. God is our Father and sometimes–yes He does chastise.

We aren’t able to know when he INTERVENES and chastises or when He just sits back and let’s the consequence of our sin chastise us.

Look at it this way: if someone murders enough people eventually in all probability they will have to pay for it–that is true without a divine intervention.

On the other hand God did INTERVENE and bring specific chastisement to Sodom and Gommorah.

Look at Katrina: many of the good people suffered as well as the bad. Did the fact that many people had sinned in New Orleans for many years have ANYTHING to do with the hurricanne happening or God NOT INTERVENING to prevent it from happening?

No one can say that! God allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust as the scriptures tell us–but God also sent the flood in the time of Noah!

God is just and we can’t say that He would have punished the evil with the good or allowed the punishment of the evil with the good or if it was just a consequence of natural events that God always lets happen in the world.

All I can say is this–if anyone sins long enough–either in this world or the next—they will have to answer to God.

And if nations or cities or groups of people SIN ENOUGH and LONG ENOUGH–eventually either here by Divine intervention–or by God just letting others on Earth execute His justice or He Himself having to exercise judgement after those nations or cities or groups of people who sinned have died–NOT the innocent ones after death–they WILL eventually have to pay.

We don’t know WHEN or HOW God will chastise but we do know WHEN He does it will be perfectly JUST and there is no escape from REAPING what we sew if we don’t repent!

So are we in a period of chastisement now? Who knows? The main thing we should always do is REPENT and as Our Lady has purportively said many times DO PENANCE in reparation for the sins of the world and the conversion of sinners.

If we do that the world may become a nicer place even exactly now. Even if the world doesn’t get to be a nicer place–the maximum amount of people who God wills to be saved will be saved and we will be saved also–by the perfectly Just Chastising God who is also the Perfectly Merciful God!

Who can know God’s ways? Job asked that and could get no answer but Job was smart enough to just repent and rely on God! That’s the real answer!

Well said.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Jerry-Jet

The scriptures say that loving fathers chastise their sons.

But loving fathers don’t torture and kill their sons, nor condemn them for eternity.

Jim

 

[Tom317]

Jerry-Jet

But loving fathers don’t torture and kill their sons, nor condemn them for eternity.

Jim

The problem with your statement is that comes from the very limit view of a human being…not from God. We cannot fathom what God has in store for us, nor can we truly comprehend the gifts He has already given, many unseen gifts as well as seen.

It would seem unfair from a human pow that God let JOb be tested, or that God lets satan exist, or that God allowed His One and Only Son to come here just to be tortured and die for all of us.

We cannot fathom God in any real way, we can only choose to believe, obey and love, or not, according to our own free will.

 

[spauline]

Jerry-Jet

But loving fathers don’t torture and kill their sons, nor condemn them for eternity.

Jim

damned persons are not God’s sons. they are the “whore”, not the faithful bride. They have committed an infiinite insult to God and also possibly to immeasurably priceless creatures. Hell is eternal because God and Love are intended to last forever.

Again, you obviously didn’t read the article I hinted at:

Darth Vader, Lust, and Hell:

A young man who uses a girl for pleasure and then discards her has commited an infinite insult to her immeasurable dignity. If he does not repent, he deserves to be in torment forever, because the girl is called to receive and give love forever.

 

[Tom317]

damned persons are not God’s sons. they are the “whore”, not the faithful bride. They have committed an infiinite insult to God and also possibly to immeasurably priceless creatures. Hell is eternal because God and Love are intended to last forever.

Again, you obviously didn’t read the article I hinted at:

Darth Vader, Lust, and Hell:

A young man who uses a girl for pleasure and then discards her has commited an infinite insult to her immeasurable dignity. If he does not repent, he deserves to be in torment forever, because the girl is called to receive and give love forever.

Good points.

 

[minkymurph]

I agree with Irish mac’s viewpoint. Once we entered sin everythin gwent pear shaped. Man cannot live independantly of god. when we do, we suffer the repurcussions. NOt because God wants to punish us, it’s the natural progression of things. We make our choices and world leaders make their choices. we can do so in accordance with God or not. When we make bad choices, we suffer the repurcussions, not because God wants to punish us, but because he wants to lead us to truth and goodness. I believe we bring sorrow on ourselves because of the course of action we decided to take. It not chastisement so much as you reap what you sow. Soe sorrow that is what you will reap. sow joy, sow love, that is what you reap.