The Fiery Wrath of God

                                     Numbers 16:1-50 KJB

Among any group of people whether they be a nation, a church, or just a club, there will often be persons who desire to gain control, and they will often induce others to follow them so that they can rebel against the present leadership and have them put out of office so that they can gain control over all of the people. God appointed Moses to be the leader of the Israelites, and He appointed Aaron to be their high priest. A man named Korah gathered 250 men to follow him, and he rebelled against Moses and Aaron. Korah accused Moses of appointing himself to be the leader of the people, and two of Korah's followers accused Moses of leading the people out of Egypt only for them to die in the wilderness. They also blamed Moses for not leading them into the promised land when actually it was most of the people's fault that they had not entered it. Numbers 14:1-4 (KJB). Korah and his followers actually desired to gain control over the people so that they could lead them back to slavery in Egypt which they claimed was the land of milk and honey. 

Moses became very angry with these rebels because God had made him angry. Moses proposed that he and Aaron and the 250 rebels should put fire in censers and burn incense before the Tabernacle to see whom God had chosen to be their leaders. Then God appeared and told Moses and Aaron to stand aside while He consumed the whole nation of Israel because they had not backed up Moses and Aaron against these rebels. But God prompted Moses and Aaron to fall on their faces and plead with God for the lives of His people. In this way, God showed the people who really cared about them. 

God then commanded Moses to order the people to separate themselves from the rebels. Moses then prophesied that God would destroy these rebels by opening the earth and swallowing them up into a fiery pit. God then used His fiery wrath against evil to destroy these rebels against Moses and Himself. The earth opened and swallowed these rebels, their families, and everything they owned except the censers that they had used to burn incense in worship of God. 

God told Moses to order Eleazer, Aaron's son, to recover these censers from the fire because they had been used in worship of God even if the worshippers were rebels. God considered these censers to be hallowed, and they were used to make plates to cover the altar that stood before the Tabernacle. Something good came from these rebels which symbolized the fact that even the evilest people always retain some goodness that God put into them when He created them in His image. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). Just as Eleazer recovered these hallowed censers, God will recover every good and living nature He has put into every human He has ever created in His image because He can never lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14 (KJB). God will cleanse and recover and recreate everything He has ever created that has been soiled and stained by sin and evil. Revelation 21:5; II Peter 3:9-13; Psalm 36:6; Romans 11:36 (KJB). In the end of the world, Christ will visit all of His living humans "on the earth, and under the earth," and He will cause them all to repent and return to the faith that He put into them when He created them in His image. Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). He will then use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their beings to separate their good and living natures from their dead and evil natures so that He can save and recreate their good and living natures, and He will cast their dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Psalm 75:3; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). 

The next day the congregation, having been influenced by the rebels, accused Moses of having killed some of God's people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tabernacle. God then cautioned Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the people because He intended to consume them all. But God's mercy prompted Moses and Aaron to fall on their faces and pray for the people. Moses instructed Aaron to get a censer and put incense and fire from the altar in it and go among the people to reconcile them with God. God had started a plague among the people that killed 14,700 of them, probably those who had the greatest desire to return to Egypt. 

When Aaron went among the people with the burning incense, he literally "stood between the dead and the living." Numbers 16-48 (KJB). Every human that God creates is alive to Him, but every human also possesses a plague inside of them which is spiritual death. Luke 20:38; Genesis 3:15; Genesis 2:17 (KJB). God can never lose anything He has ever created which means He has devised a plan to cleanse, recover, and save from spiritual death every living human He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). God never permanently kills anyone. When Aaron went among the people with burning incense which symbolizes the fiery wrath of God, he made a symbolic prophecy that one day Christ will visit His sinful people "on the earth, and under the earth," and He will cause them all to repent and return to faith in Him as their Savior so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve and purify them so that He can separate their good and living natures from their dead and evil natures. Christ will recreate their repentant, living natures with new bodies to live forever on His new earth, and He will cast their dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB).

II Timothy 4:1 clearly teaches that in Christ's final judgment, He will "judge the quick and the dead." Since all living humans are forever alive to God, then He must separate the living from the dead, and both are inside of every human. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Luke 20:38 (KJB). Revelation 20:11-15 clearly teaches that Christ will cast only the separated dead into the lake of fire, and Revelation 21:5 clearly teaches that Christ will save and recreate every living human He has ever created. 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                    Numbers 15:23-36 KJB

These verses reveal God's attitude toward sin and evil among His people and any strangers who may dwell among them. God makes a distinction between sins of ignorance and presumptuous sins. Both Hebrews and Gentiles can be saved by God's grace. God has more compassion for sins of ignorance because God knows that the spiritual deaths that the Devil plants into the inner beings of all humans will inevitably cause every human to be overcome by temptation and fall into sin. Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:15 (KJB). The exception to this is children who die before they ever become overpowered by temptation. The Church calls spiritual death original sin, but the Bible calls it spiritual death. John 5:24; Romans 5:12; Genesis 2:17 (KJB). The sin offering with its shed blood of animals symbolized the shed blood of Christ on the cross that cleanses and saves by His grace all humans who repent and believe that Christ can save them from sin, evil, and spiritual death. Matthew 26:28; Genesis 3:21 (KJB). But the burnt offering symbolized that God will use His fiery wrath against evil to provide a lesser form of salvation for the rest of humanity when Christ visits all of His living humans "on the earth, and under the earth" in the end of the world. Genesis 820-21; Revelation 5:11-14; Matthew 13:36-43 (KJB). Christ will cause all of His living humans to repent and return to faith in Him as their Savior so that He can recover and recreate their souls and spirits with new bodies to live forever with Him on His recreated earth. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 21:1-5; Romans 11:36 (KJB).  

But verses 30-36 reveal that God takes a quite severe attitude toward presumptuous sins which are also always evil. God never forgives evil because it never repents. A presumptuous sin happens when a person deliberately decides to practice disobedience against God's law. Presumptuous sins are always evil and even if they apply to what one might consider a small sin such as picking up sticks on the Sabbath day. God provided an example of a presumptuous sin with a man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath day. He was not overcome by temptation, and he refused to repent. God commanded Moses to have this man stoned to death. People who practice presumptuous sins do so because they either disbelieve in God, or they have some wrong ideas about the nature of God, or they have just become defiant toward God. 

Salvation always occurs because of repentance and faith in the deepest nature of God revealed in His Son. The Father was a God of justice in the Old Testament, but His Son is the same God of mercy, grace, and Love in the New Testament. God had the man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath day put to death as if he were totally evil. But God did not forget that He created that man with a good and living nature which is capable of repentance and faith. Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). Christ will appear to all of His living humans in the end of the world, including that man, who have not been saved by grace, and He will cause them all to repent and return to faith in Him as their Savior. Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). Christ will then use His fiery wrath against evil to cleanse them of all sins and evil, and He will separate their good and living natures from their dead and evil natures. I Corinthians 3:11-15; Matthew 13:36-43; Luke 3:16-17; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). Christ will recreate their repentant, good and living natures with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12 (KJB). All of their sins will be attached to their dead and evil natures, and Christ will cast their separated, dead and evil natures into the lake of fire because evil never repents. Matthew 12:31-32; Revelation 20:11-15 (KJB). Christ will accomplish His salvation of all of His good and living humans because God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His Love can never fail. Genesis 1:31; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Psalm 111:7-8; Romans 11:36; Luke 20:38; I Corinthians 13:8 (KJB). 

The Apostle Paul provides an example of an evil human who became saved by grace. Very few evil people become saved by grace. Saul of Tarsus was evil because he had Christians murdered in defiance of God's Law: "Thou shalt not kill." Exodus 20:13 (KJB). But when Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he repented and believed, and Christ saved him by His grace. Acts 9:1-6 (KJB). Christ forgave Saul's evil acts because He understood that Paul had done them while in a state of ignorance for which he also repented. I Timothy 1:11-16 (KJB). Christ's compassion for sinners will cause Him to forgive and save all of the good and living natures of all evil humans because He will cause them all to repent of their ignorance of God's true nature. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). But Christ will surely cast the separated spiritual deaths of all of His living humans who were not saved by His grace, who are totally evil, into the eternal lake of fire because they will never repent. Revelation 20:11-15 (KJB). This verse clearly states that Christ will cast only dead humans into the lake of fire. He means exactly that which He states. Christ annuls the spiritual deaths of all humans saved by His grace the moment they repent and believe. John 5:24; Galatians 2:19-20 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                         Numbers 14:14 KJB

God had promised His chosen people, the Israelites, that He would liberate them from slavery in Egypt and bring them back to their ownership of the land of Canaan that God had promised to give to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Genesis 50:24 (KJB). After God had liberated them from 400 years of slavery in Egypt, He brought the nation of Israel close to the promised land. Moses sent 12 men to spy in the land so that proper plans could be made as to where to attack it first and where the strongest and weakest forts were. Numbers 13:17-20 (KJB). When these 12 men returned to report to Moses, 10 of them had lost their faith in God when they had seen giants in the land and very strong and fortified cities. Numbers 13:26-33 (KJB). But 2 of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, still retained their faith that God had promised them the land, and He would give them the strength and courage they needed to conquer it. But the congregation lost their faith in God because they believed in the report of the 10 spies that they could not take the land. The people then rebelled against Moses, Caleb, and Joshua, and they threatened to stone them to death and elect a new leader to take them back to Egypt. Numbers 24:1-10 (KJB).

At that time, God appeared to the congregation in the Tabernacle. God told Moses that He intended to kill the entire nation of Israel and cause Moses to father a new nation of chosen people. Numbers 14:11-13 (KJB). Moses then began to pray to God, and he laid out logical reasons why God should not do that. But God inspired Moses to make that prayer. There were news reporters in that day just as there are today. Moses told God that the Egyptians would hear that God had killed them because He had failed to bring them into their promised land. The inhabitants of the land would also hear the news, and they would believe that God was weak. Moses reminded God that the people of the land already knew that God led His people with a cloud of mercy in the daytime of their faith, and He also punished them with His fiery wrath against evil in the nighttime of their sins. Numbers 14:13-14 (KJB). But God gave Moses the logic of his prayer. For these reasons, Caleb and Joshua were right that the people of the land had become terrified of the Israelites because they knew that their powerful God was with them. Numbers 14:9 (KJB). 

Moses then changed his prayer, and he began to remind God that He was longsuffering, forgiving, and merciful. Moses begged God to forgive the iniquity of His people. God answered Moses that He would forgive His people because of Moses' prayer. Numbers 14:17-20 (KJB). If God forgave His rebellious people because of Moses' prayer, then surely God will answer the prayer of His Son on the cross that He should forgive the entire human race for their sins and evil that nailed Jesus to the cross. Luke 23:34 (KJB). God's Power, His Love, and His Intellect are Almighty, and He has devised a way to bring the entire human race to repentance and faith in His Son as their Savior. When God forgives, He also saves His people from eternal death, some by His grace and all others when He visits them in the end of the world. I Corinthians 13:8; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). 

The Israelites who died in the wilderness because of their lack of faith represent all humans who hear the gospel but fail to repent and become saved by grace. Those Israelites who entered and conquered the promised land represent all humans who become saved by God's grace. God gives them special blessings, but He also commands them to fight against sin and evil. The nations who were not Israelites represent all of the people of the world who have never heard that God is merciful and that Jesus can save them. But God gave Moses a prophecy that "all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." Numbers 14:21; Matthew 6:10; Isaiah 66:18; Habakkuk 2:14; Isaiah 45:21-25; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). When Jesus prayed that His Father's will be the same on earth as it is in Heaven, then He had to have meant that His father would save the entire human race with a higher or lesser form of salvation. Matthew 6:10; II Peter 3:9; I Timothy 2:3-4; I Timothy 4:10; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB).    

Some Reasons to Believe

                                   Some Reasons to Believe

All of Jesus' disciples, except one, were basically good and decent men before they ever met Jesus. They were hardworking fishermen who obviously took good care of their families. Matthew 4:18-22 (KJB). The tax collector Matthew had obviously become sick of his own greed because when Jesus called him to follow Him, he left all of that money on a table and immediately got up and followed Jesus. Luke 5:27-28 (KJB). Jesus recognized Nathanael who came to follow Him as having "no guile." John 1:44 (KJB). Jesus knew that Nathanael was a decent and honest man. Yet, every one of Jesus' disciples, except Judas Iscariot, knew as soon as they had met Him that they needed Jesus. They recognized themselves as sinners in need of a perfect man who could lead them to become acceptable with God. Luke 5:1-11 (KJB). No doubt God can save even the evilest humans. He saved Saul of Tarsus. But the majority of humans saved by grace are basically good and decent people before they ever repent and trust in Christ to save them from their sins. The reason for this is that honest people tend to be honest with themselves, and that means when they hear the gospel, they recognize themselves as being sinners before God who need a Savior. For this reason, salvation by grace can run in families for generations. But cruel and dishonest people often actually believe that they are basically good people, and that believe gives them too much pride to ever realize that they are sinners in need of a Savior. Most of the women who followed Jesus were also good and decent persons before they met Jesus. Luke 10:38-42 (KJB). But Jesus had cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene. Mark 16:9 (KJB). 

Everyone knows that a deluded person devoted to some cult can make up false stories about miracles that they claim that their false teachers have performed. But everyone also knows that no group of decent and honest people will conspire together to make up false stories about miracles performed by their preacher or Sunday school teacher. The followers of Jesus, who were mostly good and honest people, would never have conspired together to make up false stories about the miracles that they saw Jesus perform. They would certainly have never made up a story that Jesus rose from the dead and stick to that story even to being put to death for it. 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                       Numbers 11:1-3 KJB

The Israelites began to complain to God as they wandered in the wilderness because they had only manna to eat that God had provided for them.  Numbers 11:6 (KJB). Many of them actually desired to go back to slavery in Egypt because there they had a lot of different foods to eat. Numbers 11:4-5 (KJB). They were tired of manna, and they were tired of being free. They were no longer grateful to God for liberating them from slavery in Egypt. They failed to consider that having freedom with a little is much better that having a lot in slavery. Freedom allows a person, even if they start with very little, to make choices for the future that will greatly enrich their lives and cause them too maybe find some happiness in life. But slavery, even if one has a lot, stultifies a person's life and causes them too never be creative with their life. Yet, many people prefer a dull and empty life in slavery if someone will just take care of them. 

God's fiery wrath became kindled against those rebels on the outskirts of the camp, and His fiery wrath consumed some of them. Those rebels tended to be on the outskirts of the camp because they lagged behind when the people moved so that they could find a chance to separate themselves from the camp and head back to Egypt. But when Moses prayed for them, God quenched His fiery wrath. The prayers of a Godly person avails much with God. James 5:16 (KJB). Nothing incurs the fiery wrath of God like the evil of rebellion. Ezekiel 28:13-19 (KJB). Moses pleased God with his display of love for his people. God also loves His people, and His love prompted Moses to pray for his people. 

God consumed those rebels with His fiery wrath, but that does not mean that God will forever destroy that part of their nature that He created and loves. Genesis 1:26-27; Ecclesiastes 3:14 (KJB). How God dealt with Lucifer set the pattern for how He will deal with all human rebels. God used His fiery wrath to dissolve Lucifer's being so that God could recover all of the good elements that He had put into Lucifer's system. God would then be able to exile Satan to earth as a completely empty and evil being. Ezekiel 28:13-19 (KJB). God intends to dissolve the beings of all His humans that He ever created so that He can recover and recreate their good natures that have been soiled by sin and evil and either annul their dead and evil natures or consign their dead and evil natures to an eternal lake of fire. Psalm 75:3; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15 (KJB). God will dissolve the inner beings of all living humans who become saved by His grace by washing them clean of all sins and evil with the blood that Jesus shed for them on the cross and by annulling their dead and evil natures. John 5:24; I John 1:7 (KJB). God will also use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve the beings of every one of His living humans whom He had to consign to the regions of death, and He will recover and recreate their repentant, good and living natures that He created and loves, and He will consign their dead and evil natures to the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 20:11-15 (KJB). 

Psalm 36:6 informs that God will preserve man and beast. How long does God preserve something? Mark 9:49-50; Matthew 3:10-12; Luke 20:38; II Peter 3:9-13; II Timothy 4:1; I Timothy 2:4 (KJB). Can anything thwart the will of God? 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                         Numbers 9:15-16 KJB

A cloud covered the Tabernacle of the Israelites during the daytime. The cloud symbolized the presence of God. Whenever the cloud moved from off the Tabernacle, the Israelites had to follow the cloud wherever it went, and they had to rest in their tents wherever the cloud stopped moving, and they had to erect the Tabernacle wherever the cloud stopped. The cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the Israelites had to remain at that place even for months. All of this symbolized the fact that all followers of God must move when He says move, and they must rest when He says rest. 

The daytime symbolizes God engaged in creative work with His people following Him. In the six days of creation, God created during the daytime, and the evening, and the morning completed each day.  Genesis 1:3-5 (KJB). Jesus taught that God does His creative work in the daytime, but humans do not work at night. John 9:3-5 (KJB). Nighttime and darkness symbolize humans at play committing sinful and evil acts. Proverbs 2:12-14; Matthew 27:45 (KJB). 

But at night in the Tabernacle, the appearance of fire burned until the morning. This appearance of fire symbolized that God uses His fiery wrath against evil to utterly destroy all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil. While it is true that God, in the Old Testament, sometimes used His fiery wrath against evil to kill evil humans, that does not mean that they will be permanently dead. God creates all humans in His image to be good and creative, and God can never lose to darkness anything He has ever created. Genesis 1:26-27; Ecclesiastes 3:14 (KJB). Just as God led all of the Israelites during the daytime, God's Love cannot fail, and He knows exactly how to save and restore to His Light all of His good and living humans confined to the regions of death or on the earth in the end of the world. I Corinthians 13:8; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 21:22-27; Revelation 22:11-12 (KJB). According to Revelation 21:22-27, all living humans on the earth will walk in the light of the city of God, but only living humans saved by grace will be allowed to live in the New Jerusalem. God promised in Revelation 21:5: "Behold, I make all things new." That promise can only mean that God will save and recreate everything that He ever created, including all of His living humans, by purging it all of all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil by the use of His fiery wrath against evil. II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                          Leviticus 6:18 KJB

A man or a woman could make a vow to be a Nazarite before the Lord. The name of this vow was prophetic because Jesus would be raised to adulthood in the city of Nazareth. Matthew 2:23 (KJB). Just as Jesus was pure and holy, the Nazarite vow happened to be an attempt by an ordinary sinner to be pure and holy before God. The Nazarite could not be pure and holy, but they could make that attempt. The attempt itself happened to be prophetic that the human race needed a human to come to them who would be pure and holy. 

The Nazarite took several vows that they thought would help them to be pure and holy. One of those vows was that they would never let a razor cut their hair. Long hair was a sign to God and others that they were a Nazarite. The Apostle Paul wrote that it was a shame for a man to have long hair, but he did not say that it was a sin. I Corinthians 11:14 (KJB). He probably meant hair that was as long as a woman's hair. The Apostle Paul was always concerned with any appearance to others that might detract from a Christian's witness. I Corinthians 10:31 (KJB). 

Moses, who wrote Numbers, indicated that a day would come in the life of a Nazarite when he or she would realize that they could not be pure and holy before God. On that day, the Nazarite had to bring a sin offering and a burnt offering to the priest who would sacrifice them so that God would forgive the Nazarite for their sins. Many people seem to believe that they can be right with God simply because they try to be a good person, but a day will come when God will make them realize that they cannot avoid sin, and that they need to repent and put their trust in Christ their Savior who was pure and holy for them, and who has made a sin offering and a burnt offering for their salvation. All living humans still alive in the flesh who repent and accept Christ as their Savior will be forever saved by being washed clean of all their sins and evil with the blood that Jesus shed on the cross. Matthew 26:28; I John 1:7 (KJB). But Jesus will forever save the rest of humanity with His burnt offering sacrifice when He visits them "on the earth, and under the earth," and He causes them all to repent and come to faith in Him as their Savior so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to separate their repentant, living souls and spirits from their dead and evil natures so that He can recreate their souls and spirits with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth, and He will cast their dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). Jesus will make them realize that they are sinners when they die, and He has to judge them and send their souls and spirits to one of the regions of death, the Sea, Death, or the burning Hell. Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:13 (KJB). 

When the Nazarite came to the realization that he or she was a sinner, and they could not make themselves pure and holy before God, then they had to give up their vow of separation from sin and evil. They had to shave their heads because that symbol of their separation had now become a symbol of their sins and evil. They had to burn their hair in the fires of the peace offering at the Tabernacle to symbolize that they had now found peace with God. Only the separated hair of the Nazarite was burned. Numbers 6:18 (KJB). When Jesus died on the cross, He dismissed His Spirit who descended into Hell to make a burnt offering sacrifice for all living humans who do not become saved by grace. The Spirit left behind there all of the sins and evil of all living humans that Jesus bore on the cross who did not become saved by His grace. Psalms 16:9-11; Acts 2:25-31 (KJB). Jesus will visit all of those living humans in the end of the world, and He will cause them all to repent and believe in Him as their Savior so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to separate their dead and evil natures from their good and living natures that He created and loves. Christ will recreate their repentant souls and spirits with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth, and He will cast their dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Christ will burn only their sins and evil natures, not any of His living humans who are forever alive to Him and whom He can never lose. Luke 20:38; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB).