dacontinent
Preacher
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think the closest that any of those folks got to seeing the face of God was when Moses got to see God's butt. In that case, Moses' face had to be shrouded for a couple of weeks because it shone so brightly. Outside of that, people today can have the same types of encounters that the patriarchs had.So why does Moses, Elijah, Joshua, and all the prophets and the apostles get the GOLDEN chance and opportunity to supposedly come face to face with "God", but you or I can't? Talk about "respecter of persons"? This takes the cake.
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Moses saw God face to butt; God wrote on tables of stone and gave the stones to Moses. Still, Moses disobeyed Him. How logical was that? He missed entering the Promised Land....You have to have "faith" that he exists, but they didn't? They supposedly had "God" right there in their midst. They didn't need faith, yet supposedly in the "kingdom of God", they'll have higher positions? How justified is that? They didn't need any faith at all, especially seeing what God did to the Red Sea and other supposed miracles. Why would anyone need faith after seeing that?
On the other hand, you or I will be severely judged with death if we don't have faith in something we can't see. How logical is this? It's not, no matter how you try and slice it...
Joshua spied out the Promised Land, saw the parting and crossing of the Red Sea, manna through the wilderness, God's sovereign protection for 40 years (while all of his adult contemporaries except Caleb), and the parting and crossing of the Jordan. He even saw the "captain of the Lord's host" before attacking Jericho, where the walls fell down flat. But, the leading warrior of his time failed to complete the most important mission that he was assigned to do: Drive out the inhabitants from the land. How logical was that?
I could go on with character after character, but I think you get the picture. Faith can be measured as our obedience to God when He is "not in your face". THAT is why we must have it.
For reasons cited above, we know that they were no better than you and me. We have their testimonies yet we repeat their errors - without the acute threats and persecutions that they endured. So, we are clearly no better than they. Would it logically "be through with" if God simply showed Himself? The Scriptures have told us that will not be so after Christ returns. There are people who will see Him and the results and still will not believe...but some will....Were they better than you or me? Why can't the OT/NT God simply show himself and be through with it? All that we have are words in a book that's full of errors and unfulfilled prophecies; no reliable historical evidence; no reliable archaeological evidence of most of the Bible, yet we're to believe?
Why can't you or I have the privilege of seeing what they saw? Perhaps you can overlook the many, many red flags this presents, but I can't.
Many of the people that we read about in the NT were tortured for what they believed and preached. Do I think we want that? No...but it does still happen in other parts of the world. Why them and not me? Is that logical?? Hardly. Am I willing to be subject to that? Yes, I am.