Pre-entry Purging Patterns (Part 1)

See the series here

Jesus Christ, The Lord God, LOVES repetitive patterns! Period. I recently began to perceive them as the equivalent of His ‘pictures on the box’ of His strategic puzzle pieces strewn across the pages and ages of The Bible. Scripture demonstrates two striking, opposite patterns that He apparently applies to nations, infrequently, to families, occasionally, and to individuals, frequently.

 

1. The Lord directly or indirectly purges individuals, families, societies and nations before allowing them to enter a new season of His peaceful blessing. ¹

2. Families, communities, or family-like groups purge individuals—but The Lord gleans the benefits. 

 

These are uniquely different, cousin-types of purging. One is initiated by The Lord; and the other is beneficial to achieving His purposes for us.

 

Divine Pre-entry Purging 

 

Throughout The Bible, The Lord, in various ways, declares and demonstrates that ALL  creation, including the Earth and everything therein, belong to, and are subject to Him (Psalm 24:1); that He gives and takes away breath to/from every living being (Deuteronomy 32:39); etc. He exercises His authority via His long-term Grace, and relatively short, intensive judgments against our sins (Jeremiah 9:23-24). Righteousness is His strategic purpose. 

 

Reflecting on this, I perceived an iterative pattern of Him exercising His authority:

 

Before any person or group of people (family, society, business, or nation)

enters into a period of His peaceful blessings, The Lord may purge them, using various kinds of judgments.—especially when there has been no sincere, effective repentance of sinfulness during His long periods of Grace. 

 

While we cannot perceive the details of when or how He applies this apparent pattern, here is what we should perceive and understand. Repentance is sincere, Godly sorrow over our sins, followed by demonstrated, sustained lifestyle changes that favor what The Lord calls, righteousness. That’s the strategic purpose of His Grace to us. Our general ignorance or denial of that point, leads us to abuse His Grace, unknowingly, and ergo, to pay the associated price!

 

Here are some pivotal examples of this pre-entry purging pattern:

• Salvation, itself, begins with purging. The Lord’s born-again requirements start with recognizing and repenting of sins. Only after true, Godly repentance does He spiritually apply His blood to wash away our sins. That purging qualifies us to enter into a special ‘sonship’ relationship with Father God, following which we enter into what I call His Salvation Internship Program, which lasts until death. ²

• With a global flood, The Lord purged Earth of the sins of the 1st age population. That purging qualified Noah and all ark occupants, to enter the 2nd age of our history, on a pristine, sin-free Earth.

• Before allowing them to enter extended seasons of relative peace, throughout history, The Lord has used wars between nations and groups of nations to purge societies.

• Before allowing the freed Hebrew slaves to enter the promised land, The Lord iteratively purged the young nation of Israel, beginning with the rebels who contested Moses’ leadership, and concluding with a 40-year wilderness judgment. That judgment purged the nation of all men of the first generation who refused to obey The Lord’s initial command to invade Canaan. That was the first of three pre-entry purging experiences for the descendants of Jacob.

• Before re-establishing Judah as a nation, The Lord iteratively purged all the Jews with 3 sieges by Babylon. After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, a Jewish remnant returned to Palestine to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem, establish Jewish life across Judea, and enjoy a period of extended peace.

• Before re-establishing modern Israel as a nation, The Lord allowed Jews across Europe and beyond, to experience various types of purging. Though most of us might deny The Lord’s Hand in what they experienced, His past and promised future purging of Jacob’s descendants are undeniable. 

• Before initiating His ‘forced peace/no wars’ Millennial Kingdom (in the 5th age of history), The Lord declares He will purge all Jews who will have survived the apocalypse. Only a minority (one-third) will remain to enjoy the benefits of His Millennial blessings—those who will embrace Him as The Messiah and The Lord God Almighty. (Zechariah 13:8–9). FYI, this will be a faint example of how Jacob’s family embraced Joseph who had risen from a falsely-condemned slave, to become the #2 ruler in ancient Egypt, long after his brothers, in a jealous rage, had sold him into slavery. (Genesis 37 – 47)  

In all these cases, The Lord first purged, then blessed. He cleanses, then opens doors to a new age, a new land, or a new season of relative peace. Our personal perspectives on this matter don’t matter to Him. Denying historical events that clearly fit His repetitive patterns, merely prevents us from learning His intended lessons. Our refusal to believe and learn, equates to what we call ‘history repeating itself’. Rather, it really is just successive generations refusing to perceive and learn pivotal, spiritual lessons.

 

So, which do you do:

deny, or perceive, believe and learn?

 

Stay tuned for Part 2

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¹ I intuit ‘societies’ likely include organizations, companies and corporations, as well.

² The errant notion, ‘once saved, always saved’, is not supported in Scripture. Rather, Paul labored to teach us about the conditions that come with the free gift of salvation. Moreover, in His letter to the Church at Laodicea, The Lord personally noted what would happen to believers who fail to meet His conditions. Please see: Revelation 3:14-22, Salvation, An Internship! (Poem), and Laodicean Lackadaisicalness (Series).