The Fiery Wrath of God

                             I Kings 19:12-13 KJB

Apparently, when Elijah prayed to God on Mount Carmel, and God sent fire from Heaven to completely burn the burnt sacrifice that Elijah had prepared, and all of the people who had formerly worshipped Baal fell on their faces and began to worship God, and Elijah had had the 450 prophets of Baal killed, then Elijah evidently thought that a great change would take place. From what Elijah later said to God, one can surmise that Elijah had thought that after God had shown Himself to be the only true God, that the majority of the people of Israel would turn to the worship of God, and king Ahab and his evil wife Jezebel would no longer be able to murder God's prophets and control the people of God by terrorizing them. I Kings 18:17-46 (KJB).  

But Elijah soon discovered that not much had really changed. When the evil queen Jezebel threatened to kill him, apparently no one stood with Elijah and promised to protect him. Jezebel actually demonstrated that she was afraid of Elijah, because if she had been serious, she would have just sent an assassin to kill him without warning him instead of just threatening him. Nevertheless, Elijah panicked and ran for is life. I Kings 19:1-3 (KJB). 

Elijah fell into a state of despair and wanted to die, but God was not angry with him. God displayed His compassion for him, and He sent an angel to cook food for him and give him water because God knew that Elijah was taking a long journey to Mount Horeb. Apparently, Elijah wanted to die on the mountain of God where He had given Moses the Ten Commandments. Elijah came to the mountain and hid in a cave there, but God asked him why he was there. Elijah replied that he believed that the forces of evil had won in Israel and that he alone was left to serve God. God told him to come out of the cave and stand on the top of the mountain. God then displayed to Elijah some of His destructive forces. God sent the powerful forces of wind, an earthquake, and a fire, but God was not in any of them because God wanted Elijah to know that His destructive forces were not directed toward Elijah. God wanted Elijah to know that where evil was concerned, God still had destructive control over it. God then spoke to Elijah in "a still small voice;" that is, a voice of love and compassion. God asked Elijah again why he was there, and Elijah again replied that he thought that he alone was left in Israel to serve God. I Kings 19:4-14 (KJB). 

God's remedy for Elijah's despair and depression was that God simply told him to get back to work. God had kings for him to anoint, and a prophet for him to anoint to take his place when God called him home. As for Elijah's self-pity, God informed him that He had seven thousand in Israel who still served Him and not Baal. God's message to Elijah was clear. God still had Almighty Power over evil, and although God's people would always be in the minority in the earth, they would still win out over evil in the end. I Kings 19:15-18 (KJB). 

One of the destructive forces that God demonstrated to Elijah was a fire that God was not in. I Kings 19:12 (KJB). But God is in His fiery wrath that He uses to utterly destroy evil. Hebrews 12:29 (KJB). The lake of fire is a part of God's nature that He uses to so preoccupy with pain all death and evil to the extent that it, and the Devil, can never influence His creation again. Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 20:10 (KJB). God's fiery wrath is actually creative because it causes God to be able to recreate Heaven and earth to be righteous after He has cleansed them with His fiery wrath including all of His repentant, living humans whom He created in His image to be good. II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 21:1-5; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). God promised in Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I make all things new." Since His living humans must be a part of the "all things" that God has created, then God must know a way to cause all of His living humans to repent and return to faith in Christ their Savior so that He can either save them by His grace or by a lesser form of salvation in the end of the world. Revelation 4:11; Revelation 5:11-14; John 5:24; John 5:28-29 (KJB).   

The Fiery Wrath of God

                              I Kings 18:23-25,38

At times when the darkness of sin and evil threaten to overwhelm the earth, and the light of God's Word seems about to be put out, then God moves in miraculous ways to strengthen His people. In Elijah's day, most of the people of Israel had turned to the worship of the god Baal, so God sent His prophet Elijah to do a miracle that would show that He was the real God. King Ahab and his wife Jezebel had murdered many of God's prophets to the extent that his governor, Obadiah, who was a secret servant of God, had hid 100 of God's prophets in a cave to protect them. I Kings 18:3-4 (KJB). Elijah's first miracle was that when he confronted king Ahab, Ahab did not order him to be killed because God had put a great fear of Elijah into king Ahab. Ahab even obeyed Elijah's command that he gather the people of Israel and the prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel for a reason that Elijah did not tell Ahab. I Kings 18:17-20 (KJB). 

When the king and the people and 450 prophets of Baal were gathered to the top of Mount Carmel, Elijah proposed a contest between their god and his true and living God. Elijah instructed that two altars of stone be built, and two bullocks cut up and their pieces laid on both altars, but they should put no fire under them. Elijah then challenged the people, and they agreed, that they should pray to their gods for fire to fall on their altar, and Elijah would pray to God for fire to fall on his altar, and the God that answered would be the true God. The people prayed to their gods and cut themselves with knives from morning until evening, but no fire fell on Baal's altar. Elijah was brave enough to mock their gods. Elijah then told the people to gather close to him. He then repaired an altar of God that evidently was already there, and he added twelve stones to it, and he ordered a trench to be dug around it, and he put the pieces of the bullock on the wood on the altar, and he had four barrels of water poured three times on the altar so that the water filled the trench. Elijah then made a short prayer to God that He would show the people that He is the only true God and fire fell from God and consumed the bullock, the wood, and even the stones and dust, and evaporated all of the water in the trench. And the Lord said that it was a "burnt sacrifice." Then all the people, who had been worshippers of Baal, fell on their faces and worshipped God except for the 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah had those 450 prophets of Baal executed. I Kings 18:21-40 (KJB). 

God gave the burnt offering to Noah and the Israelites for a specific purpose. God promised Noah, and all who read the Bible, that He would never again "smite;" that is, kill all of His living humans whom He creates in His image, and whom He loves, as He had done with the worldwide flood. God often kills people who allow evil to dominate their lives, but He never permanently kills their subdued good natures that He has created in His image. Genesis 8:20-21 (KJB). God knows exactly how to cause all of the good natures of all humans to repent and return to faith in Him of their own free will. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14 (KJB). 

God caused Elijah to use a burnt sacrifice to divide the people between the believers and the unbelievers. God will do the same with His fiery wrath against evil and unbelief in the end of the world. Christ will appear to all living humans "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 their beings to separate their good and living natures from their dead and unbelieving natures. God will then recreate their believing natures with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth, and He will cast their dead and unbelieving natures into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; II Peter 3:9-13; Matthew 13:36-43; Luke 3:16-17; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). 

Jesus promised that He would not judge believers and unbelievers until the end of the world. John 12:46-48; II Timothy 4:1 (KJB). Every human is a believer and an unbeliever in their inner beings. God will reawaken the faith of all of His living humans so that He can save them from eternal death. He will be able to do that because of His death, burial, and resurrection. John 12:31-32 (KJB). Unbelief is totally evil and can never repent. So, God will utterly destroy the dead and evil natures of all humans. Revelation 20:11-15 (KJB). 

The people who returned to faith in God because of Elijah's burnt sacrifice represent the entire, living human race that God will save. I Timothy 4:10 (KJB). Baal's 450 prophets that Elijah had killed represent the evil unbelief of all dead humans that God will cast into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15; Matthew 12:31-32 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                               II Samuel 23:1-7 KJB

As usual, God gave king David very poetic language as he spoke his last words. God inspired king David to say that whoever rules over humans must be a just ruler who fears God. King David admitted that he had not always been a just ruler, but he remembered that God had made a covenant with him that his throne would last forever, and it would be "ordered in all things" which meant it would have a perfect ruler. King David further prophesied that that perfect ruler would be the source of his salvation. King David prophesied about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

King David then turned his prophecy to the final judgment that this perfect ruler would make. David said that evil humans would be "as thorns thrust away" which meant they would be separated from humans so they could no longer touch humans and influence and injure their lives. Jesus said that "tares" would be separated from the "wheat." Matthew 13:30 (KJB). John the Baptist said that Jesus would separate the "wheat" from the "chaff," and He would burn the "chaff." Luke 3:16-17 (KJB). Jesus taught that, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Matthew 15:13 (KJB). God told Adam that "thorns also and thistles" would plague his life. Genesis 3:17-18 (KJB). The Bible often relates that evil is like worthless but injurious stuff that will be burned. Jesus was crowned with thorns which symbolized that He was taking all of the evil and sins of the human race on Himself. Matthew 27:29 (KJB). 

God creates all of His living humans to be good, and He can never lose anything He has ever created. Genesis 1:31; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Luke 20:38 (KJB). Therefore, God will make a way to return all of His living humans to the faith that He put into them when He created them so that He can save them all, and He will either annul their spiritual deaths for all living humans that He saves by His grace, or He will separate their repentant, good and living natures from their evil and worthless natures that, like thorns, He will burn in an everlasting fire. Habakkuk 2:4; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; Matthew 13:36-43 (KJB). Sin, evil, and spiritual death inside of every human would have eventually caused eternal death, but Jesus took all sins, evil, and eternal death on Himself on a cross and died in the place of all living humans so that He could rise from the dead having turned eternal death into only a temporary death for the sake of the salvation of all living humans. Hebrews 2:9-18; I Timothy 4:10 (KJB). Hebrews 2:9-13 relates about God's salvation by His grace, but Hebrews 2:14-18 relates about God's salvation of the rest of humanity. All humans are God's children. Psalm 82:6 (KJB). Jesus judged only the Devil and all evil as He suffered on the cross. John 12:31; John 16:11 (KJB). But Christ will not judge His living humans until the end of the world. John 12:46-47; II Timothy 4:1 (KJB).   

King David further prophesied that this perfect ruler will be able to touch the "thorns" because He will possess a perfect defense against them, and He will have a "spear" which means He will be able to force the "thorns" into the fire. All of these "thorns" will be "utterly burned with fire in the same place." This prophecy can only mean that God will purge with His fiery wrath all of the sins, evil, spiritual deaths, and the Devil from the lives of all of His living humans not already saved by grace in the end of the world. Then He will recreate His entire creation to be righteous. II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). 

The Fiery Wrath of God

                         II Samuel 22:8-9, 13

Being a prophet, king David often received visions and poems from God. II Samuel chapter 22 happens to be a vision and a poem about when God will use His fiery wrath to burn the world to purge it of all evil, and He will recreate it all to be righteous. II Peter 3:9-13; II Samuel 20:8-9; II Samuel 22:13 (KJB). Although king David happened to be saved by God's grace, he never seemed to indicate that he understood exactly what that meant. God did give him, and Isaiah, visions about the coming of the suffering Messiah, but they never indicated that they understood exactly how Christ's suffering applied to them. Psalm 22:1-21 (KJB). 

God wrote the Old Testament to the Hebrew people to whom He promised to save in a general resurrection. Being a Jew, king David believed that he would be saved in that general resurrection. Daniel 12:2-3; Ezekiel 37:1-14 (KJB). God knew that He would resurrect king David with all of the Old Testament saints saved by His grace when He resurrected Jesus, but God did not need to make king David, or any of the Old Testament saints understand that. Matthew 27:51-53 (KJB). King David only needed to know that one day God would save him from the regions of death. King David had a fear of the regions of death. II Samuel 22:1-7 (KJB). But he also had faith that God would raise him from Hell, along with the Holy One, even though he did not know that that would be the resurrection of Jesus. Psalm 16:9-11 (KJB). King David never went to Hell, but he did go to a place called Paradise that God had located next to Hell. Luke 16:19-21 (KJB). King David also imagined that God would resurrect him from "many waters" which was his vision of that region of death called the Sea. II Samuel 22:17 (KJB). Hell is actually divided into three regions of death: the Sea, Death, and the burning Hell. Revelation 20:13 (KJB). 

Jesus taught about the general resurrection. John 5:28-29 (KJB). Jesus assured a Pharisee, who could not possibly have been saved by grace, that he would be rewarded for his good works "at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:12-14 (KJB). Jesus taught that, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Matthew 15:13 (KJB). His teaching can only mean that a day will come when God purges all evil from His entire creation so that He can recreate it all to be righteous. II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB). In Jesus' explanation of His parable of the tares and wheat, He explicitly declared, "The field is the world," and the "good seed" can only be all humans that God creates to be good. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). The "tares" are the evil, spiritual deaths that the Devil has planted into the hearts of every human. Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:15 (KJB). In "the end of the world," Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil to purge all sin and evil from the hearts of all His repentant, living humans so that He can save them from eternal death which sin and evil causes, and He will cast their separated, dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43 (KJB). Jesus taught that God would reward even the least good works. Matthew 10:41-42 (KJB). Even the most evil human who ever lived has done something good in their life. Only a live human can receive a reward. A dead human cannot. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14; Revelation 22:11-12 (KJB). 

King David further revealed that he believed God would save him "according to my righteousness," which can only mean the righteousness that God put into him when He created him. II Samuel 22:21-25; Genesis 1:31 (KJB). This has to be a lesser form of salvation than that of grace because salvation by grace never happens because of good works. Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJB). In salvation by grace, God freely gives the perfect righteousness of Christ to the believer so that He can accept him into Heaven to live with Him there forever. II Corinthians 5:21; John 17:24 (KJB). The Father and Jesus taught about a lesser form of salvation for all living humans because of their good works. Psalm 50:23; John 5:28-29 (KJB). The Father and the Son also taught that every living human would have to return to repentance and faith in Christ in order to be saved by grace or with a lesser form of salvation. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; Habakkuk 2:4 (KJB). 

King David bragged that he had "kept the ways of the Lord," when in actuality, he had committed many sins and had done some evil. II Samuel 22:22-25 (KJB). Nevertheless, since king David had relied on the sin offerings and the burnt offerings made by the priests on his behalf, then he had demonstrated that he had faith in the mercy and forgiveness of God. Leviticus 5:5-10 (KJB). In the end of the world, Christ will cause all of His living humans "on the earth, and under the earth" to repent and return to faith in Him as their Savior so that He can save them all from eternal death by His mercy. Christ will cast only their separated, eternal deaths into the lake of fire. God's fiery wrath only purges sin, evil, eternal death, and the Devil from His creation so that He can recreate it all to be righteous. Revelation 5:11-14; Philippians 2:9-11; II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB).   

What Causes Repentance?

                        

The Bible teaches that all humans sin because the Devil has injected them all with an evil nature. Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:15; Romans 5:12 (KJB). The Devil has infected all humans with a spiritual death which is totally evil. Evil can never repent because it hates God and seeks to destroy God. Matthew 12:31-32 (KJB). Unforgivable blasphemy against God consists of a rejection of a call from the Holy Spirit to repent. Evil causes this blasphemy. 

Evil can never repent, but the good natures of humans that God creates and loves can repent because a desire to be reconciled to God can only be good. Romans 10:13 (KJB). Repentance and faith always engender the compassion of God to forgive and reconcile that believer to Him whether that person is physically alive or physically dead. John 11:25; Hebrews 13:8 (KJB). God's Love and compassion never changes.

God promised that because of the sacrifice of His Son, He will "reconcile all things to Himself." Colossians 1:20 (KJB). Since God creates "all things," and all living humans are a part of that creation, then God will cause all of His living humans to repent and believe and become reconciled with Him. All humans alive in the flesh who repent and believe will be saved by God's grace. John 5:24 (KJB). All humans "on the earth, and under the earth" when Christ visits them in the end of the world will repent and believe when they see the majestic Love of Christ for them, and Christ will give them a lesser form of salvation. Revelation 5:11-14; Philippians 2:9-11; John 12:33; John 5:28-29 (KJB). 

  

The Fiery Wrath of God

                         II Samuel 14:30-31 KJB

One of king David's sons named Absalom had been in exile from Judah for three years because he had murdered his brother Amnon for raping his sister Tamar. The General of David's army, named Joab, had persuaded king David to recall Absalom from exile and forgive him. Joab went to Absalom and brought him back from exile, but king David would not see him. After two years, Absalom asked Joab to take him to see the king, but for some reason, Joab just ignored him. 

Then Absalom apparently, just for meanness and spite, had his servants to burn one of Joab's barley fields just to force Joab to talk to him about taking him to see his father. Joab came to Absalom's house to ask him why he had had his barley field burnt, and Absalom admitted that he had done so to get Joab to relent to his request that Joab take him to see the king, and king David kissed Absalom and forgave him. II Samuel 14:32-33 (KJB)

One of the characteristics of a person who has come under the influence of the Devil is that they will sometimes take very cruel actions against their friends and even their families. Their friends and families will often forgive them because they love them, but that love does not soften the criminal heart. God has great patience and compassion for the ordinary sinners because they are just too weak to always resist temptation, but God's patience sometimes runs out for sinners who deliberately suppress their good and living natures in order to become cruel and evil. Even so, most people, who are not Christians or religious Jews, remain as good people because they allow their good and living natures that God created them to be to prevail over their dead and evil natures. 

Whenever a person sincerely repents of his sins and evil and asks God for forgiveness because of Christ's sacrifice for him, and he feels the Holy Spirit come into his heart and cleanse him with the blood of Jesus, then that person's heart will be changed, and he will acquire a desire to be more like Jesus. John 3:16; John 5:24; Matthew 26:28; I Corinthians 6:11; II Corinthians 5:17-18; I John 1:7 (KJB). 

But the person with a criminal mind only sees love and forgiveness as a weakness that he can use to his advantage. Later in his life, Absalom rebelled against his father and led an army to take the kingdom for himself. But in his battle with Joab's army, Absalom got caught by his thick hair in an oak tree, and his former friend Joab killed him. II Samuel 18:14 (KJB). Joab realized that despite king David's continued love for Absalom, he had to die to cleanse David's kingdom of all rebellion. II Samuel 19:1-8 (KJB) 

When God loses His patience with evil, He has no problem killing evil people to cleanse His world of their vile presence. But God still loves their good and living natures that He created them to be. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His Love can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8 (KJB). Just as God used His fiery wrath to dissolve the being of rebellious Lucifer in order to recover all of the goodness that He had put into him so that He could exile his totally evil and empty nature to earth as a negative consciousness called Satan, so God, in the end of the world, will visit all of His living humans whom He had to consign to one of the regions of death because they did not become saved by His grace, and He will cause them all to repent and believe in Christ their Savior so that He can use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their beings to separate their repentant, good and living natures from their dead and evil natures so that He can save and recreate their 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. Ezekiel 28:13-19; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12 (KJB).  

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).