HERE is the way we will handle the text.

And I will put verse 3 over against verse 7 - we were children of wrath, but God promises endless kindness.

I will put verse 2 over against verse 6 - we were enslaved to the spirit of this age, BUT GOD freed us to sit with Christ in heaven.

We will put verse seven against verse 5 and 6 - we were dead in sins, BUT GOD made us alive with Christ.

Jesus’ merciful warnings of Hell

Any time I watch fire, as it consumes paper cups and marshmallow bags and  other wastes, I cannot help but think of hell. It isn’t fire and brimstone from preachers who put these images in my mind. It is Jesus Christ.

He’s the one who warned the church most vividly to “cut off your sinning hand rather than go with two hands to hell” - Matt. 5: 30; that all evildoers will be thrown into a furnace of fire - Matt. 13: 42; that the goats on His left hand will go into eternal punishment - Matt. 25: 46; that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth - Matt. 8: 12. Again and again he warned that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that comes judgment - Heb. 9: 37. And these are not the hostile harpings of a country preacher. They are all mercy.

God’s merciful promise

But now, in typical Biblical fashion, after the merciful warning comes the merciful promise in verse 7. For those who trust Christ, God commits Himself to the following purpose: ... that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is the Horn of Salvation - Luke 1: 67-79

When Herod was king at Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and both were advanced in years - Luke 1: 5-7.

But God, desiring to show that he regards the broken-hearted and that nothing human can stop his resolves on their behalf, sends the mighty angel Gabriel with a word for old Zechariah:

Your prayer has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth; for he will be great before the Lord, and he shall drink no wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before Him in the Spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared - Luke 1: 13-17.