By: Gen. Jim – 4/1/23
We are human: He is Divine. He makes the rules; “For God is
the King of all the earth” – Ps. 47:7 “Come, behold the works of
the LORD, who has made DESOLATIONS in the earth. He makes
wars cease to the end of the earth…” – Ps. 46:8,9. “God reigns
over the nations…” – Ps. 47:8
“If”/ “Then”
Ps. 89:30-32- “If his sons forsake My law & do not walk in My
judgments, if they break My statutes & do not keep My
commandments, then I WILL PUNISH their transgression with
the rod, & their iniquity with stripes.” That, my dear ones, is God’s
Way of dealing with certain lawbreakers. All nations of the world have a system
that deals with lawbreakers.
Relents
There are times when the LORD commands punishments, either
partial or utter, & there are times He relents from His commands:
“Therefore the WRATH of the LORD was kindled against His
people, so that He abhorred His own inheritance. And He gave
them into the hand of the Gentiles, & those who HATED them
RULED over them. Their enemies also oppressed them… Many
times He delivered them; but they rebelled in their counsel, &
were brought low for their iniquity… & for their sake He
remembered His covenant, & relented according to the
multitude of His mercies. He also made them to be pitied by all
those who carried them away captive.” – Ps. 106:40-46.
Mercy
While punishment is pitted against mercy, the LORD does
what is needed & just. Psalm 136:1-26 is a psalm about His
“mercy,” mentioned 26 times. God’s nature is that of love & hate.
But isn’t hate the antithesis of love? Aren’t these 2 in every human
heart also? Don’t we as humans love & hate? Sure. There are things
God literally hates & calls abomination, e.g. homosexuality
(see Lev.18:22 & 20:13 for starters).
God kills & makes alive [Dt. 32:39 -read also vv.40-43]. The
O.T. promises were conditioned as well as the N.T.: “If you forsake
the LORD & serve foreign gods, then He will turn & do you HARM
& consume you, after He has done you good.” – Joshua 24:20.
[see Ezra 8:22 // Dt. 4:24-26].
“If indeed you do go back, & cling to the remnant of these
(Gentile) nations… & make marriages with them & go into them &
they to you (Josh. 23:11,12) … then the ANGER of the LORD will
BURN against you, & you shall (promise!) perish quickly…” -v.16
Prophetic Word
Here is a Word of the LORD/Spirit given by my wife, Deborah,
dated 4/1/22: “… I AM well aware of the plots (i.e. machinations)
of the blood thirsty, murderous wicked one who desire My
people to be dead because they are trusting in Me. I do not call
you t o death, I call you to the Life Eternal as it is Me who wants
you to be with Me eternally… the enemy desires as many to be
taken to Hell as possible. Do not imagine for one minute that
those who continually sin & resist the call to REPENT will be
SPARED from the destination of the DAMNED. They WILL NOT!,
because it is their choices that are causing them to be swept up
in the endless sea of iniquity & taken in the way of the
DAMNED… Far too many are in Hell because they remained in
the prison house of carnality, bound in sin because they
arrogantly refused the call to REPENTANCE…” – End-
We Rest
Ps. 37:7 states, “Rest in the LORD, & wait patiently for Him;
do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of
the man (or woman) who brings wicked schemes (machinations)
to pass.” Those who seem to get by (prosper) in this life WILL NOT
get by in the one to come.
Verse 9 says, “For the wicked WILL be DESTROYED…” This
does not mean annihilated (see my Hell booklets that give both
Heb./Greek definitions of “destroy,” i.e. “ruin”). There are those
(false teachers) who teach that the sinners that do go to Hell, will
not suffer eternal pain, but will be annihilated. Zap! all gone forever.
The Bible never ever teaches this. I challenge any & all to examine
those texts where “destroy you (evil men) forever.” – Ps. 52:5
(NKJV). The correct word for “destroy” is “ruin,” in the sense of what
you were created for – to be a glory & honor to God. The New Am.
Bible (in 52:7) says, “God too will strike you down forever…”
Striking one down forever is not annihilation.
Book of Joshua
The conquest of Canaan (full of idol worshippers/sex perverts
etc.) is a grisly recounting of the wars/battles fought for God &
against God. It tells of Canaanites – men/women/children/animals
being PUT to DEATH without mercy. This is repulsive to many, but I
make no apologies for the historical accounts; Not only did Israel
keep record but also pagan tribes as well. Are we to reject their
accounts as well? Cities & settlements were razed/burnt to the
ground, all killed, or many killed. The Bible speaks of some cities
being “devoted,” that is “marked” for EXTERMINATION, aka
“sacrificial victims,” the prisoner (if taken) offered to a god or God.
What all this means is, in plain language, is human sacrifice under
the guise of “Holy War,” as some see it. This “Holy War,” aka
“conquest” was a gradual affair taking decades.
There are both Biblical & extra Biblical records of all this:
YHWH vs Canaanite gods. Baal was one of many powerful gods.
Ishtar, Astarte (or Astoreth) were other powerful gods/goddesses.
Sad-but-true, the Israelites eventually underwent a kind of
paganizing syncretism, hence, the WRATH of God!
Success is invariably linked to Israel’s faithfulness to YHWH;
defeat for their prostitution themselves to “foreign” or “other gods.”
The same holds true today (see my articles on “Idolatry & its
Curses”). When prostituting occurred, God raised up Judges
and Prophets to deliver Israel.
Today
We live in an adulterous generation whereby the people of God
have done exactly what ancient Israel did – “went awhoring.” They
are so deceived today they believe, “what the people approve, God
approves,” even in LGBTQ abominations as well as heterosexual
sex-sins et al. (“VOX Populic, VOX Dei”), the old medieval maxim.
This is not new though. The early church used it as well.
In Ps. 5 David writes as matter-of-fact: “You are not a (the)
God who has pleasure in wickedness, nor will dwell with you (or
in you). Those who boast will not stand in Your sight; You HATE
all workers of iniquity, You will DESTROY those who speak lies;
the LORD ABHORS the BLOODTHIRSTY & DECEITFUL man…” –
Ps. 5:4-6
[note: The Bible makes a distinction between murder & killing
(as in war)]. “Thou shalt not kill” – Ex. 20:13 // “kill”: as frequent
instances of killing in the context of war or certain crimes (see vv.12-
18) demonstrate in the O.T., not all killing comes within the scope of
the commandment. For this reason, it is noted, the Hebrew verb
translated here as “kill” is often understood as “murder,” although
it is in fact used in the O.T. at times for unintentional acts of killing
(e.g., Dt. 4:42 -in The New Am. Bible et al.) “… that the manslayer
might flee… who kills his neighbor unintentionally…” (see also
Josh. 20:3 where the word “homicide” is used in TNAB). Num. 35:30
we read about legally sanctioned killing. The term may originally
have designated any killing of another Israelite for which the victim’s
kin could exact vengeance. In the present context (Ex. 20:13), it
denotes the killing of one Israelite by another, motivated by hatred
(see Num. 35:20 // Hos. 6:9 et al.) Some translations use “kill,” not
“murder,” but “murder” is the correct word.
Jesus’ Word
“You have heard that it was said by the ancients, ‘you shall not
murder,’” – Mt. 5:21. Modern Eng. Version // other versions
correctly use “murder” over “kill.” (ref. to Ex. 20:13 & Dt. 5:17).
Fin. Biblical Transparency
We may not like, even agree with Biblical texts on the subject
at hand, but the Bible tells of things that are good, bad, & ugly! This
issue of God’s WRATH is a hot-button issue. One author/Bible
scholar (Jewish) has written: “… how accurate the Biblical depiction
is of Canaanite human sacrifice, of which we find no record in their
literature. I have taken the Bible at its word, as much as anything
because I find in other ancient societies, e.g. Celts/Maya, in which
we know human sacrifice was practiced, a similar silence within
their oral & written literatures. I think it only too likely that for
profound psychological reasons human sacrifice (killing//murder)
was something that had to be done but could not be spoken of.” (T.
Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews, p.263). Just because we do not find
certain things in ancient writings does not mean that things did not
occur. Many tell us that the Bible is full of lies & contradictions &
can’t be trusted. Seems like if the Jews/Christians wanted to avoid
persecution & hatred, they would have never written such things
that are repugnant to human feelings. Because we may not like
what we read, gives us no reason to count them as untruths.
Contemporary scholars (liberals/far left) refuse to believe that God
still judges today, punishes. TOO bad. He still does (see our writings
on the WRATH of God, Then & Now). “Since,” not “if,” repentance is
required in order to be saved, one needs to do that NOW!