Review of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece Greek – English New Testament.

10. Nor is it in this respect only that pious minds ought to manifest this tranquillity and endurance; it must be extended to all the accidents to which this present life is liable. He alone, therefore, has properly denied himself, who has resigned himself entirely to the Lord, placing all the course of his life entirely at his disposal. Happen what may, he whose mind is thus composed will neither deem himself wretched nor murmur against God because of his lot. How necessary this disposition is will appear, if you consider the many accidents to which we are liable. Various diseases ever and anon attack us: at one time pestilence rages; at another we are involved in all the calamities of war. Frost and hail, destroying the promise of the year, cause sterility, which reduces us to penury; wife, parents, children, relatives, are carried off by death; our house is destroyed by fire. These are the events which make men curse their life, detest the day of their birth, execrate the light of heaven, even censure God, and (as they are eloquent in blasphemy) charge him with cruelty and injustice. The believer must in these things also contemplate the mercy and truly paternal indulgence of God. Accordingly, should he see his house by the removal of kindred reduced to solitude even then he will not cease to bless the Lord; his thought will be, Still the grace of the Lord, which dwells within my house, will not leave it desolate. If his crops are blasted, mildewed, or cut off by frost, or struck down by hail, and he sees famine before him, he will not however despond or murmur against God, but maintain his confidence in him; “We thy people, and sheep of thy pasture, will give thee thanks for ever” (Psa_79:13); he will supply me with food, even in the extreme of sterility. If he is afflicted with disease, the sharpness of the pain will not so overcome him, as to make him break out with impatience, and expostulate with God; but, recognising justice and lenity in the rod, will patiently endure. In short, whatever happens, knowing that it is ordered by the Lord, he will receive it with a placid and grateful mind, and will not contumaciously resist the government of him, at whose disposal he has placed himself and all that he has. Especially let the Christian breast eschew that foolish and most miserable consolation of the heathen, who, to strengthen their mind against adversity, imputed it to fortune, at which they deemed it absurd to feel indignant, as she was ascopos (aimless) and rash, and blindly wounded the good equally with the bad. On the contrary, the rule of piety is, that the hand of God is the ruler and arbiter of the fortunes of all, and, instead of rushing on with thoughtless violence, dispenses good and evil with perfect regularity.

First is the reason for God’s punishment of the people.

After you read His charges against mankind, I’ll have the punishment for you to read listed. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Romans 1:18-23 NASB)

Here is the punishment from God against the people in His judgment;

“Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
(Romans 1:24-32 NASB)

So ask yourself, “Who is their father?”  Who would want to murder so direly?

(John 8:37 NASB) “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.

(John 8:38 NASB) “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.”

(John 8:39 NASB) They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus *said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham.

(John 8:40 NASB) “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.

(John 8:41 NASB) “You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.”

(John 8:42 NASB) Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.

They weren’t quite getting it yet.  Jesus was telling them they are Satan’s children, but they still saw themselves as God’s children.

(John 8:43 NASB) “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.

(John 8:44 NASB) “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

(John 8:45 NASB) “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.

(John 8:46 NASB) “Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?

(John 8:47 NASB) “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

(John 8:48 NASB) The Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

(John 8:49 NASB) Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.

(John 8:50 NASB) “But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.

(John 8:51 NASB) “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.”

(John 8:52 NASB) The Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’

He is about to lay it all out for them here, and then they get really mad…

(John 8:53 NASB) “Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?”

(John 8:54 NASB) Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’;

(John 8:55 NASB) and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.

(John 8:56 NASB) “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

(John 8:57 NASB) So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”

Here is the Coup de grâce.  I love the ἐγώ εἰμί statements Jesus makes.  That my friends is why they want him dead.

(John 8:58 NASB) Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

(John 8:59 NASB) Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

Sinners in the hands of an angry god.

via Historic Church Documents at Reformed.org.

“8.     Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience do also bear testimony. There is this clear evidence that men’s own wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise we should see some difference between the wise and politic men of the world, and others, with regard to their liableness to early and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Eccles. 2:16. “How dieth the wise man? even as the fool.“”  Jonathan Edwards

We all die when it is God’s will for us to die.  No contrivance of wisdom or artifice of intellect will stay His hand.