Proverbs 16-18

[wolfpurplemoon]

OK, all of you who were telling me that God didn't make wicked/evil people, that it's just our choices that lead us to wicked paths, what about 16:4? "The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." or "The Lord works everything for its own endst – even the wicked for the day of disaster." So God made wicked people that way, but punishes them anyway.

Kings seem to have the same demands as God, funny that...

Apparently, that 'pride goes before a fall' saying is a slight paraphrase of 16:18

17:28 could also be "It's better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it."

I couldn't see anything new to pick out of Proverb 18, some of it is good, though common sense, advice.

Comments

[wolfpurplemoon]

On this topic, I'm following the video blog of an ex-believer who's currently reading Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life and posting videos of her responses each day, in this book it says that God has made a plan of our entire lives before we are born. So by this logic, my reading of Proverb 16:4 must be true as God would have planned even the lives of people who become wicked.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm, yeah. I don't know, honestly. I see your point. Like I've said, I'm a new-ish believer, so I really don't know all of the answers, nor do I try to pretend I do.

I wonder if God knows the entire plan of our lives, how we will turn out, what sins we'll commit, whether or not we'll be wicked, but he gave us free will so he allows things to happen.

For example, my wife and I just had our first child in January. He's starting to crawl now, and the other day, he was pulling on a toy that we knew would fall over. We knew it wouldn't hurt him if it fell, so we let him do it. We totally saw him plan, we knew what would happen, but he had the free will to choose whether or not to pull on it. Of course, he pulled it and it fell over.

We didn't make him pull it over. We knew he would, but we just allowed him to do it.

Maybe that's what happens with wicked people. God knows they'll be wicked, but he hopes that with the free will he gave them, they can learn to make the right choices.

~Kevin

[wolfpurplemoon]

That's a nice analogy, I think it shows the importance of allowing a child to learn from his mistakes (although he may have been entertained by making the toy fall so will keep doing it!).

I guess the difference between attentive parents and God is that God just watches while people make mistakes and hopes they realise for themselves but parents will teach their child that they made a mistake and show them the right way.

[(Anonymous)]

No mate, your close but no, Gid has a perfect plan for each one if our lives, but we are ourselves choosing not to follow them! God lives us so much that He gave us free will. Because to receive live back that was forced isn't real live at all, but rather if we then choose to come to Him and love Him then we actually do live Him
Also God never made anything that wasn't perfect, read Genisis to find that out, but it's man that has tainted it all