God's Anger

Gods Anger

When we receive Christ and choose to abide in Him we come to a spacious throne room. Here are Christ, the Father, the holiest of the angels, and other personages known to Christ. If we are wise we will seek every day to remain in this room, for there is love, joy, and peace in here.

(10/16/2006) But when Christ comes to dwell in us He does not find a spacious throne room. Rather He finds us sitting on the throne, and along with us every kind of garbage, junk, and landfill. Yet He chooses to make His home here amid all the corruption.

Perhaps the first concept we should consider, a concept singularly lacking in our present preaching it appears, is that forgiveness does not remove our compulsion to sin, the sin that dwells in us. How often we hear that God takes away our sin when we receive the Lord. But what we mean is, God takes away the guilt of our sin. The sin, the cause of our unrighteous behavior remains in us.

You can say "yes," or "no", or "O me!" But the fact remains, we Christians do have sin dwelling in us; not the guilt of sin, but the sin itself. Accepting Christ as our Savior does not remove the sin from us.

Now, we know there is no sinful behavior in the Kingdom of God. Sin is not present in the Kingdom and covered by the blood. Sin simply is not present in the new world of righteousness we are approaching. If it is, it would be best we never had come into existence.

But how do we get from here to there?

The seven feasts of the Lord compose one of the major types of the Old Testament. Today we have come as far as the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Pentecost. But the spiritual fulfillment of the most solemn convocation of the Jewish year, the Day of Atonement, is now approaching us.

The term "atonement" has several meanings. After examining all of them, the meaning I like best is "reconciliation." It is the period during which God reconciles man to Himself.

First we are reconciled legally through the blood of the cross. God accepts us and is willing to hear our prayers and work with us because of the atoning authority contained in the blood of the cross. But the forgiveness obtained when we place our faith in the blood of the cross does not remove our sin. It does not remove that in us which is hostile to God. Rather it forgives the sin so God can accept us.

Next comes the spiritual fulfillment of the Day of Atonement, the Day of Reconciliation. The Spirit of God begins the work of removing the sinful compulsions from us.

Christ and the Father come to the throne room of our personality and seek to find rest there. But as long as cowardice, unbelief, murder, immorality, sorcery, idolatry, and lying are found there, the eight behaviors over which the Lake of Fire retains authority, God and the Lamb cannot settle down to rest.

After we receive the Pentecostal experience, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God examines our throne room. He discovers enemies there. He is angry with them and begins to war against them (the spiritual fulfillment of the Blowing of Trumpets, the fifth of the seven feasts of Israel).

Often God's anger is expressed in suffering, in wounding, in a feeling we are being treated unfairly, or God has forsaken us. Have you been there? It changes the center of gravity in our personality so we are more God-centered than previously.

The fourth chapter of the Book of First Peter tells us about the suffering that saves us. It is a fiery trial. It cleanses us from the actions of our earthly nature. Even the righteous are saved with difficulty because of the struggle they must endure as God wages war against His enemies in their life.

But, as Peter tells us in the last chapter of his first epistle, after we have suffered for a while, God will restore us and make us strong, firm, and steadfast.

The concept of God being angry with His saints and wounding them, and then restoring them, is found several times in the Old Testament.

In that day you will say: "I will praise you, O LORD. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. (Isaiah 12:1)

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:2

"For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you," says the LORD your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:7,8)

Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. (Hosea 6:1)

Until we go through the experience of suffering under the hand of God, and then His binding up, we are a spiritual lightweight, so to speak.

Has this been happening to you lately? Are you experiencing the sufferings of Christ? One of our sufferings may be that of being treated unjustly. There are believers who can stand any kind of suffering except that of being treated unjustly. Their cry fills Heaven and earth about how they have not been treated fairly.

But there are other forms of suffering, including financial problems, family difficulties including the loss of a loved one, physical ailments, and several forms of imprisonment in which we are denied our most fervent desires for a season, or are compelled to endure disagreeable or painful circumstances.

As I said, until we are kept in the Lord's prison for a season, we remain a spiritual lightweight. When God is satisfied we are going to remain faithful to the point of death, He will restore us. He will bring us forth into love, joy, and peace.

Best of all, however, is our increased knowledge of the Lord. Like Job, we had heard about God. Now our eyes have seen Him. We have passed from Bethel, the house of God, to El Bethel, the God of the house of God.

Eddie Reiter spoke passionately this morning of his desire to move past the light of the sun (the Courtyard), the light of the Church (the Holy Place), and enter the Light of God Himself (the Most Holy Place). There are believers of today who have that passionate desire.

But we cannot know the Lord like this until He has had His way with the enemies in our life. When our warfare has been accomplished, then God and we have peace.

If you are in a dark place right now, and you have been serving God faithfully, do not despair. Remain steady under the Lord's hand. He will bring you forth when He is satisfied, and your throne room will be clean and ready for the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, yourself, and those people whom God has given you. Thus you shall have love, joy, and peace until eternity comes to an end and you then enter the fullness of the destiny of the sons of God.

In the evening another vital topic arose, the concept of God's mighty men, so to speak. It is clear from major types of the Old Testament, and some illustrations from the New, that God will begin the perfecting of His Church, His Tabernacle, by first drawing out a firstfruits of saints.

We are careful when we speak of an elite, because it is easy to fall into the trap of considering ourselves superior to the remainder of the Body of Christ. However, the true elite do not have the attitude of superiority but of that of blessing God and serving the believers and the rest of mankind with the ability God gives them.

We see how Jesus chose only three of His disciples to see Himself, Moses, and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. According to the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelation, there is a first resurrection in which the specially blessed and holy members of the royal priesthood participate. Also there is the marriage of the Lamb that comes at the beginning of the thousand-year Kingdom Age, and then the marriage of the Lamb that is seen at the time of the new sky and new earth.

Jesus spoke of thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. The fourteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation tells us of a firstfruits who follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

One major Old Testament type of the division of the Body of Christ into victorious saints, and then the remainder of God's elect, is found in the account of the victory won by Gideon and his three hundred.

Another type is that of the "mighty men," and then the remainder of Israel.

Yet another is found in David's reign in Hebron for seven and one-half years, and then over all Israel for an additional thirty years.

The fact that during David's reign the Ark of the Covenant was located in David's city of Zion, while the remainder of the Tabernacle of the Congregation was established at the high place in Gibeon, is of the greatest significance. This tell us that the thousand-year Kingdom Age, which will begin when Christ returns, will be a Davidic reign of war, of the rod of iron, of the subduing of the nations. This will be followed by the Solomonic rule of eternal love, joy, and peace, which will commence when the glorified Christian Church comes down through the new sky to rest in unconcealed splendor on the new earth.

Today the Spirit of God is moving among the believers to see who will "climb Mount Everest," so to speak. The base camps have been being established since the days of the Reformation. Now the summit is in sight. Not too many will be moved by the unprecedented Kingdom opportunities before us today.

But there are those who see the gleaming summit in the distance, the fullness of God, the stature of the fullness of Christ. They will prepare themselves and set out to attain to the highest and best God has to offer—to be seated on the Throne of Christ.

Are you one of these? Are you willing to forsake all and follow the Master as high as He will take you? Then set out for the summit right this instance, and never quit until you stand in victory on Mount Zion with the Lamb.