Habakkuk 1:13 [Thou art] of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, [and] holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth [the man that is] more righteous than he?
We like to think that grace, divine grace, is a New Testament concept. But just like Jonah who could not wrap his head around why God who loved judgment would spare Nineveh, Habakkuk is wondering why God holds back from destroying the wicked, moreso after the wicked has successfully destroyed a righteous man.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
But God has not changed… does not change. Which means that He does not improve, get better, make discoveries, learn lessons, change his mind or point of view, or get more loving. I AM is His name … who He is, is who He was, and would always be.
Malachi 3:6 For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
If He was the kind of person who adjusts to the moment, then His destructive capacity as demonstrated in the days of Noah, or the days of Abraham at Sodom and Gomorrah, or even Egypt with the 10 plagues, would have guaranteed that He would have destroyed the world by now.
It means then that during His prior acts of judgment, God had one thing in mind, to have a reference by which He would warn others for generations to come of what He means when He says that He would bring judgment if they do not turn from their sin.
Ezekiel 33:7 So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
Leviticus 26:45 But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I [am] the LORD.
Deuteronomy 4:34 Or hath God assayed to go [and] take him a nation from the midst of [another] nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Joshua 2:9-11 And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that [were] on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard [these things], our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he [is] God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
Rahab said "we have heard how the LORD…"Based on how translators handled the name of God in transcribing it from how it was written in the manuscripts, this means that Rahab mentioned the God of Israel by name. She and all the people had known the God of Israel by name and had come to fear him.
Romans 9:17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
It was this reputation that saved Nineveh, and preserved Rahab from destruction such that she eventually became one of the two women who were documented worthy of mention, in Matthew 1, as part of the lineage that God used to bring Jesus into the world, and by so foretelling that He would graft in the Gentile nations into the living vine right alongside the Hebrew nation. He showed that His salvation plan was for the world, and it did not start after the church was born.
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