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Wrath Pursuing Saints
Without question this is God’s mind toward sinners, but could or would God ever pursue a saint to kill him? |
The scripture warns, “For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil” (1 Peter 3:10-12, Ps. 34:12-16). “The face of the Lord is against them that do evil”, the scripture declares, but what happens when “the righteous” man turns to “do evil?” It is written again, “but when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die” (Ezek. 18:24). God says that the righteous man’s righteousness “shall not be mentioned,” and in another place it is said, “his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered” (Ezek. 3:20). I had said that, till all sinners die, God’s will to kill men is illustrative through Hosea 11:7-9: “My repentings are kindled together.” Do you remember the passage? Read it again below:
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"And My people are bent to backsliding from Me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt Him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city." (Hosea 11:7-9)
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This wrestling within the heart of God was over “My people,” God said, “bent to backsliding from Me.” Backsliding is departing from God, a going backward, depicting the crime of those who were with God. This is unlike the heathen sinners who have never been near to God. They cannot backslide from Him because they were never with Him. The scarcity of salvation for those who endure to the end cannot be properly understood until we are conscientious of the dual, simultaneous, and genuine wills of God that are actively working all the time in tension and contradiction one with another – and they are minded for and against the perseverance of the Covenanted, righteous, and holy men of God when they commit sin. It was said of the righteous in their salvation comparatively to the dealings of God with sinners, “if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear” (1 Peter 4:18). The souls of the righteous that persevere to the end, they are scarcely saved from a shocking and near annihilation under a real, genuine anger of God. Trace with me the near annihilation of God’s people. Study with me the stirrings of God’s wrath when He “destroyed them not,” but “yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath. (Ps. 78:37-42). Study with me the present progressive salvation of the righteous that perseveres by a rigorous and terrifying intercession against the very burning wrath of God.
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"Therefore He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them." (Psalm 106:23)
“stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” (Ezek. 22:30-31) |
Before we walk the chronicles of this crisis, we must understand the tension of His simultaneous wills and understand them in view of God’s will by vow, oath, promise, Covenant, salvation, calling, election, and choosing.
The Exodus Generation Partakers of Salvation: Saved, Called, Elect, & Chosen --> In these terms God willed their salvation.
The Exodus Generation Partakers of Salvation: Saved, Called, Elect, & Chosen --> In these terms God willed their salvation.
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Deuteronomy 7:7-11
7 The LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: 8 But because the LORD loved you, and because He would keep the oath which He had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. |
God did “choose” Israel in redemptive love; therefore they are the elect and chosen. He “saved” them (Jude 5). When God elects and saves, He chooses them “for a people,” that He might be their God. God spake in Exodus 6:6-7, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Ex. 6:6-7). Scripture says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12). With personable, tender affection, special only to God’s elect vessels, people, and generation, thus God is to Israel: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt” (Hos. 11:1). Israel was the called of God, and he was called into the wilderness for a Covenant like unto marriage.
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Ezekiel 16:8-9
8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread My skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest Mine. 9 Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. Jeremiah 2:2-3 2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. 3 Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of His increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD. |
Further attributes of their salvation are, “When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion” (Psalm 114:1-2). This people became the hallowed sanctuary for the soles of His feet, a kingdom for dominion and rule by His immediate, actual presence. Thus far Israel is called “saved” (Jude 5), redeemed (Deut. 7:7-11, Ex. 6:6-7), “chosen” (Psalm 33:12, Deut. 7:7-11), His people (Ex. 6:6-7), loved (Deut. 7:7-11, Hos. 11:1, Ezek. 16:8, Jer. 2:2-3), “holiness” (Jer. 2:2-3), anointed with oil (Ezek. 16:9), in Covenant of marriage (Ezek. 16:8, Jer. 2:2), a son (Hos. 11:1), and “called” (Hos. 11:1). Read again the calling of Israel, the elect: “Thus saith the LORD, Israel is My son, even My firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn” (Ex. 4:22-23). These are the accolades of the elect, and God hath spoken to Israel, “Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live” (Ezek. 16:6). The word of God at Israel’s election was “LIVE,” and with this word they were scripted into Book of Life. All the elect written in the Book of Life are under certain requirements they must fulfill, lest of certain names it might be said, “it repented the LORD that He had” recorded their name there, “and it grieved Him at His heart” (Gen. 6:6). Blessed is the man whom God “will not blot out his name out of the book of life” (Rev. 3:5). What God spoke and established by name, spirit, law, justification, and work, He is able to remember no more (Ezek. 3:20), as a many effortlessly erases penciled names and letters, even so it is with God’s timeless and judiciary liberties, and whosoever is blotted out is unrecoverable and lawfully nonexistent, never to be mentioned again (Ezek. 18:24).
Many times Israel was, as a whole inheritance, in danger of complete annihilation, and disinheritance (Ex. 32:10, 34:9, Deut. 9:25-29, Num. 14:12). Finally, God disinherited most of Israel, namely, no longer calling them His people (Hos. 1:9), divorcing them as His wife (Hos. 2:1), and delivering them to pitiless consumption (Hos. 1:6).However, before this great measure of wrath was irrevocably stirred up, “many a time turned He His anger away and did not stir up all His wrath” (Psalm 78:38). Many times He did speak and act to destroy them: “He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them” (Psalm 106:23). During their salvation, before reprobation, God was pacified many times from executing their full destruction, and with scarcity Moses made intercession for their perseverance. This Divine struggle within God, for and against the salvation of the saved, reveals a frightening depiction of terror we are warned to remember (Heb. 12:28-29, 1 Cor. 10:12, 1 Peter 1:17, 2 Cor. 5:10-11). It is holiness in its purity, separate from man, not easily borne by our compromising comprehension, and when we (through grace) come to understand it, these ways are quickly acknowledged to be holy, higher, and “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). “Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at His footstool; for He is holy” (Psalm 99:5).
Many times Israel was, as a whole inheritance, in danger of complete annihilation, and disinheritance (Ex. 32:10, 34:9, Deut. 9:25-29, Num. 14:12). Finally, God disinherited most of Israel, namely, no longer calling them His people (Hos. 1:9), divorcing them as His wife (Hos. 2:1), and delivering them to pitiless consumption (Hos. 1:6).However, before this great measure of wrath was irrevocably stirred up, “many a time turned He His anger away and did not stir up all His wrath” (Psalm 78:38). Many times He did speak and act to destroy them: “He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them” (Psalm 106:23). During their salvation, before reprobation, God was pacified many times from executing their full destruction, and with scarcity Moses made intercession for their perseverance. This Divine struggle within God, for and against the salvation of the saved, reveals a frightening depiction of terror we are warned to remember (Heb. 12:28-29, 1 Cor. 10:12, 1 Peter 1:17, 2 Cor. 5:10-11). It is holiness in its purity, separate from man, not easily borne by our compromising comprehension, and when we (through grace) come to understand it, these ways are quickly acknowledged to be holy, higher, and “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). “Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at His footstool; for He is holy” (Psalm 99:5).