The Fiery Wrath of God

                             I Samuel 30:1-14 KJB

For every good work that God does, the Devil has an evil counterpart. God uses His fiery wrath to destroy evil, and the Devil uses his fiery wrath to destroy goodness. The Devil used the Amalekites, who were the greatest haters of the Jews until the Nazis, to invade David's city in Judah called Ziklag and burn it with fire. They took all of the people captives including David's two wives. Often, when the Devil uses his fire to burn a city, he does not have his minions to directly kill the good people, but the Devil has them taken captive so that they can be raped and tortured before being killed. The Nazis burned many of the Jews' houses, and they forced the Jews to ride in closed box cars to the extermination camps, and they selected the pretty girls to be kept and raped. 

When David and his army returned to Ziklag from the field, they became very distressed and dismayed because their wives and children were all gone. Their despair was even greater than if they had found their people killed because they knew that the enemy had taken their people captive so they could torture them before they killed them. The Devil has his evil armies to do such cruel acts in order to cause such deep despair among good people that they will give up on fighting back against evil because they will wrongly conclude that evil cannot be defeated. David's army wanted to stone him because even good people feel that if they lose a fight with evil, they often blame their leaders for their loss. 

But David's faith did not fail. David had his priest to pray to the Lord about what he should do. The Lord promised David that if he and his army pursued after the Amalekites, they would recover all that was taken from them. When the good people of Europe and America fought the fascists and Nazis in WWII, they were greatly encouraged by their leaders' prayers for victory. David and his army pursued after the Amalekites, defeated them, and recovered all of their wives and children and all of their spoil. I Samuel 30:1-31 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                             I Samuel 2:28 KJB

In the last days of the judges in Israel, Eli was the high priest in the Tabernacle of the Lord. Although Eli was faithful to the Lord, he failed in his service to God because he allowed his two sons to become corrupt, and he did nothing to stop them. Eli's two sons failed to make proper burnt offering sacrifices to God in accordance with God's instructions, and they seduced some of the women who came to the Tabernacle to worship God. I Samuel 2:12-17; I Samuel 2:22 (KJB). 

A man of God visited Eli in his old age and gave him some warnings from God. He told Eli that God had appointed His priests from the tribe of Levi to make the sin offerings and the burnt offerings for the forgiveness of the sins of God's people. But Eli's sons had profaned these sacrifices by taking the best of them for themselves. God will honor those who honor Him, and He will disown anyone who despises Him. For this reason, God has the right to make anyone who honors Him a priest. The man of God prophesied that God would soon kill Eli's two sons, and He would appoint a faithful priest to take their place. I Samuel 2:27-36 (KJB). 

God called Samuel to be His adopted priest and prophet from the tribe of Ephraim. Samuel was faithful to God as a priest and prophet in Israel, but the people decided that they wanted a king to rule over them. I Samuel 8:21-22 (KJB). 

God appointed His Son Jesus "a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." Psalm 110:1-4 (KJB). This high priest had the power and the right to offer Himself as a sin offering and a burnt offering for the salvation of all of His people whom He created to be little gods; that is, whom He created in His image. John 10:34-36; Psalm 82:6; Genesis 1:26-27; Hebrews 7:11-28. (KJB). Hebrews 7:26-27 teaches that Jesus made both the sin offering and the burnt offering for the forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 7:25 teaches that Jesus will save anyone who comes to Him. They do not have to be alive in the flesh. Romans 10:13 teaches that Christ will save anyone who calls on Him for salvation. They do not have to be alive in the flesh. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He proved that He could save those who believe in Him even if they are physically dead. John 11:25 (KJB). By contrast, Jesus also taught that those who are alive in the flesh who believe in Him will never have to go to one of the regions of death when they die. John 11:26 (KJB). Jesus "taketh away the sin of the world," not just of those alive in the flesh. John 1:29 (KJB). In the Old Testament, both the sin offering and the burnt offering were made for the forgiveness of sins. Leviticus 5:5-10 (KJB). Jesus made the sin offering for those who become saved by His grace, and His Spirit made the burnt offering for the salvation of the rest of humanity, but with a lesser form of salvation. John 5:24; Acts 2:25-31 (KJB). 

Jesus is prophet, priest, and king. Hebrews 7:1-3 (KJB). As king of the world, Jesus has the right to judge the world. But Jesus has reserved His right to judge unbelievers until the end of the world. John 12:47-48 (KJB). Jesus judged only the Devil and all evil while He suffered on the cross. John 12:31-32 (KJB). Jesus will call all humans whom He ever created back to faith in Him as their Savior because He came to save the world. John 12:32; John 12:47 (KJB). Jesus' Spirit made the burnt offering sacrifice that will save from eternal death all of His living humans who do not become saved by His grace. Psalm 16:9-11; Acts 2:25-31 (KJB). In the end of the world, Christ will appear to all of His living humans whom He created to be good who are on the earth and confined to the regions of death. Genesis 1:31; Hebrews 9:27 (KJB). Because they retain that good nature, they will have the ability to return to faith and repentance toward Christ and be forever saved from eternal death. Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). They will all repent and believe, and Christ will then use His fiery wrath against evil to purge them of all evil and spiritual death which He will then cast into the lake of fire. He will then recreate their separated, good natures with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth. II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). Unbelievers are totally evil and cannot repent, but Christ will use His fiery wrath to purge this unbelief from His repentant, good humans, and He will cast all unbelievers into the eternal lake of fire. Matthew 12:31-32 (KJB). 

God has made every living human saved by His grace a priest who, because of the intercession of Christ, can talk directly with God at any time. I Peter 2:9-10; Romans 8:34 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                              Judges 20:48 KJB

All of the tribes of Israel went to war with the tribe of Benjamin because a group of evil men in that tribe had raped and murdered two women, and the rulers of the tribe of Benjamin refused to deliver up the men for judgment who had committed this terrible crime. Judges 20:12-13 (KJB). In addition, the husband of one of the women had cut her dead body into twelve pieces and had sent those pieces to the twelve tribes. All of this darkness and evil caused by the Devil brought a kind of madness to all the people of Israel who responded by going to a civil war with the people of Benjamin. Judges 20:1-17 (KJB). Sometimes in the history of humanity, the Devil becomes able to inflict a terrible, dark evil on the minds of large numbers of people, and he will cause them to afflict each other with cruel crimes. This often happens in revolutions and in such events as the Salem witch trials. Stories of dark crimes, such as cutting a woman into twelve pieces, often makes the madness much worse. Hitler's lies about awful crimes that the Jews did not commit made the madness of the Nazi revolution much worse. These types of insane events cannot seem to stop until some people come to their senses and ask the question, "What are we doing?" 

Just as people who are addicted to certain sins must hit rock bottom before they realize that they must either die or get right with God, so when insanity grips large numbers of people, then they must do their worst to each other before some of them begin to come to their senses. God knows this, and so He allowed these armies to defeat each other in several battles until only 600 men were left of the tribe of Benjamin. Judges 20:14-47 (KJB). God also allowed the armies of Israel to burn the cities of Benjamin because God knows that His fiery wrath purges evil, and when evil is purged, then humans caught in madness will begin to return to their senses. Judges 20:48 (KJB). 

The armies of Israel began to return to their senses when they realized that they were on the verge of the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin. To remedy that condition, they concocted various ways to supply the 600 men of Benjamin who were trapped in the rock of Rimmon with wives so that they could multiply and save the tribe of Benjamin from genocide. Judges 21:1-25 (KJB). 

All of sin and evil is a type of madness, but in the end of the world, Christ will visit all of His living humans on the earth and confined to the regions of death, and He will cause them all to return to the sanity of faith in Him as their Savior so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to purge all sin and evil from every one of them in order to save them from extermination by the Devil. Christ will then recreate their repentant, living 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; II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 22:11-12; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; John 5:28-29 (KJB).  

The Fiery Wrath of God

           Judges 14:15 Judges 15:4-5 Judges 15:6 (KJB)

Evil people will use any cruel method that they see fit to get what they want. They have no qualms about inflicting pain on innocent people. God's enemies threatened to burn Samson's wife's and her father's house just so they could win a bet with Samson.

When Samson's wife's father took her away from Samson and gave her to one of his companions, Samson was grieved, and he decided to take revenge on the Philistines because he knew that his enemies had  induced  his wife's father to take her away from him. So, Samson caught 300 foxes and attached firebrands to their tails, and he turned them loose into the wheat fields and vineyards of the Philistines and burnt them. Although Samson had decided to do this on his own, God allowed him to do it because God, being Holy, has every right to use His fiery wrath to punish evildoers for their evil deeds. God often uses the same methods that evildoers use, but He does that for righteous purposes. 

When the Philistines heard that Samson had burnt their fields, they were evidently afraid to directly confront Samson. So, they burned Samson's wife's and father's house with them in it and murdered them even though they had enticed her father to take her away from Samson. When Samson heard of this very cruel and evil deed, he began to kill the Philistines by the thousands. But God was working through the mighty strength of Samson to kill His, and His people's enemies.

Just like Samson burnt the fields of the Philistines, in the end of the world, God will burn His entire creation to purge it of all evil and the Devil, and He will recreate it all, including all of His living humans that He created in His image, to be righteous. II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 21:1-5; Luke 20:38 (KJB). Since God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," then God will make sure that all of His living humans will come to repentance because His Will cannot be thwarted. II Peter 3:9; I Timothy 2:4; I Corinthians 3:11-15; I Corinthians 4:5; II Timothy 4:1; Revelation 5:11-14. (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                Judges 12:1 KJB

Jephthah was the son of a harlot and when his father's sons were grown, they cast Jephthah out of their family, and he became an outcast. He had no way to feed himself, and so he formed a band of outlaws that lived by force. Apparently, he gained a reputation as a good leader and a good fighter with a sword. Jephthah's father's name was Gilead, and apparently, that family had become so prominent in that region that the people of that land called themselves Gileadites. Judges 11:1-3 (KJB). 

The Gileadites heard that the Ammonites had formed an army to make war against Israel. The elders of Gilead realized that they needed a good leader and fighter to form an army to fight against Ammon. So, they went to Jephthah who lived in a land called Tob, and they asked him to come and be their leader and form an army to fight against Ammon. Jephthah asked them why they wanted him to be their leader since they had cast him out of their land. The elders replied that the needed him. So, Jephthah forgave his people, and he agreed to come to them, and be their leader in their fight with Ammon. Jephthah had every reason to hate his people and refuse to be their leader, and yet he forgave them and agreed to their request. Even though he had been an outcast and an outlaw, Jephthah forgave his people because he believed in God. God had control of Jephthah's heart. Judges 11:4-11 (KJB). 

Jephthah desired to make peace with Ammon. Ammon claimed that they wanted to take back the land that Israel had taken from them. Jephthah wrote letters to the king of Ammon, and he explained to him that while the Israelites had taken any land that God had told them to take, they had not taken any land from Ammon. Besides that, Jephthah wrote, the Israelites had lived in the land that Ammon claimed for 300 years which certainly would make it their land. The king of Ammon probably knew that Jephthah's history was correct, but he rejected Jephthah's peace proposal and went to war because of his greed for the land of Israel. God can use even outlaws if their heart is right with God. God caused Jephthah to be a peacemaker. Matthew 5:9; Judges 11:12-28 (KJB). The Spirit of God came upon Jephthah just before he went to battle with the Ammonites. That probably meant that God had saved Jephthah by His grace. Judges 11:29 (KJB). God gives His salvation by His grace to any person He chooses who has faith in Him. Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJB). 

Jephthah and the Gileadites gained a great victory over the Ammonites because God was with them. Judges 11:32-33 (KJB).

Apparently, the people of Gilead dwelt among the Ephraimites, and they came with an army and threatened to burn down Jephthah's house because they claimed he had not called them to the battle. Jephthah replied that he had called them to the battle, and they had ignored him. The real reason that the Ephraimites wanted to burn Jephthah's house and make war with the Gileadites was that the Gileadites were now a people with their own land, and the Ephraimites desired to take it back under their control. They were also jealous of the victory of the Gileadites over Ammon. The Gileadites then gained a great victory over the Ephraimites in battle. Judges 12:1-7 (KJB). 

This story proves that God uses people who have faith in Him to tell the truth and desire peace, but God will also use His fiery wrath in war against the fiery wrath of evil people who lie and use greed and jealousy to get what they want. 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                               Judges 9:15,20,52 KJB

Sometimes, a group of basically good people will select a murderous criminal to be their leader because they mistake his pretense of being a strong man with his being a wise leader. These evil leaders have a talent for persuasion. They convince the people that they have a certain group of enemies that if they allow the evil ruler to get rid of, then the people will be liberated from their threat, and they will have a better life. Such evil leaders will appoint other evil men to authority in every position in their society to protect themselves from the good people who will sooner or later realize that they are being led by criminals. Too often good people also happen to be naive. The Bible records that an evil man named Abimelech convinced the people of the city of Shechem that he should be their king because the seventy sons of Gideon were their enemies. The people gave him money which he used to hire other evil men to follow him. He and his evil followers then murdered seventy of Gideon's sons who were actually his own half- brothers.  Judges 9:1-6 (KJB).

But one of the sons of Gideon named Jotham escaped from this slaughter and from a safe distance he shouted out a prophetic parable to the people of Shechem. Jotham related that the trees, which symbolized a society, asked two fruit bearing trees and a grape vine to be their kings. Being bearers of fruit, they symbolized good people, but they all refrained from being leaders because they just wanted to tend to their own business. Too often, good people reject being leaders because politics can be an ugly business. Jotham further related that then the trees asked a worthless bramble, which symbolized Abimelech, to be their king. The bramble replied that he would be their king if they would "trust in my shadow" which meant he would provide no real protection for them. But if they made him king, and then rejected him, he would burn them with fire which meant he would slaughter as many of them as needed in order to stay in power. Judges 9:7-21 (KJB). God sometimes uses His fiery wrath to temporarily kill evil people, and even good people who serve them, but, in the end of the world, He will cause all of their good natures to repent and return to faith in Him as their Savior because He created them all in His image, and they all belong to Him. Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 1:31; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). But the Devil also has his fiery wrath which he uses to kill good people in the hope that they will remain dead for eternity. But God can never lose anything He has ever created. Genesis 2:17; Romans 7:23-25; Ecclesiastes 3:14 (KJB). 

Jotham reminded the people of Shechem that his father, Gideon, had liberated them from the tyranny of the Midianites, and therefore, his sons should have been their leaders, but they allowed Abimelech to kill them all except for him. Jotham then sarcastically appealed to their conscience when he told them that if they had been right in making Abimelech their king, they should rejoice over it. Jotham then made a prophecy which is universally true. He prophesied that evil leaders will often raise up followers who will fight will each other for dominance in their societies. This is an evil fire that comes from the Devil. Jotham's prophecy came true because Abimelech had to go to war with other evil leaders who desired to take his place. Abimelech used the fire of the Devil to kill a lot of people. Finally, Abimelech used fire to burn the door of a tower that held some of his enemies, but a woman threw down a millstone that mortally wounded Abimelech. He knew he was dying but being too proud to have been killed by a woman, he ordered his amourbearer to finish him off with his sword. God sometimes gets tired of the fire of the Devil, and God will use other means to kill evil people, sometimes in ways that humiliate them. Judges 9:22-57 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                Judges 6:21 KJB

From time to time in the history of mankind whenever the people of God became few in number, and the darkness of evil became predominant, and the light of God's Word seemed to be on the verge of being put out for good, then God moved among His faithful people, and He caused them to rise up and fight against evil and win great victories even though greatly outnumbered. Noah and his family fought against evil by obeying God and building an Ark that saved them from the great flood that God used to destroy all evil people from the world. Genesis 6:8-14 (KJB). In the days of Elijah when God's people were few, and a man named Obadiah, who had kept his faith in God a secret, hid a hundred prophets in a cave to keep the evil king Ahab and his evil queen Jezebel from killing them, God raised up His prophet Elijah who gained a great victory over evil and caused a renewal of faith among God's people. I Kings 18:1-41 (KJB). When a small number of God's people returned to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon, they won a great victory over evil. Most of God's people remained in Babylon and lost their faith. Ezra 1:1-5 (KJB). 

In almost every example of when God saved a small number of His people from extinction by evil, He either had them to make a burnt offering or He made one Himself. God commanded Noah to make a burnt offering sacrifice after the great flood. Genesis 8:20-21 (KJB). God sent fire from Heaven to burn the sacrifice that Elijah had made to turn God's people back to faith in Him. I Kings 18:30-41 (KJB). When a small number of God's people returned to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon where they may have turned to other gods and been lost from God's protection forever, the priests built an altar and made many burnt sacrifices. Ezra 3:1-3 (KJB). King Hezekiah started a great revival among God's people in Jerusalem, and he had the priests to make many sin offerings and burnt offerings to the Lord. II Chronicles 29:20-36 (KJB). Shortly thereafter, the king of Assyria invaded with a mighty army and conquered most of Judah, and he trapped a small number of God's people in Jerusalem where he threatened to extinguish God's people and faith in God forever from the earth. But the prophet Isaiah and king Hezekiah and the people remained faithful, and God sent an angel to utterly destroy that evil army. II Chronicles 32:21 (KJB). In the time of the Judges, when most of God's people had begun to worship false gods, God allowed the Midianites to dominate the Israelites and impoverish them, and God's faithful people were few in number. Then an angel, who was actually the Lord Himself, appeared to a man named Gideon and called him to lead God's people in revolt. Judges 6:1-17 (KJB). Gideon then killed a kid and made unleavened bread and a broth, and he brought them to the Lord. The Lord commanded Gideon to put the kid and the unleavened cakes on a rock and pour the broth on them. The Lord then touched this offering with His staff, and a fire rose up and consumed this offering. This was a burnt offering. Judges 6:18-24 (KJB). God then had Gideon to lead an army of only 300 men to defeat a vast multitude of the Midianites. Judges 7:16-25 (KJB). 

All of this can only mean that the sin offering, and the burnt offering, had great, but different, symbolic meanings for God's salvation of His people. God gave the sin offering to Adam and Eve and the Israelites to symbolize that God's Messiah would shed His blood to save some of God's people by His grace. Genesis 3:20-21 (KJB). But God gave the burnt offering to Noah and the Israelites for a different reason. God told Noah, and all who read the Bible, that the next time He destroys evil from the earth, He will use His fiery wrath, but He will utterly destroy only evil itself, and He will recreate all of His creation, including all living humans, whom He creates in His image, to be righteous. Genesis 1:26-27; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). God made Eve the mother of all living humans which can only mean that they all belong to Him which makes them all His people no matter how evil they may become. Luke 20:38; Psalm 82:6; John 10:34-35; Genesis 3:20 (KJB). In the end of the world, the Messiah will appear to all of His living humans, whom He did not save by His grace, 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 to dissolve their beings to separate their living natures for Him to recreate from their dead and evil natures that He will cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:11-15; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; John 5:28-29; Psalm 75:3; Psalm 36:6 (KJB). God made this promise to Noah and to all of humanity that when He burns the earth, He will never "again smite;" that is, permanently kill any of His living humans that He creates and loves. Genesis 8:20-21 (KJB). God can never lose anything He has ever created. It all comes back to Him to be cleansed and recreated. Romans 11:36 (KJB). God promised in Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I make all things new." That can only mean that He will thoroughly purge all evil from His entire creation so that He can recreate it all to be righteous, including all of His living humans whom He will return to faith in Him. Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 8:18-25; Colossians 1:15-23; I Corinthians 15:20-26; John 5:28-29; II Peter 3:9-13; I Timothy 4:10 (KJB).