The Answerer

Love this question.

The song; ‘Food, glorious food,’ comes straight to mind.

Ice cream, lasagne, roast lamb or chicken, with roast potato pumpkin and onions with mum’s special gravy! YUM!

I believe God made us the basics like potatoes, meat, pumpkin, onions, garlic and so on.

Animals fish and birds are mostly in a constant search for food to stay alive, like meat, fruit, seeds and nectar.

Lions rest for a few days after they have had a good feed of wildebeest, zebra of whatever they can steal from leopards and cheetahs.

Carrion: vultures, eagles, crows etc., are the undertakers of the bush (a butcher told me in answer to my question: “Do flies have a place in the environment?”) “Yes, they clean up what birds leave.” And the ants clean up the last of it, so only dry bones remain. That means no diseases around. COOL!

God gave us the ability to dream and imagine great food made from the basics that He put here for our use.

Sadly some people turn basics into junk food and highly refined processed food with ‘stuff’ to stop it going bad, or to last for months or even years. Many are sick these days because of that.

Be wise, eat good food.

Good question thank you, as there is some confusion about this subject.

The Romans, under their Emperor called ‘Caesar’ ruled most of the known world when Jesus came to earth. They made everyone pay taxes to Caesar and that hurt.

They were mostly clever, often brutal but often helped by making good roads (with slave labour) and supplying water and other things.

However, if anyone in their ‘occupied lands’ broke their laws, like trying on a rebellion, they were severely punished. The most painful, shameful and publicly humiliating death was by crucifixion on a cross, naked.

Roman Governors of all of Caesars occupied lands had to “..keep the peace and the people under control.” A bad report to Caesar meant trouble for that Governor. Pontius Pilate was the Roman Governor of Judea at the time of Jesus.

The Roman method of execution was by crucifixion in public. It sure put most people off doing wrong things and upsetting the Romans. In a crucifixion, the victim is nailed to the cross on the ground and then the cross is raised and dropped into a prepared hole.

The victim dies from slow asphyxiation (cannot get enough oxygen) and death can come in a few hours or in a day or two. I heard a well-educated preacher say recently that four days was the longest time recorded by the Romans for a man to die.

The cross could not have been a plank, as we today understand a plank. A saw in a sawmill or workshop saws a plank to size and there were no machine-saws back then. Carpenters made the cross from tree trunks and branches by hand-shaping with axes and suchlike - so they were pretty rough. Not made for comfort.

An awful lot of people have asked or thought upon that question. Especially me.

Yes! This writer has been a T12 incomplete paraplegic for 37 years.

That means my legs do not work and never will.

A short answer…I do not know, but this is a longish answer:

Exactly what is a disability? There are hundreds of them and some are brought on by the use of drugs, alcohol and smoking and also industrial poisoning.

In Jesus’ day many were not healed. Why? On one occasion Jesus left a crowd without healing all who were sick. Jesus said: “I must go on to other villages and tell them the ‘good news’”.

Question 72 says: “Why does there have to be heartache for there to be compassion?” Very insightful for a child to see that.

Suppose a foolish woman conceives a baby. She continues smoking and drinking. She is told, “It will damage the baby,” but continues to drink and smoke and the baby does have a mental disability. The child must suffer, being not normal for all his life. Awful!

Should she call on God to ‘heal her child’ of this disability? And when he does, she may do the same with the next baby!

I worked as a teacher in a school for children with disabilities for a while. I soon noticed that a disabled child brought out the best or worst in parents. Some parents were just lovely in their care for their child. Others ‘did a runner’ to escape and some never really learnt how to ‘handle’ a disabled child.

I have also noticed that quite a few people I have known who had never been sick or ‘down in the pits’ of life were quite often uncaring for those who suffered a lot. If they got sick, had a close shave with death in a car smash or something similar - then they became changed people: They became more caring and helpful for those in need.

This life (~70 years) is really only a preparation for life after death. (Eternity is forever.) Sickness, although painful, often brings out in people compassion and love they never would have dreamed of without seeing, or having, a disability.

I cannot, dare not, dwell on why!

Euthanasia: People who are suffering, really suffering from various diseases and would rather be dead than live any longer pose a terrible dilemma for caring doctors. They know the anguish of not being able to help that person die even though that is their dearest wish to be out of this world. I personally would lean towards not prolonging a life that has run its course and there is no hope of recovery. The Bible does not touch on this dilemma, but there is in this modern world an awful lot of unseen suffering.

(I said it would be long. Sorry.)

That’s a most interesting question and I do not really know.

I guess it would be smart to ask one of them. They don’t advertise too much, maybe they are ashamed but on TV they come over bold and happy. I have heard of ‘The Church of Satan’.

I ploughed through three pages of churches in my street directory but no Church of Satan did I find. Nor in the phone book. I know they exist but I am not going on the WWW. Too confusing.

Why worship the Devil? Looking for something new and exciting? Many follow that trail for a while. Maybe a need to contact the dead?

There have always been people in touch with Satan or his ‘black’ angels. They are mentioned a bit in the Bible.

There are demons, evil spirits, demonic forces and so on around us. Your folks may have seen a movie called The Exorcist. It was about demon possession. That is real and the Devil is alive. Why worship him? I know not. Maybe the people worshipping him are possessed and do not know it.

The churches have priests or laymen who know about the Devil, and they are taught the ability to deliver a person from Satan’s power. It is called ‘deliverance ministry’.

Satan is real but many do not know it is true.

Oh boy! That’s some question indeed.

I do not know but I’ll try do dig up some pointers.

First, people (us) are not judges of such difficult things and any person who claims to give you a sure answer, ignore it. It is a job for God only.

Myself: after I broke my back I would have suicided if I got the opportunity. I was a Christian but my mental state, then, was pretty sick.

Had I suicided then I would like to think that as God is merciful I would go ‘upstairs’ not ‘down’.

Do you know anybody named Judas?

I think not. The only being I know with that name was a sheep. It was old, very tame and would lead a mob of sheep into the slaughterhouse, but Judas would go through a different gate to freedom.

Nobody, but nobody is named Judas because he was one of the 12 disciples and for money, (30 pieces of silver), he betrayed Jesus to His enemies, the priests and temple police.

Later Judas suicided and the Bible says the eleven disciples elected another to replace Judas.

It is not recorded that Jesus hated Judas but King David wrote in Psalms: “Leave his house empty and don’t let anyone else live there.” and “Let someone else have his job.” (Psalm 69:25) and (Psalm 109:8) I doubt that he would be welcomed in heaven because his attitude was money grubbing and selfish.

In my Bible reference books the word ‘judge’ and ’judgement’ occur hundreds of times. God, the Father and Jesus, the Son, are said to ‘judge fairly’ and to ‘judge mercifully.’

That tells me that evil people who murder and hurt people (especially children) will be in big trouble. Jesus himself said: “Whoever hurts one of these, my little ones” or “hurts the conscience of a little child” it would be better for him to be cast into the sea with a large rock tied around his neck” (Matthew 18:6) i.e. that would be better than judgement day.

So, I cannot give you an answer as to the judgement of God in suicide. I know that love and compassion are His main features.