>> Seven times God sends fire from heaven:
1. Sodom and Gomorrah
Genesis 18:20-21
Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is immense, and their sin is extremely serious. I will go down to see if what they have done justifies the cry that has come up to me. If not, I will find out.”
Genesis 19:14-17, 24-26
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were going to marry his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
At daybreak the angels urged Lot on: “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he hesitated. Because of the Lord’s compassion for him, the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters. They brought him out and left him outside the city.”
As soon as the angels got them outside, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere on the plain! Run to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”
Then out of the sky the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah burning sulfur from the Lord. He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.
// “I will
evil.”
2. David’s Sacrifice
1 Chronicles 21:1
Satan rose up against Israel…
1 Chronicles 21:1-3
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count Israel from Beer-sheba to Dan and bring a report to me so I can know their number.”
Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply the number of his people a hundred times over! My lord the king, aren’t they all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”
Exodus 30:11-15
The Lord spoke to Moses: “When you take a census of the Israelites to register them, each of the men must pay a ransom for his life to the Lord as they are registered. Then no plague will come on them as they are registered. Everyone who is registered must pay half a shekel…This half shekel is a contribution to the Lord. Each man who is registered, twenty years old or more, must give this contribution to the Lord. The wealthy may not give more and the poor may not give less than half a shekel when giving the contribution to the Lord to atone for your lives.”
1 Chronicles 21:4, 7-8, 13-15, 24, 25-27
Yet the king’s order prevailed over Joab.
This command was also evil in God’s sight, so he afflicted Israel.
David said to God, “I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. Now, please take away your servant’s guilt, for I’ve been very foolish.”
David answered Gad, “I’m in anguish. Please, let me fall into the Lord’s hands because his mercies are very great, but don’t let me fall into human hands.”
So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand Israelite men died. Then God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but when the angel was about to destroy the city, the Lord looked, relented concerning the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough, withdraw your hand now!” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
King David answered Ornan, “No, I insist on paying the full price, for I will not take for the Lord what belongs to you or offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
So David gave Ornan fifteen pounds of gold for the plot. He built an altar to the Lord there and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the Lord, and he answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.
Then the Lord spoke to the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.
1 Chronicles 22:1
Then David said, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”
// “Your sin is
.”
3. Solomon’s Temple
2 Chronicles 6:14, 40-41
[Solomon] said: “Lord God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth, who keeps his gracious covenant with your servants who walk before you with all their heart.
Now, my God, please let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place.
Now therefore: Arise, Lord God, come to your resting place, you and your powerful ark.
May your priests, Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and may your faithful people rejoice in goodness.”
2 Chronicles 7:1-2, 3
When Solomon finished praying, fire descended from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests were not able to enter the Lord’s temple because the glory of the Lord filled the temple of the Lord.
All the Israelites were watching when the fire descended and the glory of the Lord came on the temple. They bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground. They worshiped and praised the Lord: “For he is good, for his faithful love endures forever!”
// “I have chosen this place to
.”
1 Corinthians 3:16
Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
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