God as omnipotent...

last night i was at our tuesday night service here at school...overall the message was about joseph and his technicolor dreamcoat. not bad. i learned a lot about the time in Genesis chapters 37-59. but at the end, the young pastor stated this, and it got me really thinking!

"God's plan for us was not to be sinners, but to live here on earth in paradise. He wanted us to be with Him on Earth...He did not intend for us to be sinners."

i was like wow! that's a powerful statement. i wrote it down to think on it, research on it and challenge it. here's why i think this statement is untrue.

1) if God did not intend us to be sinners, wouldn't this mean that God is not omnipresent and omnipotent? if our life is not what God had intended from the creation of adam and eve, does that mean that God was surprised when adam and eve ate the apple? even to another level, wouldn't this mean that we would be able to hide things from God because if His creation did not turn out as planned, then there would be things that God doesn't know. He wouldn't be omnipotent and omnipresent!

now i realize, this a very surface level of challenge. and i wouldn't just challenge a statement, especially one this bold, without some biblical back up. so....

2) there are many references to God's omnipresence and omnipotence. God revealed to isaiah about the coming of Jesus many times.

exodus 9:16 reads "but i have raise you up for this very purpose, that i might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

deuteronomy 4:37 says, "because He loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of egypt by His presence and His great strength..."

in john 13:18, Jesus says, "i am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. but this is to fulfill the scripture..."

and again in john 15:19, Jesus says, "if you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. as it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world..."

reading these passages and knowing a bit about the book of isaiah and the prophesies that have come to be true, i can't believe that God's plan for us didn't go as He had planned. by saying that "God did not intend for us to be sinners" is to admit that God did not have a plan for His creation. it would be like God had to fall back on "plan b" because adam and eve ate the apple. i don't see how this is possible. God knew what would happen. He had to.