- When God is Forced to Kill
- His Royal Potentate: Kill-and-Bury
God is Love, but God is a killer, too. In her prophetic praise at the birth of Samuel, Hannah would appear to have been giving God the strange title of the unquestionable Kill-and-Bury (as we would say in typical Nigerian pidgin parlance to describe an absolute personage) when she said, “The LORD killeth, and … he bringeth down to the grave” (1 Samuel 2:6). Very well then are we warned by someone who knew Him well enough to give the warning: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).
A fearful thing is a fearful thing. If you don’t believe me, ask Miriam the quintessential worship leader when by gossip her unctuous voice was silenced by an overwhelming sudden leprosy (Numbers 12:10); ask Nadab and Abihu when their priestly gowns suddenly became their funeral cloaks (Numbers 10:1-7); ask Jonah gasping in desperate prayers from the belly of a fish (Jonah 2:1-3); ask King Nebuchadnezzar after he had graduated from seven years of humbling compulsory beastly service in the wild (Daniel 4:30-37); ask Achan when his greed exterminated his seeds (Joshua 7:24-26). In case all that is old Old-Testament, ask Ananias and Saphira when for an orchestrated lie they transited suddenly from church to the grave, from an atmosphere of awesome revival into the unquenchable flames of hell (Acts 5:1-11). God is love.
- Death that Averts Further Deaths
Recently, two consecutive Old Testament verses struck me with a strange illumination. When Israel got seduced into the idolatry and fornications of the Moabites, God got so grieved that He not only smote the people with a plague but instructed the prompt execution of all their leaders. They were to be hanged in broad day light, “that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away” (Numbers 25:4). In other words, it sometimes takes some deaths to turn away God’s “fierce anger” from the land; it takes some deaths for others more not to die. Moses wasted no time in carrying out the instruction from God. He ordered, “Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor” (v.5). Should prophets kill, or supervise the death of others?
While everyone was still grieving the deaths, a young man who might have felt that what was happening was old men doing their legalistic old stuff, strolled audaciously into the camp with his Moabite girlfriend, to continue the wickedness in his tent. Another holy young man got so incensed at the sight of that iniquitous impudence that he followed them into their tent and had them pinned to the ground with a javelin while they were so lost in the active service of their abomination that they couldn’t notice him come in, or didn’t care.
What happened next is what strikes me: “So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel” (v.8). In other words, a gruesome killing had pleased God so much as to avert His plague upon the land; one death had prevented more deaths. In fact, God was so impressed with the killer that He immediately offered him an eternal priesthood (vv. 11-12). Another wonder here: whereas David was refused from building the house of God because of the blood that he had shed (1 Chronicles 28:3), here, a young man is awarded the medal and honour of perpetual priesthood because of blood that he had shed. In one case, blood blocked priestly access; in the other, blood granted priestly access. God is a mystery.
- Deaths that Opened the Heavens
In the dynamics of God, do some people have to die sometimes for others more not to die? One high priest in the New Testament thought so, and his position was applauded as remarkably prophetic (John 11:50-51).
Years ago, God enabled me to see something strange in the seasons of Elijah. The publication of that revelation blessed many across the world, and several preach it today. There had been no rain in Israel for consecutive years, and famine had set in on account of the drought. It was going to take something drastic for the land to be refreshed again with the rains from heaven. The prophets of Baal and Elijah the prophet of God had betted, that whoever’s god or God could bring down fire without natural assistance was supreme, and the winner’s prophet(s) would kill the prophet(s) of the other.
Baal lost in that contest, and Elijah had to kill hundreds of his prophets, according to the deal. Only after those false prophets had been killed (1 Kings 18:40) was there “a sound of abundance of rain” (v.41). Some people were ‘subtracted’ from the earth (v.40) before the rains from heaven came upon that land (v.41). Alas, the equations of the spirit realm.
Is there persisting drought in your life and your land because of prophets of the opposite order and their altars that linger there? By the fierce sword of Elijah, this day, may all the rain blockers be removed, in Jesus name. Whatever subtractions it should take for the additions to return to your life and your land, may God enforce it now, in Jesus name, amen.
- Should a Prophet Kill?
Should a prophet of God kill? I don’t know, ask the bloody Elijah mindlessly surrounded with heap upon heap of hundreds of headless bodies of false prophets slain by him (1 Kings 18:19, 40); ask Prophet Samuel who would chop a king into pieces and promptly proceed boldly from the slaughter straight to the altar of God in Ramah, ostensibly still fresh with blood (1 Samuel 15:33-34); ask the apocalyptic Warrior called “Faithful and True,” with eyes “as a flame of fire,” who gets His “vesture dipped in blood” not of frogs and vermin rats (Revelation 19:11-15). God is love.
Of all, who amazes me most in this matter is the Psalmist who brazenly says that “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked” (Psalm 58:10). Is he indeed a “righteous” man who rejoices with relief at the deserved judgment upon the wicked? Should we still join the Psalmist to call him righteous when that man proceeds to wash his righteous feet in the blood of that enemy? What bloody holiness!
- Divine Equations
Much of that is Old Testament, so let us proceed to the early Church in Acts chapter 5. Mr and Mrs Ananias and Sapphira had both conspired to lie to their pastor to gain public applause. You know the story. They died in the action (v.10). The very next verse states as consequence of their abrupt fate that “great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things” (v.11). It didn’t end there: “many signs and wonders” followed (v.12). After the subtraction of those purposeful sinners, a “multitude both of men and women” was “added” (v.14). A divine equation, you would say (-x=>+yy): the subtraction of the liars had bought about the addition of many believers.
In the arithmetic of God, it still works, that sometimes it takes subtractions to achieve divine additions. The time sometimes comes when an imperative minus becomes the determinant to a critical plus.
- New Testament Witnesses
I’ll cite another New Testament case, so that I may have an answer for those who might demand a verification by “the mouth of two or three witnesses” (Matthew 18:16). Herod had become a pest to the early Church. He provoked them into night prayers that, until then, had been generally unpopular in the records. In response to those passionate prayers, God not only frustrated the bloody designs of that ruler by getting Peter out of his prison before he could kill him, but also turned the gallows against the ruler himself, for “the angel of the Lord smote him.” What catches my attention is the next verse, which reports that “the word of God grew and multiplied” (Acts 12:23-24). In other words, one elimination resulted in sudden growth and multiplications.
Whereas in the case of Ananias and Sapphira the subtraction of those brought addition only, in this case of Herod, the subtraction of the king brought both addition and multiplication. I could venture the equation (for growth [G] and multiplication [M]) as (-x=>+y1xy2). Alas, the arithmetic of God. I wish I understood the mystery, why in some cases subtractions result only in additions, and in other cases, in additions plus multiplications.
One more New Testament case seems to apply: greedy and impious folks had turned the house of God into a trade centre. Their actions had driven God out of His house and brought in robbers. Jesus got on the scene and threw them all out. Next, we read: “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them” (Matthew 21:14). While those trespassing traders lingered there, healings seemed suspended, as God had been grieved away (Ephesians 4:30). It took their subtraction from that space to gain the divine presence, the ‘addition’ of suspended grace that brought about the miracles that followed.
The foregoing appears to connect well with the Old Testament case of Abram and Lot. While Lot lingered around Abram, that blessed man could not see that he had entered into his inheritance, into the very centre of it. Soon as Lot was subtracted from the equations of Abram’s life, God said to him, “Lift up NOW thine eyes, and look…” – all that he then could see was his; in fact, had been his (Genesis 13:14). Mark the word “now.” Lot had been his blindness from the promises of God that stood all around him to the north and south and east and west (vv.14-15). It took the elimination of Lot the vail for Abram to see clearly where he was at. Whatever has to go for you to see, may they go today, in Jesus name. Amen.
- A Prayer
Powerful message that needs to be interpreted only by the holy spirit. God is indeed a mystery
The awesomeness of our God. Thank you for sharing Sir
Wow!
These are indeed very deep revelations.
Glory be to GOD.
Thank you, dear Preacher.
GOD bless you sir.
So so true. It’s been coming to my mind recently that there has been a subtraction around me and I’m experiencing some openings. This just confirms those thoughts I’ve been having. God bless you sir and may you continue to enjoy open heavens to understand the mysteries of the kingdom and tell them as you ought.
Hmmm, mysteries of God! Very apt! Just today God gave me a Theme for our 27th year Anniversary Convention of GOPEM: “The Fear and the Glory”.
Reading this point to the Revival that Jehovah-God is tugging at in my heart. Many thanks to the preacher for your indelible contributions to the body of Christ!
The mysterious God. His ways are past finding out. Bless you Sir for the spiritual insight.
This message is from the oven of the Holy Spirit
Revealing.
GOD bless you Sir.
Amen. What a divine illumination. I have been so blessed by this post. Thank you Sir. God bless you.
God indeed is a mystery; the SOVEREIGN LORD. I have often sensed in me that the way we go about/live or rather, understand this called out life in Christ Jesus, is not really how God has designed it to be. It’s far simpler, yet more deeper than we think. Thank you sir for this deep and insightful sharing.
Amen. This is powerful!