God did not create us without giving us guidelines for living and that is because we are like Him having the free-will. Sometimes, I watch court shows like “Judge Judy.” Nonsense does not pass by the letter of the law. No matter how much one wants to spin, the penalty is often straightforward and according to the laws of this country. This Universe of ours also functions according to the laws, which God initially set into motion, like gravity and orbiting.
For example, people like Korah (Numb. 16) and Uzzah (2Sam. 6) were not misinformed they knew well and yet they did stupid things. God personally had nothing to do with them; the laws which He created act this way. Hence, in order to make it perfectly clear, we have a clear knowledge regarding deeds, which bring about positive or negative consequences.
[Leviticus 20:9] ‘If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother, his blood-guiltiness is upon him.
Today this kind of evil is not punished with stoning, but if anything happens to the one that had actually cursed his own mother or father; his blood-guiltiness is upon his own head. Hence, learning from this, we know that what we sow we will eventually reap. Whatever we have accumulated in life it will bear either adverse, or a blessed fruit. We sow peace; we reap peace. We sow kindness; we will reap kindness. We sow death; we will reap the same. If you stick your hand in the fire… the rest you know. Time does not matter to God, but perhaps to some of us. The wisdom God displays here is not man-made, so any competition emotion should not even arise, but of it does than arrest it in time for sin is at the door, and its desire is for you. Once you give into this foolishness you will struggle with it all of your life. Health complications often arise from these strongholds in the soul. Enmity is unnecessary. Unrest and strife is fruitless. Peaceable things bring health in every area of your life.
[Numbers 16:5] He spoke to Korah and all his company, saying, “Tomorrow morning the LORD will show who is His, and who is holy, and will bring him near to Himself; even the one whom He will choose, He will bring near to Himself.
Here we have plenty of ammunition like envy, jealousy and the competition drive to shoot at those God chose. All these sentiments are really stupid for they originate in the war genes the foolish warlike ancestors gave us; with which we play.
[6-7] Do this: take censers for yourselves, Korah and all your company, and put fire in them, and lay incense upon them in the presence of the LORD tomorrow; and the man whom the LORD chooses shall be the one who is holy. You have gone far enough, you sons of Levi!
I have decided to live by this principle: every action brings a reaction. However, when you deal in peace and the response is anger then you have sown your seed on a stone, or among thorns. Don’t sow the peace seed on those places anymore; find a fertile ground; so that in due season your seed might spring up; and then you have found another peacemaker to have fellowship with.
Wrath provokes wrath. Insults provoke insults. Peace provokes nothing. Peace is. Love is, but if there is no response to your love and peace investment, then that’s okay too. You are not a peacemaker for profit. You are. In time you will be more and more like God who sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous, and on the good and the evil. No matter what, you are the standard.
What are the garments of God? The Bible presents us with a number of different illustrations.
[Isaiah 59:17] And He (God) put on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on His head and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantel.
Even God’s righteousness is not His heart, but His garment. His zeal is not His true character, or heart. Righteousness is only necessary for the earth so that we might not sin against each other (hurt) so that we might not be hurt in return, although over time. Time is allotted for repentance and making amends. Just as God told Abraham in Genesis 15:16 that ‘the iniquity of the Amorite was not yet complete,’ in the same way He shows us that time is space and grace. Those who assume that they have gotten away with mischief, because they are not being punished yet; or believe that they are okay because God 'smiles' on them; must also realize that anything good, or evil, is a seed, which will spring up in its own in time. God's 'smiling' is grace - a time allotted for making amends with Him and with others - that's the law. When the time expires another law takes over.
The accumulation of impaired things will only damage the bearer of these unresolved, and very much needless burdens. But, God is never personally involved in punishing anyone.
[Psalm 93:1] The Lord reigns. He is clothed with majesty. The Lord clothed and girded Himself with strength.
Just as God’s righteousness is a garment so is His strength. In heaven God does not need to be righteous; He is the Perfect Love. Period. Only when it comes to dealings with the physical earth and with us; righteousness plays a role. There is more, although partially we have mentioned it before.
[Psalm 97:2-3] Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries round about.
The foundations of His throne, for our sake, are righteousness and justice; again, so that we would not injure each other, for God is love. Fire goes BEFORE Him and not FROM Him. That’s the big difference.
In the book of 1 Kings 19:11-13 Elijah comes to Mt Horeb. The LORD was passing by; and while He did, a great strong wind was rending the mountains and even shattering rocks. It is plainly writ-ten that the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. That’s when Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Elijah knew God the person in His true character.
I searched the Bible from Genesis to Revelation trying to find at least one place that would portray God as being clad with love or compassion, but I found none. There is not even one single place portraying Him as being clothed with love, tenderness, gentleness or any such thing. A simple answer: He is love and compassion. He is gentle and tender, and because He is so, He is wrapped with something of a different substance like a breastplate, vengeance, light or fire, etc.
Now we come again to God’s anger that burns—an expression used quite often in the Bible. But God’s anger never burns; it’s only a man’s expression regarding some events in which God’s holiness clashes with fleshly mediocrity. All those boundaries around the Israelite camp kept the separation between the holy and the profane.
[Deuteronomy 23:14] Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.
[Leviticus 10:8-10] The LORD then spoke to Aaron, saying, “Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you will not die—it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations—and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean.”
Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel also spoke about it in very clear terms.
[Ezekiel 44:19] “(B) They shall put on other garments so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.
[Jeremiah 15:19] If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman (Hebrew, mouth).
Displays of fire, as that of lightning, or cataclysmic events as storms, earthquakes or erupting volcanoes can be interpreted as God’s burning anger. However, it has something to do with the holy approaching something unholy, or profane. This clash man interprets as God being angry. Later on, this was further explained as Satan being cast out of heaven, which would explain the cataclysmic phenomena on earth. Until this point I believed that God’s anger is vented through Satan, but even that is not completely true. It has something to do with holiness and its extreme opposites. E.g., David provoked God (to anger) because God said that you couldn’t count the sons of Israel, which was understood as being forbidden. Another interpretation was that Israel is countless; and hence, infinite, like the stars of heaven and the sand of the seashores. The angel with the sword was again Satan, most likely the same one that stood in Balaam’s way.
[2 Samuel 24:16] So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough! Now relax your hand!”
Something greatly provoked God to act in this way. In secret, many people kept idol altars, which we might say infuriated God’s holiness and His protective garments of wrath. Seventy thousand died, but most likely these were those who secretly practiced idolatry. Provoking God to anger means to activate His garments for eventually He relents, which means His compassionate heart prevails against His garments. His holy armor is composed of laws; and these laws stand in judgment between Him and us. Hence, the Lord said to the angel to relax his hand. Although 2Samuel 24 mentions no sword in that angel’s hand 1Chronicles 21 does.
The LORD commanded the angel, and he put his sword back in its sheath. At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifice there. For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were in the high place at Gibeon at that time. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the LORD.
The fear of the Lord is a good thing because it teaches us the difference between the holy and the unholy. Anyone coming closer to God the Father, through His Son Jesus, must first study Jesus and abide in His word. Therefore, between God’s garments and us we have the Intercessor Lord Jesus who had already asked the Father for the Holy Spirit who now teaches us regarding what’s holy and what’s not. We have no excuse for we know much. Had we not known the Bible we would have nothing to do with God. But, since we are familiar with God’s word we must be informed regarding His awesome holiness.
* * *
Your consciousness and your
perceptions will change when you embrace light and its clarity. Deviousness
will not be part of your character; hypocrisy, ulterior thoughts and motives will
also be gone. Life is so much easier this way. When this glorious light is
being poured into your mind and soul it won’t reveal anything false. And, once
that happens, you will behold this world with a quite different acuity. You
won’t look at the same thing the old way, i.e., seeing just the surface, but will
see right through it. The funny thing is that those in light, and carrying the
light, see through others, while those who don’t, filter other people’s
realities through the secrets of their mind. Those that accuse the light-bearers
of being dishonest do it for the love of crooked politics, for they pretend and
pretend well, acting out a script life handed to them.
Atheists often base their atheism on the notions like this one: ‘a God that sanctions killing of women and children is a wrathful god.’ It’s more an emotional issue rather than rational. The difference between atheists and myself is that I search and study; and find, while the atheists settled things in their mind; and don’t care to seek the truth about the Almighty God.
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