Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
Does God kill or is it Satan when we die? That is so, Kaya Leslie, thank you for asking that question. And this is a very profound round question. Right. Because some people, I think they feel like, okay, is God good if God would kill? And then they might say, God will never kill. And then there’s also, I think, a problem where we attribute to God a lot of killing that isn’t really attributable to God. So let’s take a look at this. So first off, I want to step back and let’s talk about this concept of life and why does anything live? And we read in John one, where God is the creator of everything and Christ is the source of life for everything. John 1125, Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, shall live. And then one, John five, one, two. He says, he who has the sun has life. He who does not have the sun does not have life. But God is life. We have to be connected to God. God in the Old Testament and in Christ in the New Testament uses the imagery of a vine or a branch connected to a tree.
Speaker 1
And what happens when you cut the tree? We’ve been doing a lot of trimming lately. Right of our trees. What happens when you cut that branch off? Well, that branch dies, but the rest of the tree gets stronger and more aggressive. That’s true. That has some interesting implications for what we’re talking about. So, yeah, that branch that’s cut off from the tree is going to die. That’s how it is, in a sense, with God. If God is life, when we separate ourselves from God, we’re separating ourselves. We’re cutting ourselves off from the life, the source of life, and just naturally, we will die. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 30 versus 19 to 20. And here this is God speaking to the Israelites. I call heaven on Earth as witnesses to you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord, your God and you may obey his voice and that you may cling to him, and he is your life and the length of your days, and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your father’s.
Speaker 1
So God is emphasizing you have a choice to make, you have an option. And this choice, this option was always there, even at the very beginning. Genesis 216 to 17, God told them, Adam and Eve, you could eat any tree you want, any of the fruit, except it says in verse 17, but of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. So God warned them you could do whatever you want, but the consequence of disobeying me, of not listening to me, of going your own way is going to be death. Life is conditioned on our obedience to God. That is the everlasting Covenant. And then we go on to Genesis 322 did anime evidently die? People struggle with that right day you send yourself surely die. They didn’t just immediately dropped it. And there’s a lot of reasons for that. Got immediately put in place the plan of Salvation to put them on probation. But we also have this going on. Genesis 322 Then the Lord said, Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil.
Speaker 1
And now let’s he put out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground. Verse 24 So he drove out man and he placed Cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of Life. Why would God do that? Why would God access to the tree of Life? In fact, I was answered earlier in verse 22, he said, man is sinful and I don’t want man to live forever anymore. So I’m going to cut them off from the tree of life. And in fact, what’s interesting, we were just talking about we’ll get new immortal bodies that immortality is not in us. If you go back to flash forward to the book of Revelation, I think it was Revelation 21. We’re now told that we have access to the tree of Life again when we join Christ in the Kingdom. That’s how we’re going to be restored. We’re constantly depending on God as the source of life. And we’re given that because of our Venus to God now, so God can kill, in a sense, by cutting us off from himself, or we cut ourselves off from him.
Speaker 1
And he doesn’t want evil to just live forever because evil eventually degenerates into something that’s awful for the one who’s evil and awful for everybody else around who is evil. Genesis 1924 Sodom and Gomorrah, who destroyed and killed Sodom and Gomorrah? Yes, and a lot of people pass over this. God warned Adam and Eve like, I’m going to destroy it. But in Genesis 19, verse 24 outright says, Then the Lord reigned brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. God reigned it like this fire was coming out of him and that’s what destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So God was the one who actually brought him into those absolutely horrible, wicked people. We’ve talked about them before. If you’re struggling with the issue of why did God actually destroy Sonoma Gamora and the pre fled people, why did God do that? Please go watch this, probably about a month ago. Now look at our earlier video and watch that because there’s good reasons why a loving God would do that. And he did it. And I think I talked about the analogy of like Old Yeller, if you’ve seen that old film of this dog that saved the family, but as a result of saving a family, he got rabies and became this vicious, vicious beast that was no longer itself and had it be put down by the dad.
Speaker 1
I mean that’s kind of the love that then destroys. And so God’s not torturing people forever and ever. He’s destroying, they need to be wiped out. And that’s what he does at times. And it’s the same thing we’re told. That what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of what’s going to happen in the future when God destroys all the wicked that we see in Revelation 20, verse 15, and says, and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the Lake of fire. And maybe that fires lava that’s in the Earth. But also I think a part of that is going to be God’s presence. God’s glory is a consuming fire that’s the term Moses uses to describe God. And when God really appeared in his glory on Mount Sinai, to the Israelites, it was fire that was seen by them. It’s like this purifying fire that purges. And so maybe what’s the versatina Isaiah is it 33 where it talks about who can dwell in the everlasting flames.
Speaker 2
I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head. I was thinking of another verse to kind of add to what you’re saying though. That’s okay.
Speaker 1
No, please give me time to find the other one.
Speaker 2
Alright, perfect tag team. So basically I think it’s really interesting when you think about Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, God did rainfire, God did do that act. And God talks about destruction being a strange act. And I don’t know if that’s kind of what you’re getting at too, but when you look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jude in the book of Jude in the New Testament gives some light into that story in verse seven. So Jude one, verse seven says even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. So basically I think it’s very interesting because a lot of times people think if you go to the Lake of fire, you’re going to burn eternally. But it says that the eternal fire burned up Sodom and Gomorrah. Now if you go to where Sodom and Gomorrah would be today, they found what looks like would have been a city that’s just covered in sulfur, balls of sulfur. And so they really think that that’s probably where Sodom and Go tomorrow was because there’s just these huge balls of sulfur from some extremely hot substance that just burned up the city.
Speaker 2
And you don’t see fire raining down from heaven today. You don’t see that this fire just kept burning, but rather this eternal fire means that everything was burnt up eternally. It’s never going to be resurrected, it’s never going to live again. And so I just think that’s very interesting when you’re talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and destruction happening. It’s not that God is sadistic and burning you forever because that doesn’t make any sense for you to live 50, 60, 70 years and burn for eternity. That’s everlasting life that he’s giving a sinner. But it just didn’t torture. And God doesn’t say that. He says the wages of sin is death. So just putting that in perspective. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So anyway, it’s just throwing that out there.
Speaker 1
You know what? Here’s maybe another possibility of what Bible means too, about the everlasting fire that consumed ASADA Gamora because it said it came from God. I found the verse I was talking about earlier, Isaiah 33, verse 14. Isaiah 33, verse 14. Let’s put it up because this is one of the most shocking verses, I think to a lot of people. And it says, the sinners of Zion are afraid, fearfulness has seized the hypocrites. Who among us shall? So they’re asking the question, right? This is the wicked people, basically. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? And what this is really going back to what I talked about, Moses said our God is a consuming fire. Glory of God is fire. And this verse, Isaiah 33 is asking who can stand in the presence of God? Who can dwell in his glory? The Wiki cannot stand. They cannot get close to God. Else they could be just simply obliterated. And that’s what we have here is this concept here, that it’s just God just being God, not holding back his glory that can consume and destroy.
Speaker 1
And maybe that God sort of let his glory a bit torch Sodom and Gomorrah those everlasting fires from him. And they were also unquenchable. So we’ve answered half of the question now which is, does God do killing? Yes, God has the right to do it because God is life. There would be no life if it wasn’t for him. But the Satan kill. John 844 says, you are of your father, the devil and the desire of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth here Jesus is saying the devil is a murderer from the beginning. You could say Satan was behind Cain killing Abel, but also probably from the beginning. He wanted to heal Jesus and ultimately did that. John ten, verses eight to ten. All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers. Jesus says, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved. And he goes on and says, the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. And this is a verse we come too often, Tina cites a lot because it is great verse describing Satan.
Speaker 1
He is a thief that comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. That’s what he wants to do. That’s his objective for all of us. He wants to hurt God.
Speaker 2
I’m sorry, I just have like those moments where you just a light bulb comes on.
Speaker 1
Oh, you got an interjecting.
Speaker 2
Sorry, no, I want to hear it. So I just kind of noticed something when you were mentioning in John chapter eight, verse 44, that Satan was a murderer and a murderer from the beginning, Satan, because we established that God does kill. But like it says in Isaiah 28 21, that this is strange work, that it’s a strange act. It’s not like God to kill, that’s not what God does. But he will bring forth judgment and righteous judgment. And sometimes that means destruction of a sinner just so that they don’t keep on sinning. But Satan is a murderer. A murderer is someone who kills innocent people. And that’s Satan. That’s what Satan does. Satan is a murderer. He doesn’t care how righteous or good you are. He wants to kill you, especially if you’re good. But God is like, no, please don’t sin, I don’t want you to die. You’re reading that verse earlier from Ezekiel. It says basically God’s pleading with his people, don’t choose sin, don’t choose death, choose life. So God is desiring life for his people and he only does the strange act of killing for the purpose of judgment and to protect the innocent, whereas Satan is killing but for the purpose of just cause harm to us.
Speaker 2
And like you’re saying to God, so it’s kind of just that dichotomy of, yes, they’re bringing death to pass, but for what purpose and what’s the motive behind it?
Speaker 1
What’s interesting is let’s sort of connect these to a slightly related thing, which is Romans 711. It says for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. So Satan can take advantage of God’s law, which says if you sin, you’re going to die. And he uses that now against us. Satan is trying to tempt us, trying to get us to sin so that we will be condemned by God’s law and so that we ultimately will be destroyed in the judgment. That’s his objective. That’s the easiest way for Satan to kill as many people as possible, to Rob God of as many family members as possible. In a sense, wicked sin has power through the law. And this could be a confusing concept when you’re reading Romans and this is what Paul is trying to tell us. And if you look at Romans 521, it says so that as sin reigned in death, even so, Grace might reign through righteousness, to eternal life through Christ our Lord. And we have this economy. So sin is what’s leading to death. Sin is death. In a sense, razors of sin is death. Sin takes you there.
Speaker 1
Sin is separating you from God. God is life, though if we get close to God, we approach God. He ever wants to save us. So it’s even so Grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life. Or even so they say yeah. Grace let Grace reign. Let Grace save.
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In His Service
BibleAsk Team
