Is God "with" unbelievers?

[shelly]

I've been off the board for a long time; its been a rough year, but I've learned a lot. Anyway, I have a question that I hope makes sense.

God is with me now and will be with me in the future; I'm just not so sure about the past.

Is God "with" unbelievers the same way he is with Christians?

Is God with the unbeliever who will get saved the same way that he is with the unbeliever who will never believe? Or is he not "with" unbelievers at all?

If that is the case then how does he work all things for good to those that believe in the present who didn't believe in the past but who were going to believe in the future?

At what point does God start working all things for good for the believer? Does he start before one actually believes?

All this is a question I haven't been able to figure out or get anyone to answer for about the last ten months. It's been rolling around in my mind. I've tried to tell myself I don't need an answer, but this question keeps getting in the way of trusting God, yielding control of my life etc. It shouldn't but it does.

thinking,
shelly

 

[Scott Bushey]

Originally posted by shelly
I've been off the board for a long time; its been a rough year, but I've learned a lot. Anyway, I have a question that I hope makes sense.

God is with me now and will be with me in the future; I'm just not so sure about the past.

In one sense, God is everywhere because he is omnipresent. However, the way God is with the believer is radically different than His omniprescence. The HS 'fills' the believer, yet He also convicts the world of sin. The world resists as it is a slave to sin; the devil is their father. The believer is no longer a slave!

Is God "with" unbelievers the same way he is with Christians?

No; see above

Is God with the unbeliever who will get saved the same way that he is with the unbeliever who will never believe?

Eph 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--
Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Or is he not "with" unbelievers at all?

see above

If that is the case then how does he work all things for good to those that believe in the present who didn't believe in the past but who were going to believe in the future?

By His perfect decree's

At what point does God start working all things for good for the believer? Does he start before one actually believes?

Eph 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands--
Eph 2:12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.



[Edited on 11-19-2004 by Scott Bushey]

 

[BobVigneault]

Hi Shelly,
A few years ago I had the privilege to preach on the same day my dad was being removed from life support. It had been a rough year. It was a wonderful and humbling opportunity to live my theology. I won't include the whole sermon I gave that day but here is the conclusion to it. It was titled, "Is God Safe?" I hope it answers some of your questions. I pick up after speaking about what it means to know God and how he reveals himself to us.


"I´ve saved the loudest of God´s lessons for last. I could have chosen so many verses but I chose
2 Corinthians 4:16 -
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary trouble are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Call it trouble, suffering, calamity, affliction or bad things. We don´t like them. They rarely make sense to us but, they are precious and perfect lessons in our knowing the Glory of God.

I received a phone call from an elder in my church this weak. Pray for a 19 year old girl from Rockford named Elizabeth. After a long bout with cancer the doctors can do no more. They´ve given her 2 weeks to live. Nineteen!? My best friend died the day after Christmas and left a wife and two young children. My daughter Ely had open heart surgery twice. A year ago my infant grand-daughter was killed in a car crash. These and other afflictions changed our life and similar things have changed yours.

I can´t figure out why these things happened because these afflictions are connected to a million other events in this world that I don´t know the first thing about. But God understands perfectly, and they are part of his plan. Will I question perfection?

We will suffer as a result of a million different forces is this world that we don´t understand. I don´t know all the mechanics of this world, But I know God and he controls every force.

The question is, will I despise the method that he has chosen in His infinite wisdom to teach me his immeasurable worth?

I can play the "What if?" game? What if things would have been different, could we avoid the suffering? But I would really be asking, "What if there had been a more perfect plan than God´s?"
I won´t play that game.

Anyone who thinks that suffering is not fair, doesn´t understand the utter hideousness of sin and the perfection and holiness of God. They don´t understand that we have all chosen death in our father Adam, but God will transform his sheep into the righteous image of Christ.

Do we deserve to suffer?
Yes, yes, a million times yes.

Is God just in afflicting? Yes, God is the definer of justice.

And in the process of suffering I know Him more and in knowing him I am assured that I am His sheep. I have his divine life living inside me. I conclude with George Mueller who said at the funeral for his wife, "I will miss her in numberless ways, but I continually kiss the hand that afflicts me."

So is God safe? No... but He´s good!

Let me ask you to do four things this morning. They won´t be easy and I will pray that God gives you the grace to accomplish these things.
1. Believe with all your heart that God is all powerful and absolutely in control.
2. Believe with all your heart that everything God does is right and good.
3. Repent of all the times you have questioned God or rebelled against him for the way he has treated you, and
4. Be satisfied with the holy purpose and plan of God and do not complain against it.

I´m a young boy and I´m at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. I have dug a hole in the sand. I´ve filled the hole with water. The water in my imagination becomes an ocean.
A stick becomes a ship. Some sand collapses into the water - an avalanche.

I see the entire ocean in that hole. I am in control. I understand what´s happening to the ship as it´s tossed about. What I am also about to become aware of is that the real tide is coming in. In just a moment, the real ocean - so deep I would never find the bottom - so wide I can´t see the other side - will cover my pretend ocean. God´s knowledge, His wisdom and glory dwarf the real oceans, the earth and the universe. Who can comprehend it? No one, but in the pursuit of comprehending...is eternal life.