Malachi 4:1 All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire, says the Lord Almighty. Not a root or a branch will be left to them.”

Sometimes the Lord inflicts pain to discipline the people he loves, just like a good parent. The word “discipline” comes from the same word from which we get “disciple.” It is a form of teaching. The psychologists would call it “negative reinforcement.” Or, as an old friend of mine used to say, it is “applied psychology” (with the “application” of the hand to the backside of the child).

The goal of God’s discipline is to make a person better. It corrects them and puts them on a better path. It helps them grow as a person. It takes a thousand different forms in the consequences we suffer for our behavior from youth to old age.

That is not what God is doing to the arrogant and the evildoer on the day of judgment. This is justice. It is payment. No one is getting better. Malachi says these people “will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire…Not a root or a branch will be left to them.” Maybe you have seen an area after a forest or grass fire has gone through. At first, everything looks dead and gone. But after some time and some rain, green growth appears again. Not in this case. Not even a root is left. The Lord isn’t clearing the field for future growth. He is simply clearing the field when his day comes with fire.

Does this seem out of character with what we know about God’s love and mercy? It can be hard to make God’s “justice” and “mercy” fit comfortably together inside our heads and hearts. But both characteristics of our God are true. And both are good.

In his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis paints a picture of a particularly bad man who rises to wealth and power by treachery and cruelty. He exploits his victims with no feelings of conscience and laughs at them. He betrays his own friends along the way. He goes to his grave with no guilt, no regrets. He believes that he alone has figured out the secret to life. Everyone else is a fool. He was not willing to be converted in this life, and he is certainly not going to convert to God’s point of view in the life to come.

What is the proper fate for such a person? Is it just a sinful desire for revenge that we want to keep him out of heaven, that we think that somehow he should suffer for what he has become? No, something inside us tell us that it is right that there are consequences, and that those consequences should be neither easy or pleasant. Such never ending enemies of goodness and love should not be rewarded. Even if such a person can’t be converted, it is better that he be confronted with his spiritual failure rather than live in the illusion that he got it right. The fires of God’s justice serve just a purpose.

Lewis reminds us that the Lord does not produce descriptions of the day he comes with justice for people who will never read or hear or believe them. He writes them for us. He is giving us warning. He is calling us to repent of the things that keep us from God. He writes them so that we can escape the fire on the coming day. We are the children he intends to spare and rescue, not the enemies he needs to eliminate. For those who repent and believe, God’s justice falls on his Son Jesus Christ instead of the sinners who had it coming.