March 19, 2023
The Lord pierced the silence in that still place between sleep and wakefulness this morning. He said, “NEITHER WOULD I. I WISH THAT NONE SHOULD PERISH.”
I’ve been really sick lately. I actually missed church this morning, which never happens. I woke this morning after my husband left for church, got up for a moment, and quickly laid back down. As I laid my head on my pillow, my thoughts went to a friend of mine whom I have not heard from in a few months. The last time I saw her, she was perplexed about how God could send anyone to hell. She said, “I would not send anyone to hell.”
I must’ve fallen asleep right as I was recalling her saying those words, and that was the Lord’s response: “NEITHER WOULD I. I WISH THAT NONE SHOULD PERISH.” The message was booming, cracking the silence, and it jarred me. As I arose the Lord continued to reveal how it is never His choice to send anyone to hell. But there are some who are so prideful and rebellious, they would reject Him to the very end, and for those, it is not HIS choice, but theirs, that they be eternally separated from Him.
Immediately, I remembered this verse:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
- 2 Peter 3:9
Often what I think of when I consider eternal separation from Him is that He is so much wiser and higher than we are:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
- Isaiah 55:8-9
Surely He in His infinite wisdom knows the heart better than I do. If He calls something just, it is just, whether I understand it or not.
I love how the Lord is trustworthy and faithful, yet always unpredictable. He’s unfathomable. I would never have expected Him to speak to me about this in that exceedingly rare way in an audible voice. But I have been doing a deep dive into the book of Ezekiel, so when I meditate on this morning, it can see why He would.
Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?
- Ezekiel 18:23
Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
- Ezekiel 33:11
Comments