The Fiery Wrath of God

                          II Chronicles 28:3 KJB

Everyone is a sinner. Romans 3:23 (KJB). God has given the Holy Spirit to believers saved by grace, and His presence in their inner beings causes them to hate sin because they recognize that it is slow poison, and He causes them to love purity and godliness which are always creative. Galatians 5:22-26 (KJB). Yet even believers saved by grace will sometimes sin because their flesh is weak and temptations can be strong. Romans 7:18-19 (KJB). But if a believer ever commits a gross sin, such as adultery or thievery, they will become overwhelmed by grief and shame. But if they repent, God will forgive them. I John 1:9 (KJB). Nevertheless, God will often punish believers for their gross sins to remind them that the practice of sin results in pain and destruction, but His Love for them is corrective. Hebrews 12:5-13 (KJB). The Holy Spirit will often just rebuke a minor sin such as telling a white lie. But if a believer defies God and persists in the practice of a minor or major sin, and fails to repent, God may severely punish that believer to remind them that they need to humble themselves to Him. God hates pride above all sins and evil. Pride is a defiance of God's authority. Proverbs 6:16-17 (KJB). God knows that all humans need Him to be saved from eternal death, and therefore, all humans should recognize that God should be in control. 

The ordinary sinner who is not saved by grace may be an atheist, but usually they just try to ignore God because they desire a life of excitement and pleasure. (The atheist may hate the idea of God, but they never ignore Him.) The ordinary sinner does not care if the slow poison of sin causes them to have an early death. God does not punish these unbelievers in this life because He knows that their sins will punish them enough. God desires that they should hear the gospel that Jesus can save them from their sins and evil which will cause their eternal deaths. Romans 6:23 (KJB). When they hear or read the gospel, the Holy Spirit convinces them that they need to repent of their sins and evil and become washed clean in the blood of Christ so that God can give them the righteousness of Christ Himself so that they can lead Godly lives, and God can accept them to live with Him in Heaven forever. II Corinthians 5:21 (KJB). But sadly, most of them will reject the gospel when they hear it either because they wrongly believe that they are too bad to be saved, or their pride makes them unwilling to humble themselves to God and give up their sinful lifestyles. These unbelievers do not realize that when they suffer physical death, Christ will consign their souls and spirits to one of the three regions of death so that they will learn the terrible horrors to which the Devil has brought them. Revelation 20:13; Hebrews 9:27 (KJB). 

All evil is sinful, but all sins are not necessarily fully evil. Humans sin because their free will causes a weakness in their flesh and souls and spirits. Genesis 3:6-7 (KJB). God understands that. But when a person willfully decides to practice evil, that person deliberately allies himself with the Devil in his desire to murder God and get rid of Him. A person who practices evil must deliberately and willfully rebel against God, give their lives over to their evil nature, and become cruel and heartless. Some of them will believe the lies of the Devil that cruelty can be necessary to bring about a better world, but deep in their hearts they will know that that is just a lie. The Devil will even convince them that they can have better lives if they murder their unborn children. 

In the Old Testament, the Devil would often cause people to become so evil that they would throw their babies alive into fires that were before idols because of the lie that that would give them a better life. The Devil knows that God uses His fiery wrath to destroy evil. So, the Devil uses his own fiery wrath to destroy the innocent as a mockery of God. II Chronicles 28:3 (KJB). 

God creates all humans in His image to be good. Genesis 1:31; Genesis 1:26-27 (KJB). The good and living natures of all humans can never be destroyed because God will never allow anything He has ever created to be destroyed. Ecclesiastes 3:14 (KJB). Every sin contains an element of evil because disobedience of God demonstrates a desire to become separate from God's protective control. Genesis 3:5-6 (KJB). For this reason, all of the sins, evil, and spiritual deaths of all humans nailed Jesus to the cross. I John 2:2 (KJB). God sacrificed Himself to save all of humanity from eternal death because He is determined to save all that He loves from the Devil's destruction. Christ gained a complete and absolute victory over the Devil and all sins and evil. Revelation 1:17-18 (KJB). He has saved by His grace, and He has abolished death itself to save the rest of humanity. II Timothy 1:10 (KJB). Every human is alive in His sight, and since He abolished only death, then He must save the lives of every human whom He loves. Luke 20:38 (KJB). God will resurrect to life all of His living humans confined to the regions of death because He will cause them all to repent and return to the faith that He put into them when He created them that He is their Savior. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5 (KJB). Christ will absolutely crush the head of the Devil to save all of His living humans from eternal death. Genesis 3:15 (KJB).   

Reality and Illusion

All outward objects; that is, sense objects, and all inward objects; that is, abstract ideas, can only be real because they are all useful to intelligent consciousness in some creative way. Whatever is useful has to be real. Literally everything that humans can experience happens to be useful to humans in some creative way, and therefore, has to be real. 

Even ideas and words that mean nothing nevertheless are real because intelligent consciousness knows to discard them so that they do not clutter the field of human knowledge. The real idea of nothing causes humans to be able to logically deduct that useless ideas and words mean nothing. The idea of nothing is a useful and creative idea. The idea of nothing makes all that is useless useful because it causes humans to know to discard the useless. Useless ideas and words become useful and creative when they are discarded. 

All of this means that everything of which intelligent consciousness can be conscious must be real. Intelligent consciousness happens to be that very engine of the universe that creates reality. Intelligent consciousness can form combinations of sense object and/or thought objects that prove to be useful and creative systems that benefit humanity and increase the field of knowledge. Intelligent consciousness can also form false systems, but because of miscalculation, misapprehension, or hallucination, they always prove to mean nothing. But all systems, whether true or false, always comprise real ideas and /or sense objects. True systems are always real because they benefit humanity. False systems are also always real because, by the use of the idea of nothing that informs that they are useless, they can be usefully and creatively discarded. 

This means false systems cannot be illusions. False systems always comprise true and real ideas and/or sense objects derived from conscious experience but simply put together in a false way. This means that reality happens to be constructed in a way that is very similar to mathematics. 2+3=5 is a useful system. 2+3=6 is a useless system even though every number and sign happens to be real. The false system has been discarded by humans because the idea of nothing informs that it is useless. 

When humans discover that a particular system that they thought would be useful turns out to be useless, they usefully discard the false system, but they never discard the real ideas and/or sense objects that comprise that false system. Whenever humans discover that a particular system is useless, they use the useful and real idea of nothing to conclude that it means nothing, and therefore, must be usefully discarded from the field of human knowledge. 

The skeptics contend that everything could be an illusion because intelligent consciousness cannot, for certain, tell the difference between reality and illusion. But illusion always happens to be found in false combinations of true and useful ideas and/or sense objects. That means illusion never really appears to consciousness. If a square tower appears to be "round" from a distance, that is only a misapprehension, not an illusion because "round" is real in a false system just as it is in a useful system. The real idea of "round" is still useful in other creative systems. Abstract thoughts and feelings are just as real as are sense objects for the same reason that a picture is just as real as is the camera and film that took it. Abstract thoughts and feelings are also useful for the creation of systems solely in the mind. 

Some contend that because the mind cannot be known to be real, then everything is an illusion. But if everything were an illusion, the illusion would work the same as if everything were real. Therefore, one can only be correct if one judges everything as being real. In addition, if everything were an illusion, then that illusion can only be caused by an intelligent consciousness. That means intelligent consciousness can only be real because it alone produces reality, and therefore, it has to be something that is separate from reality, and yet, since it is also included in reality and makes everything it experiences real, then it makes itself real because of self-consciousness. 

Since reality cannot exist without intelligent consciousness, then all universes without intelligent consciousness cannot be real. Therefore, God has always existed to make our universe real.

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).