Featured Was Queen Esther ....

She did not have a choice in the matter much like Sarah didn't have a choice but to go into Pharaoh's harem. God used the power of a pagan to save His people.

 

And I would disagree with your disagreement. :smilewinkgrin:

Not at all. It shows God was in agreement with the overall outcome, not with the enslavement and imprisonment. That isn't what He wanted for Joseph. But let's not forget, Joseph was not entirely without fault, either. He was a snot-nosed little brat who wanted to make sure his brothers and father knew they would one day be beholden to him, whereas he should have kept his dreams to himself and remained humble and faithful. His pride and arrogance are what got him sold into slavery, not God's plan. Paybacks are heck, as they say.

With this I can agree. No, God didn't approve of Moses' murder of the Egyptian, but because Moses fled Israel, God used the intervening time to prepare him for his work. God is always righteous, even when His chosen ones take matters into their own hands, to the detriment of their ministry and to the frustration of God. Even when we run the opposite direction -- like Jonah -- God brings us back to where He wants us.

 

Perhaps.

The perspective can be that God is benign and uninvolved, and then has to manipulate events to eventually have His way. This is the perspective of one who considers God allows, approves, and permits...

Or,

God can be in total control over the events and uses them to His purpose to bring experiences to humankind in which God is shown as completely in charge. This is the perspective of all events and circumstances touching the life and living of those chosen by God are ordained by God for His purpose and glory.

Or,

There is some loose wheel wobble between those two statements.

I suppose, I just come down closer to God being in total control over all events and uses them to His purpose.

For instance:
God didn't relinquish control over Job, but gave permission for certain events to take place. Why? Not for the experience of Job, but for those who face difficulties and lose might understand a bit of the authority of God in all matters.

The same with Joseph, Moses, and Esther.

God was in total control and not just giving permission for certain events to take place, but having authority over anything that touched their lives.

Slavery and imprisonment was exactly what God wanted, and what would bring Joseph from "a snot-nosed little brat who wanted to make sure his brothers and father knew they would one day be beholden to him" into maturity and righteousness.

God could just as easily have chosen some other way. But, He didn't.

Doesn't mean the decision making was in the hands of others. Nor that God had to wait and approve and then somehow scheme to manipulate as a result of...

 

That's a complete misunderstanding or perhaps (though I doubt it) a deliberate misrepresentation of my post. God does no harm. Period. He will not, in this day, age and dispensation, bring down a plague of boils on a farmer/rancher like Job. Nor will He spin a hurricane into the Gulf Coast to punish a city for its liberal sexual proclivities. But He will allow the consequences of sin to have their reign in the flesh, such as forgers going to prison for stealing from others' bank accounts, or smokers contracting lung cancer after 40 years of lighting up.

God didn't give the forgers a prison term or the smokers a disease, but He did nothing to stop those consequences, either. Neither did He stop Moses from murdering the Egyptian or Joseph from being a snot-nosed little brat. He didn't want any of the people I've given as examples to suffer those consequences, but He wasn't going to reach down and save them from themselves, either. And despite your apparent viewpoint, that's not "surrendering control." That's letting our own sick free will reign -- you know, that thing you don't believe we have. But we most assuredly do. We bring our own bad circumstances on ourselves. God has nothing to do with it, but He's perfectly willing to rescue us from our eternal fate we would otherwise receive as a result of those sins, and give us a better life after our conversion as well, if we will proclaim Him Savior and Lord based on biblical testimony about His nature, character, and desire for us as His children.

Then, when we heed the drawing, call and testimony of the Holy Spirit, those past circumstances can be used by God to minister and witness to others. That's how I've become an addictions and a marriage and family counselor. But had God had His druthers in my life, I would have achieved the ability to minister in these fashions without having to experience the dire consequences of addiction, criminal activity, and prison before I became willing to be molded and shaped by Him. He uses my past circumstances for His glory and the greater good of others, but He didn't cause any of those circumstances to transpire. I did that to myself. So did Moses, David, and even Esther, to a lesser extent, because her only choice was not to be part of the "beauty pageant" but then, had she made that choice, Israel would not have survived.

 

I am not certain that there is Scriptures available that would back up your view of God "in this age" much less the time of the OT and more particular that of Ester.

I think it wise that you submit Scriptures for why you place God in such a position.

 

Do you find it interesting that the book of Esther never mentions God, yet it relates a part of Jewish history that has God’s fingerprints all over it? It’s as if the writer wanted to emphasize that God is active behind the scenes, even when things seem out of control.

Things definitely seemed that way for the Jews living in Persian exile. Being dragged off to a cruel foreign land was bad enough. Now, the king’s right hand man had talked him into signing a decree to exterminate the Jews. The details of the plan just happened to become known to a Jew named Mordecai living in the capital city. And this man just happened to have raised a beautiful Jewish orphan girl named Esther. Among countless candidates, Esther was the one selected as queen by the king, who incidentally had just demoted his previous queen.

This young woman—still a girl, really—had the inner fortitude to risk her life by approaching the king on behalf of her people. And the king just happened to have been reading the records of the kingdom, where he discovered that Mordecai had never been rewarded for uncovering a plot against the king’s life. So when Esther pleaded for the lives of her people, the king, who loved her, was now favorably inclined toward the Jews. Thus, the Jews were miraculously saved and their enemy sentenced to be hanged.

Now, did God "inspire" Haman to adjure the king to sign his decree? Or did the wheels of that train get set in motion hundreds of years earlier when Saul disobeyed God by ignoring Samuel's words of prophecy and directive to exterminate Agag and everything in his kingdom? Or did you not know Haman was a direct descendent of a man who was supposed to have been killed in his throne room, but instead was allowed to live? You are one of those who claims God instigates evil. Balderdash!! Men instigate evil. God has a plan for righteous men to escape it.

Wow, you don't ask for much, do you? OK, I'll take a stab at it. Jesus' half-brother firmly rejects the hyper-Calvinist thought that God doesn't just allow, but actually is in control of, and therefore the Author, of evil acts so He may be glorified.

James 1, (NASB)
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.​

God is omniscient and nothing can happen outside of His knowledge, but knowledge does not mean "authorship." So, if, for example, God knew that Satan would rebel and fall from heaven and that Adam and Eve would sin, and that all men would inherit that sin and act in varying degrees of evil throughout human history, yet He created them anyway, it must mean that the fall of mankind was part of God’s sovereign plan from the beginning. No other answer makes sense given what we have been saying thus far.

But again, that does not mean the evil is part of God's intent or plan. If we consider what some theologians call the "meta-narrative" (or overarching story line) of Scripture, we see that biblical history can be roughly divided into three main sections: 1) paradise (Genesis 1–2); 2) paradise lost (Genesis 3 – Revelation 20); and 3) paradise regained (Revelation 21–22). By far the largest part of the narrative is devoted to moving from paradise lost to paradise regained. At the center of this meta-narrative is the cross. The cross was planned from the very beginning.

Acts 2
22 "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know --
23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
​

It was foreknown and foreordained that Christ would go to the cross and give His life as a ransom for many who would believe. But God did not nail Jesus to the cross. That was done by sinful man.

Reading Scripture very carefully and taking what has been said so far, we are led to the following conclusions:

• The rebellion of Satan and the fall of mankind were foreknown and foreordained by God.
• Those who would become the people of God, the elect, were foreknown and foreordained by God.
• The crucifixion of Christ, as atonement for God’s people, was foreknown and foreordained by God.

So, we are left with the following questions: Why create mankind with the knowledge of the fall, and knowing that only some would be saved? Why send Jesus knowingly to die for a people that knowingly, willfully fell into sin? From man’s perspective, it does not make sense. If the meta-narrative moves from paradise, to paradise lost, to paradise regained, why not just go straight to paradise regained and avoid the whole paradise lost interlude?

The only conclusion we can come to, in view of the above assertions, is that God’s purpose was to create a world in which His glory could be manifest in all its fullness. The glory of God is the overarching goal of creation. In fact, it is the overarching goal of everything He does. The universe was created to display God’s glory, as stated in Psalm 19:1, and the wrath of God is revealed against those who fail to glorify God.

Romans 1
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.​

Our sin causes us to fall short of God’s glory, plainly stated in Romans 3:23, and in the new heaven and new earth, the glory of God is what will provide light, again clearly stated in Revelation 21:23. The glory of God is manifest when His attributes are on perfect display, and the story of redemption is part of that.

The best place to see this in Scripture is in Paul's letter to the Roman church.

Romans 9
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.​

Does that mean what you think it means. NO! This passage doesn't prove God creates one for salvation and one for destruction. What it proves is that His wrath and mercy display the riches of His glory, and you cannot get either without the fall of mankind. Therefore, all of these actions -- fall, election (which also doesn't mean what you think it means), redemption, atonement -- serve the purpose of glorifying God. When man fell into sin, God’s mercy was immediately displayed in not killing him on the spot. God’s patience and forbearance were also on display as mankind fell deeper into sin prior to the flood. God’s justice and wrath were on display as He executed judgment during the flood, and God’s mercy and grace were demonstrated as He saved Noah and his family. God’s wrath and justice will be revealed in the future when He deals with Satan once and for all.

The ultimate exhibition of God’s glory was at the cross where His wrath, justice, and mercy met. The righteous judgment of all sin was executed at the cross, and God’s grace was on display in pouring His wrath for sin on His Son, Jesus, instead of on us. God’s love and grace are on display in those whom He has saved. In the end, God will be glorified as His chosen people worship Him for all eternity with the angels, and the wicked will also glorify God as His justice and righteousness will finally be vindicated by the eternal punishment of all unrepentant sinners. None of this could have come to pass without the rebellion of Satan and the fall of Adam and Eve.

Further, the Westminster Confession of Faith, in chapter three, denies that God has absolute control to the point that He is the author, instigator or is somehow otherwise responsible for sin. "God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

What this is saying is that God ordains future events in such a way that our freedom and the working of secondary causes (e.g., laws of nature) are preserved. This is typically called "concurrence." God’s sovereign will flows concurrently with our free choices in such a way that our free choices always result in the carrying out of God’s will (by “free choices” we mean that our choices are not coerced by outside influences).

 

Miss Scarlett -

That was delightful.