The Wrath of God
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My goal over the past few months as I have grown in sharing the gospel with the lost has been to try to understand how glorious the gospel that we have been entrusted with is. I have been so challenged, and at times humbled, as I have been learning more and more about this message. Among these things that I have learned, the most important fact about the gospel is: It is ALL about GOD and His glory. At times we may think that it is all about us and the hope that God has given us, but there could be nothing farther from the truth. The Gospel message is in truth a message about the nature and character of God!
Over the coming months, I would like to bring what I believe are some of the most important things we can learn about God and His Gospel. I would like to begin a new series of lessons tonight that deal with the nature of God. I decided to title this series: Prepare to meet your God, which is a reference to .
The goal of these lessons will be to challenge each one of us to be brought near to this Great God that we fear and love, and to challenge us to really be transformed in how we think about Him. Learning about God and His nature demands that our lives are impacted. Each topic that we discuss will demand more of us as His children to be so much more thankful for what God has done for us in Christ and hopefully will lead us to desire more to surrender fully to Him as Lord and to live for Him in every area of our lives.
List of possible sermon topics
The first topic I would like to deal with tonight is not one that I have EVER heard a brother preach on, and this is very surprising because this aspect of God’s character is mentioned so often in both the Old and New Testaments. This is so important to study so we can understand not only the Gospel but God.
The Anger and Hatred of God
When was the last time you heard a sermon on this? The reason why is because it is politically and religiously incorrect to talk about a God that is angry and full of wrath. It is so much more comfortable to talk about a God of love and forgiveness. My experience has been as I have shared the Gospel with people is that there are SO many people that worship a God of their own imagination. People often take one of two extremes in approaching the God that they serve
1. God is a God of Wrath. There are many that approach the scriptures, especially the Old Testament, and come away with a belief that the God of the Bible is cruel, unloving, and harsh. Many make this the reason why they just cannot believe in the God of the Bible.
2. God is a God of Love. More people believe in this God than the first. This God is like a cuddly teddy bear, or like a Grandfather that overlooks the faults of His grandchildren and spoils them to their hearts content.
This may or may not surprise you, but if one of these two “gods” are the God you believe in and serve, you are worshipping an idol. Both of these alone are missing something. They both show a complete ignorance of scripture, and a total misunderstanding about the nature of God! You cannot pick and choose what you want to believe about God. He is not just a God of wrath. He is not just a God of love. He is BOTH! If you miss one of them, you miss God!
So many people want to believe in a loving God that is comfortable for them that will allow them to do whatever they want. They want to believe that they can live wicked and evil lives, and then at the end be allowed to enter the presence of God in Heaven. Boy, are they in store for a very rude awakening, or wrath filled awakening.
I want to give you a warning right now. You are going to hear things tonight that may be uncomfortable. You may hear things tonight that are different from what you believe about God. You may hear things that are completely new to you.
The Bible is so clear that God is a God who is full of anger, hatred, indignation, and wrath. He is spoken of as abhorring things and viewing things as an abomination. All of these terms describe His anger.
Some Examples:
Behold, the name of the LORD comes from a remote place; Burning is His anger and dense is His smoke; His lips are filled with indignation And His tongue is like a consuming fire
"I Myself will war against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, even in anger and wrath and great indignation.
Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire And the rocks are broken up by Him.
For the LORD'S indignation is against all the nations, And His wrath against all their armies; He has utterly destroyed them; He has given them over to slaughter.
God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day.
The New Testament
I could go on and on showing that God is an angry God. He is full of wrath and hatred. There are over 100 references I could give you in the Old Testament to show you the anger, wrath, and hatred of God. But you may be saying to yourselves. “Yes Jason, you are right, but all of the verses that you mentioned are in the Old Testament. God is different in the New Testament!” I must inform you, God is the same in the New Testament. He is angry and full of wrath.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS:
to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek,
and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire,
dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
God’s wrath, indignation, or anger is mentioned at least 38 times in the New Testament!
Anger and Hate Towards who?
You have probably heard the popular cliché that says that God hates the sin and loves the sinner. There is a problem with this statement. It is not biblical. It is true that God hates sin. Sin makes Him angry. But the Scriptures take it a step farther. God not only hates sin, but also sinners.
(TURN TO)
For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness;
No evil dwells with You. 5 The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes;
You hate all who do iniquity. 6 You destroy those who speak falsehood;
The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
This verse and many others make it so clear. God does not just hate the sin, but also the sinner. When we sin we make ourselves the enemy of God. Look at the words in this verse again. You hate ALL who do iniquity. You DESTROY those who speak falsehood (liars) (v6), The LORD abhors the MAN of bloodshed and deceit. If hate is too strong a word for you, how about ABHORS? 14 times in the first 50 psalms alone we see God’s hatred for the sinner. In , the text that is mentioned most to show the love of God, we see one of the most neglected verses about the wrath of God: .
Read
The wrath of God abides on the sinner; on the one who does not obey the gospel. We need to understand that when God killed someone in the Bible or sends someone to Hell, He is not just punishing sin.
He is punishing the SINNER.
· The Flood –
· Sodom and Gomorrah –
· The Destruction of Jerusalem in 586BC
· Judgment of the Nations
NEW TESTAMENT
· Ananias and Sapphira ()
· The destruction of the church’s persecutors (Revelation, )
· God will not throw sin into hell, but sinners
My brothers and sisters, God hates and abhors sin! He hates sin so much that He is not only dead set against sin, but also against SINNERS. His holy hatred and wrath is against all who reject Him and all those who will not obey the gospel.
But What about Gods Love???
You may be asking this question as I have been going through all of these passages that talk about the hatred and wrath of God towards sin and sinners. What about the love of God. How can we have so many verses that talk about God’s hatred towards sinners when there are so many verses about His love? In both the Old and New Testaments there are numerous verses that talk about the love of God:
· “For God so loved the world…”
· “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.”
· “God is love”
Here is a text in the Old Testament that mentions both God’s love and wrath:
“The Lord passed before him (Moses) and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.’”
So how can this be? There seems to be a contradiction here. How can God both be a God of wrath and hatred towards sinners while loving sinners at the same time? This, my brothers and sisters is the central question of the Bible, and the answer is the CROSS!
We deserve to be destroyed by God. He should crush us! He should kill everyone for their rebellion against Him. He should give all of us a one way ticket to the eternal fires of Hell! But praise God for His longsuffering and mercy. Praise God that He offers us a way to escape having to experience the fullness of His wrath due to sinners. The CROSS, and ONLY THE CROSS can save us.
We deserve to drink the full cup of God’s wrath for sin, but Jesus drank it for us! Turn to .
Look at the words of prophecy that describe Jesus’ sacrifice for us.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.
Do you see in these verses what happened to Jesus on the cross? Our grief, sorrow, and sin were placed upon Jesus, and God crushed and killed His own Son for US!!!! He was pierced. He was crushed. And it pleased the LORD to crush Him. Because of what Jesus suffered on the cross, God’s anger towards sinners is satisfied. The New Testament word for this concept is “Propitiation”.
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Jesus is our propitiation. He is our atoning sacrifice that appeases the wrath of God. This is so amazing; so hard to fathom, that God would send His Own Son, who is more valuable to Him then all men who have ever lived combined; He would allow Him to be crushed and killed for our sin; to drink the cup of His wrath that we ourselves deserve to drink.
How can we pass up an opportunity to NOT drink this cup ourselves?
Are You Saved?
• From what?
• Sin?
• The Wrath of God!!! God saves you from Himself!!!
• ,
• Christian, do you hate your sin?
• You better!
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