Psalm 11:5b “But the wicked and the one who loves violence, His [God’s] soul hates."

[Here is one of those seeming paradoxes of the Bible: God loves all yet hates the wicked. Here are three possible understandings among several, all of them true:
--He hates what they do, but loves them as His creatures;
--He loves them, but when they refuse to come under His protection by surrendering to Christ, they fall under His hatred for sin;
--or here He is speaking of Satan and his hoard of demons.

The certainty is that, in God’s character there are no contradictions: He hates sin and will punish it yet found a way (an extremely expensive one) to redeem sinners within this context.

Psalm 11:6 “Upon the wicked He will rain coals; Fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.”

[As part of your plan to eliminate evil, you, Lord God, will in your justice justly punish rebellious evil doers--those who refuse your gracious forgiveness and instead love violence, those who hate what is good, those who refuse to believe you and accept Truth.

This is what you did in Sodom and Gomorrah, what you did in Canaan to those who rejected you, and what you will do to all those who refuse your offer of goodness and grace. There can be no justice without the punishment of evil.]

As it says in Revelation 20, "Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

"And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

"The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.

"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

May all who read this have their names written in the Lamb's book of life!