The Fiery Wrath of God

                         II Chronicles 7:1-3 KJB

King Solomon built a great Temple for the glory of God in Jerusalem, and he made a pious dedication service for it. As the leader of worship in this service, Solomon prayed for his people that when they sinned and turned from faith in God, that if they would turn their faces toward the Temple and repent, then Solomon knew that God would forgive them. II Chronicles 6:1-42 (KJB). 

When Solomon had ended his prayer, the fire of God fell from Heaven and consumed the burnt offering that was apparently on the altar. When the people saw that, they fell on their faces and worshipped God. II Chronicles 7:1-3 (KJB). In the Old Testament, whenever burnt sacrifices were offered, God sometimes burnt them Himself. Judges 6:21; I Kings 8:18-38; I Chronicles 21:26; Leviticus 19:24 (KJB). When He did this, God's purpose seemed to be that He desired to cause His people to repent and return to faith in Him as the only God. Judges 6:24-26; I Kings 18:39; I Chronicles 21:27; Leviticus 9:24 (KJB). Whenever God's fire burnt the burnt offering, that symbolized that God will only burn His enemies, and He will always cause His people to repent and worship Him so that He can save them all alive. God sometimes used His fiery wrath to burn His enemies, but they were not His people. They were rebels who symbolized total evil. Leviticus 10:1-2; Numbers 16:31-35; II Kings 1:8-12 (KJB). 

God, the Father, had the preeminence in the Old Testament just as Jesus Christ had the preeminence when He was on the earth, and the Holy Spirit has the preeminence in this Age of Grace. The Father did not seem to have a desire to have a close, spiritual relationship with every one of His believers as does the Holy Spirit in the Church Age. The Father did seem to have somewhat of a spiritual relationship with some of His priests, His true prophets, and some of the best kings of Israel and Judah. As a result, the Father tended to cause His people to repent and return to faith in Him by His use of outward miracles that everyone could see. Jesus preferred to use both outward and inward miracles. He healed and He saved by His grace. The Holy Spirit prefers to use mostly inward miracles such as saving people by His grace. The Trinity has always been united, but in the end of the world, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will equally share the preeminence in God's desire to use His fiery wrath to purge the world of all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil, and Christ's desire to cause all of His living humans to repent and return to faith in Him, and the Holy Spirit's desire that all of God's people enjoy a spiritual relationship with God. God's people are every human whom He ever created in His image and whom He loves. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27; Psalm 82:6; John 10:34-36 (KJB). The Father will use His fiery wrath against evil to thoroughly purge the Heaven and the earth of all vestiges of sin and evil so that He can save all of His people from eternal death. Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve the beings of all of His living humans not already saved by His grace so that He can recreate their living natures and consign their dead and evil natures to the eternal lake of fire. The Holy Spirit, who will have already filled God's people saved by grace with His Spirit, will give His Spirit to all the rest of repentant humanity so that they can enjoy righteous lives on God's recreated earth. God will burn all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil, not any of His living humans because He will cause them all to repent. II Peter 3:9-13; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 3:15; Genesis 3:20-21; Genesis 8:20-21; Luke 20:38; Hebrews 2:9-18; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 15:20-28; I Timothy 4:10; Joel 2:28-29; I John 3:8 (KJB).   

The Fiery Wrath of God

                         I Chronicles 21:26-27 KJB

Because king David had disobeyed God, God sent an angel who used his sword to destroy a part of Jerusalem. But God stopped the angel when he got to the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. I Chronicles 21:15-16 (KJB). King David then prayed that God would punish him alone for his sin and that he would leave his people alone. King David was willing to sacrifice himself for his people. I Chronicles 21:16-17 (KJB). This was probably the reason why God loved David so much because he, like God's own Son, was willing to sacrifice himself. The angel then commanded the prophet Gad to tell king David to build an altar to God on this threshingfloor. I Chronicles 21:18-19 (KJB). King David then bought this threshingfloor from Ornan for 600 pieces of gold. I Chronicles 21:20-25 (KJB). 

King David then built an altar there and made peace offerings and burnt offerings on it. The peace offerings were another name for the sin offerings, but even the peace offerings were followed by a burnt offering. Leviticus 3:1-17 (KJB). King David did not even have to lite the burnt offering because God sent fire from Heaven to consume the burnt offering. I Chronicles 21:26 (KJB). 

God then commanded the angel to put his sword back into its sheath because God had evidently become satisfied that the proper sacrifices had been made, and therefore, His anger had become assuaged. God had done this before. God had an angel to make a burnt offering sacrifice for Gideon, and God had made a burnt offering sacrifice for Elijah. Judges 6:21; I Kings 18:38 (KJB). Clearly, the sin offerings and the burnt offerings were different, but both had the same result. With the sin offering, the wrath of God symbolically fell on the sacrificed animal, and after its blood was shed, God became satisfied that the proper sacrifice had been made, and God forgave the sins. Christ sacrificed Himself on a cross and shed His blood and water to forgive humans and save them by His grace. Matthew 26:28; John 5:24 (KJB). With the burnt offering, the internal organs, the meat, and the bones of the sacrificed animal were completely burned which symbolically means that God's wrath falls on evil itself, and when the clean ashes are preserved for God's recreation, then God is satisfied and the sins are forgiven. Leviticus 5:7-10; Leviticus 6:8-13 (KJB). When Jesus died on the cross, He sent His Spirit to Hell to leave behind there all of the sins and evil of the rest of humanity so that He could rise from the regions of death to reanimate the perfect body of Jesus so that He could rise from the dead with a complete and absolute victory over all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil. Psalm 16:9-11; Acts 2:25-31; I Peter 3:18 (KJB). In the end of the world, Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil, which the burnt offerings symbolize, to dissolve the beings of all humans not already saved by grace, so that He can separate their repentant, good and living natures from their dead and evil natures so that, like the clean ashes, He can recreate their good and living natures that He created to live forever on His recreated earth, and He will cast their separated, dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire which is the eternal, consuming fire of God that utterly destroys all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil. Hebrews 12:29; II Peter 3:9-13; Deuteronomy 32:22; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). 

God does not win partial victories. Christ will utterly crush the head of the Devil, and He will save all that He has created from all evil, and He will recreate it all to be righteous, including all living humans that He creates. God gave the burnt offering to Noah as a prophecy that he will use His fiery wrath to purge His world and destroy all evil, but He will never again "smite," that is, permanently kill any of His living humans whom He creates and loves. Genesis 8:20-21; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 3:15; Genesis 3:20-21; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Psalm 111:7-8; Psalm 75:3; Luke 3:6; Romans 11:36; I Timothy 4:10; I John 3:8; II Peter 3:9-13; Luke 20:38; II Timothy 1:10; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12 (KJB).  

The Fiery Wrath of God

                           I Chronicles 14:12 KJB

King David loved God with all his heart, and God honored him for it. But king David had many wives which could only have been an adulterous situation since God only allows one man to have one wife. Genesis 2:23-25 (KJB). But when king David had a man murdered so that he could have his wife, that happened to be a cruel and evil act that angered God, and so God severely punished king David for this sin and evil. But God also knew that when He sent His prophet Nathan to make king David aware of how evil He had been, that King David's love for Him would cause him to repent. II Samuel 12:1-23 (KJB). Loving parents often overlook most of the mischievous ways of their children because they get that attitude from God, but when a child does something that is especially wrong, a parent will usually punish that child to correct its bad behavior. God deals with His own children in much of the same way. God expects His children to repent of their sins and evil every day, and He will forgive, but when one of His children falls back into a life of sins and evil, God will punish that person, and sometimes severely, for their correction. I John 1:8-9; Hebrews 12:3-14 (KJB). But just as God knew that king David would repent, God knows that sooner or later He will cause all of His children saved by His grace to repent and return to a deeper love for Him so that He can make them as perfect as is His Son so that He can accept them into Heaven to live with Him there forever. John 17:23-26; Ephesians 5:25-27 (KJB). 

God has found that His direction of His people saved by His grace toward absolute perfection happens to be much easier that His correction of those humans who ignore Him or even hate Him. Just as king David had to often fight against the pagan Philistines, so God expects His people to fight against evil. All unbelievers have their own gods. Just as God had king David to burn the idols of the Philistines, so God has His people to preach the gospel of Christ to unbelievers to burn their gods in their hearts so that they will repent and believe that Christ has suffered and died for them on a cross, and rose from the dead, to save them forever from eternal death that sin and evil causes. Matthew 26:28; John 5:24; John 16:7-9 (KJB). 

Even so, most people who hear the gospel do not repent. But God creates all humans in His image, and He loves them all. Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 1:31 (KJB). God's Almighty Love can never fail, which also means that God can never give up on His desire to save the entire human race from eternal death. I Corinthians 13:8; Hebrews 2:9 (KJB). God is not a quitter. Christ prophesied that He will not judge unbelievers until the end of the world. John 12:47-48 (KJB). In the end of the world, Christ will visit all unbelievers "on the earth, and under the earth," and He will cause them all to repent and return to the faith He put into them when He created them that He is the Lamb of God their Savior. Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 12:3 (KJB). The moment they believe, Christ will use His fiery wrath to dissolve their beings to separate their belief from their unbelief. Psalm 75:3; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). Christ will recreate their believing souls and spirits with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth, and He will cast their unbelieving, dead natures into the eternal lake of fire. II Peter 3:9-13; Matthew 12:31-32; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). Christ will give all humans saved by His grace His own absolute perfection, but Christ will only recreate all other humans with the earthly perfection that He gave to Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, God will save His entire, living human race from sins, evil, eternal death, and the Devil. John 12:31-32; Hebrews 2:9; I John 3:8; I Timothy 4:10 (KJB). 

Good and loving parents could never cast one of their bad and recalcitrant children into a fire. So, a Perfect and Almighty Love could never cast one of His living humans into an eternal lake of fire. But God knows exactly how to return every one of His living humans to faith in Him as their Savior of their own free will. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). God loves all of His living children the same, and all are His children. Psalm 82:6; Psalm 100:5; John 10:33-36; Luke 17:20-21; Luke 20:38; Luke 3:6 (KJB).  

 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                                II Kings 25:9 KJB

After Judah's final defeat by the Babylonians, a servant of the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and burnt God's house and all of the houses in Jerusalem. This was the Devil's fiery wrath against God. To this day, those who hate God think that they can destroy God's work on the earth by burning houses of worship. Actually, God wanted His house to be burned because evil kings of Judah had allowed it to become polluted with idols and with false priests. II Kings 25:9 (KJB). After Jesus threw the moneychangers out of His Temple, one can be sure that they came back after Jesus had ascended. The scribes and priests became very angry with Jesus because no doubt they had some stake in the moneychangers' profits. Mark 11:15-18 (KJB). The Temple of God had become polluted, and so God allowed the Romans to burn it in 70 A.D.

Houses of worship, built by humans, always fail to some extent because they allow sinful and evil people to come into them who refuse to repent. But God can build a Temple where only the pure and holy can worship. Jesus' prophecy in John 2:17-22 (KJB) had a double meaning as many scriptures do. Jesus meant that just as the Jews had caused the destruction of the first Temple, and they would cause the destruction of the second Temple, He would raise up a third Temple that cannot be destroyed. Jesus meant both His own body which is God's Temple, and a future Temple that He will build.  

The first and second Temples symbolized Jesus on the cross who took the sins and evil of the whole human race on Himself. Psalm 22:6; II Corinthians 5:21; I John 2:2 (KJB). The sinful and evil natures of humans and the Devil tried to destroy Jesus on the cross, but through His sacrifice, Jesus destroyed them. Jesus shed His blood and water on the cross to save from eternal death all living humans whom He would save by His grace. Matthew 26:28; John 5:24 (KJB). But when Jesus died on the cross, He sent His Spirit to Hell to leave behind there all of the sins and evil of the rest of humanity so that He could rise from Hell to reanimate the perfect body of Jesus who would rise from the dead with a complete and absolute victory over all sins, evil, spiritual death, and the Devil. Psalm 16:9-11; Acts 2:25-31; Revelation 1:17-18; II Timothy 1:10; I Timothy 4:10; I John 3:8 (KJB). The Holy Spirit has done the work of their salvation, but their salvation cannot be activated until Jesus visits them in the end of the world and returns them to faith in Him as their Savior. Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). When Jesus visits them, He will cause them all to repent and return to the faith He put into them when He created them so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their beings so that He can save their good and living natures to be recreated to live on His recreated earth, and He will cast their separated, dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Habakkuk 2:4; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Luke 3:16-17; Luke 3:6; II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). Thus, the fiery wrath of the Devil always fails, but the fiery wrath of God always succeeds. Hell is the fiery wrath of the Devil, but Christ is the fiery wrath of God. Hebrews 12:29 (KJB).

When God recreates His earth and saves all of His living humans from eternal death, the Jews will not build the third Temple in New Jerusalem. Jesus Himself will build the third Temple in New Jerusalem because it will symbolize His own Being which is the Holy Temple of God. Only pure and holy people will be able to enter this third Temple to worship God. Zechariah 6:12-13; Zechariah 8:1-23; Amos 9:11-15; Acts 15:13-18 (KJB).    

The Fiery Wrath of God

                            II Kings 23:10-11 KJB

King Josiah came to power in Judah after two evil kings had ruled. King Josiah dedicated himself to the service of God. King Josiah thoroughly cleansed all of Judah of all idols, burned everything that had been used in the service of the false gods, and he had all of their priests killed. He also outlawed the terrible practice of the sacrifice of children to these false gods by having them burned in fire. II Kings 23:1-20 (KJB). In ancient Judah, the Devil would often cause evil rulers to take control of the land in their attempts to completely put out the light of God's truth. But when darkness covered the land, God would light it up again by raising up rulers of His people who would revolt against evil and cleanse the land. Romans 5:20 (KJB).

The Devil knows that God has given an inner light to every human He creates. John 1:9 (KJB). God creates every human in His image to be innocent and good. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). Part of human goodness is faith in God which the Devil has subdued by his injection of spiritual death into every human the moment they sin. Genesis 2:17 (KJB). Adam's sin was the first example of this fact. Romans 5:12 (KJB). 

Most children tend to be innocent and good, although they also can sin. The fact that the Devil enjoys having children sacrificed reveals his intention toward the whole human race. The Devil knows that child sacrifice hardens people's hearts because it gives them the idea that if they can just put out God's light in themselves, then they can gain a better life without that hindrance, when, in fact, they will only gain eternal slavery to the Devil. In that day and in this day, child sacrifice reveals the fact that the Devil desires to completely put out the light that God puts into every human, bring absolute darkness into the world, and utterly destroy a part of God's creation, and thereby, prove that God's Love can fail. II Kings 23:10-11 (KJB). 

The Devil will have children burned in a fire or burn them with a saline solution and have them aborted, but God has a fiery wrath of His own. God cannot lose anything He has ever created, and His Love cannot fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8 (KJB). Christ sacrificed Himself on a cross and shed His blood and water to save all humans whom He would save by His grace, but when He died, He sent His Spirit to Hell to accomplish the salvation of the rest of humanity. I Timothy 4:10 (KJB). Jesus' Spirit left behind in Hell all of the sins and evil of the rest of humanity that Jesus bore on the cross so that He could rise immaculate from Hell to reanimate the perfect body of Jesus so that He could rise from the dead having obtained an absolute victory over all sins, evil, the Devil, and spiritual death. John 5:24; I Peter 3:18; Psalm 16:9-11; Acts 2:25-31; I John 3:8; Revelation 1:17-18; I John 2:2 (KJB). Genesis 8:20-21 symbolizes this fiery salvation that Christ has provided for all humans who do not become saved by His grace. In the end of the world, Christ will visit all of these living humans, 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 their beings to separate their good and living natures that He created from their dead and evil natures. He will recreate their repentant, good and living natures 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; Psalm 75:3; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Luke 3:16-17; Luke 3:6; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). 

King Josiah symbolized God Himself when he burned all that was evil, and he saved the lives of the innocent. II Kings 23:10-11 (KJB).  

The Fiery Wrath of God

                       II Kings 21:6 KJB

God gives free will to every normal and intelligent human. For this reason, Godly parents can have children who choose to become evil. King Manasseh became an evil tyrant even though he was the son of a Godly father, king Hezekiah. Manasseh chose to worship idols, and he even put some idols into the house of God, the Temple. II Kings 21:1-5 (KJB). 

Some opponents of God claim that they have no desire to serve God because they say that God is overbearing and domineering. But the truth of the matter is that God has given every normal individual free will which means every person can live whatever life they choose to live, whether a good life, a sinful life, or even an evil life. That God is overbearing is a lie from the Devil. The conviction of the Holy Spirit that their sinful lives are wrong makes them blame God for their guilt. Free humans do not realize that no matter what they do, a merciful God is still in control. The good person brings glory to God because they try to obey God and fight against evil. Genesis 1:31 (KJB). Humans saved by grace bring glory to God because they believe that God's Love caused Him to shed His blood on a cross to wash away their sins and give them the righteousness of Christ Himself so that they can live with Him in Heaven forever. John 5:24; Matthew 26:28; I Peter 1:3-5 (KJB). All humans are sinful, but even a sinful person also brings glory to God because when they hear the gospel about how God's Love and compassion can save them from their sins and evil, they come under the conviction that they are sinful and only God is righteous. John 16:7-10 (KJB). But even the evil person ultimately brings glory to God because every time God defeats evil in the history of the world, and when He completely defeats evil in the end of the world, they will play their part in their demonstration that they were evil to prove that God has the power to completely destroy all evil. Romans 9:14-24 (KJB). 

King Manasseh became so evil that "he made his son pass through the fire." II Kings 21:6 (KJB). In our day, humans will sacrifice their own unborn sons and daughters to ensure that they will have a prosperous life. That is the opposite of love and self-sacrifice. God sent a prophet to king Manasseh to warn him that God would severely punish Judah for the evil that it had allowed. Judah would be turned over to its enemies. Yet, the patience and longsuffering of God allowed Manasseh to live to an old age and die a peaceful death. II Kings 21:10-18. God will wait to make His final judgment until the end of the world. 

Christ will make His final judgment of the "quick and the dead" in the end of the world. II Timothy 4:1; John 12:47-48 (KJB). Christ's final judgment of all humans saved by His grace will be that He will exempt them from a final judgment because He has already annulled their spiritual deaths, and He has given them His own righteousness and eternal life with Him. John 5:24; John 6:40 (KJB). Christ will visit all of His living humans "on the earth, and under the earth," and He will cause all of His living and good humans whom He created in His image to repent and return to faith in Him as the Lamb of God their Savior so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to purge their beings of all sins, evil, and spiritual deaths, and He will recreate them all with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth. Revelation 5:11-14; Matthew 13:36-43; I Corinthians 3:11-15; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). Christ will cast their purged dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15 (KJB). 

All humans can choose to live however they desire to live, but in the end, Christ will cause their good and living natures to choose to repent for the glory of God, and their separated, sinful and evil natures He will cast into the eternal lake of fire for the glory of God. God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His Love can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Psalm 111:7-8; I Corinthians 13:8; Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 21:5; Revelation 22:11-12 (KJB).  

The Fiery Wrath of God

                             II Kings 19:17-18 KJB

The king of Assyria had besieged Jerusalem, and king Hezekiah of Judah, who was a servant of the Lord, prayed fervently that God would deliver Jerusalem. King Sennacherib of Assyria had sent a letter to king Hezekiah in which he bragged that none of the gods of all the nations that he had conquered had been able to save them from his army, and therefore, the God of Hezekiah would not be able to deliver Jerusalem from his army. This letter was a great insult to the power of God. II Kings 19:8-16 (KJB). 

As king Hezekiah prayed, he mentioned that as king Sennacherib had conquered many nations, he had thrown their idol gods into fires and burned them. Evil armies happen to be so greedy and rapacious that they will often fight against each other for wealth and power. God knows that that is a great weakness in the power of evil, and God uses that weakness against the evil powers. Jesus taught that Satan had that weakness in his kingdom. Luke 11:14-23 (KJB). The 9th chapter of Revelation prophesies that an evil army will be released from the bottomless pit under the earth to wage war against an evil army on the earth, and six fallen angels will be released from being bound in the river Euphrates to kill a third part of another evil army by using fire and brimstone. Revelation 9:1-20 (KJB). The fact that the beast who came out of the earth caused the beast out of the sea to live and be able to speak so that the beast out of the earth could control him, could very well indicate that the beast out of the sea had been wounded to death by the beast out of the earth. Revelation 13:1-13 (KJB). 

In our age, the evil Nazi army and the evil communist army conquered Poland and divided it. Then they engaged in a horrific war with each other that saved the lives of millions in the good armies which enabled the good armies to win the war. 

God sent one angel to destroy 185 thousand in the Assyrian army to save Jerusalem, but God had already used king Sennacherib to burn many idols and destroy many pagan peoples. II Kings 20:35; II Kings 19:17-18 (KJB). God knows exactly how to fight fire with fire. He uses His fiery wrath against evil in different ways. God can use the weaknesses in evil forces to accomplish His Will.