I don’t know what to say about this chapter. In chapter 46 there were warnings of doom for God’s people, but they were followed with a future promise. God’s enemies receive no such promise.

Chapter 47 is a judgment against the Philistines. God is going to make an end of them and that is that. God’s wrath brings finality.

Let’s think about that for a minute. God’s people were the Jews. Maybe you are a Jewish believer in Jesus as the Messiah, but most of us are not. We were not God’s children.

In fact, the Bible calls all of us God’s enemies. We were enemies of God until we were reconciled to Him.

We were His enemies. What happens to God’s enemies?

We deserve hell. We deserve wrath. We deserve destruction. The wages of sin is death. We deserve to die.

But God did this marvelous thing. He can show mercy on whom He wants to show mercy. That’s a positive thing. Never read that in a negative light. God desires to show mercy to everyone. He desires that all are saved. His grace appeared bringing salvation to everyone (Titus 2:11). He delights to show mercy. He calls a people not His own to Himself. He flung wide the gate to the Gentiles to become children of God and to be called by His name and be His own possession.

We come into all the promises of an heir of the kingdom. That’s spectacular. We were enemies of God. We were the ones that were supposed to come to a grisly end without God.

He had mercy. Don’t ever look at your life and think you got the short end of the stick. You’ve been offered a stay of execution and an invitation to the right hand of God.