Rarely do we consider destruction as a valid work of God. We prefer the idea that the wrath of God is restricted to the Old Testament or is maybe a distant future reality that we will not live to see.
Yet the Lord will bring the sword to our worldly life so that we can receive the inheritance of our eternal life. If we are resistant to His soft voice to let go of what hinders, by His grace He will bring a firm hand to set us free.
If we dwell on this, His ability to give and take away is terrifying, and we see a confronting example of this in Acts; the sign of death accompanied the birth of the early church.
Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”
When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
Acts 5:1-6
By His wisdom when the foundations of this age were put in place, the Lord was uncompromising in making sure the living stones were positioned correctly. Clearly the Lord deemed His response to Ananias’ sin to be necessary at this time and we see that his death (and his wife’s later on) produced a much-needed characteristic amongst the believers: fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
If required, God will bring adversity, even death, to build His church. Certainly if fear of the Lord is absent amongst believers, by His grace God will create the necessary conditions to produce this characteristic. For a body of believers that has lost the fear of the Lord has turned their back upon the very gateway to wisdom and understanding.
Let us not forget who God is, for He is both the Lion and the Lamb, a God of favour and of vengeance. Our understanding of His love must therefore be big enough to include both of these characteristics.