Sermon Tone Analysis

Before I preach, I want to take a moment to talk about our opportunity to help some of our family in the body of Christ, particularly to the west of us in Fort Myers, Naples, and other places that were impacted by Hurrican Ian.

There are about 11 C&MA churches in the areas that had the most devastation.

The good news is, that as far as we know, all of our pastors and their congregations got through the storm without injuries or deaths.

However, many of the church buildings and homes of those brothers and sisters were damaged, some significantly.

Simon Ladaa, who has preached here before, had some roof damage and water intrusion in his home and now has a mold issue.

Many others have structural damage and are displaced or without power still.

John Sappia and our District Superintendent, Tom Flanders, are over there today to learn more about how we can step in to help our C&MA family members and their mission to share Christ to those affected by the storm.

I will probably be going during the week to offer comfort and encouragement to the pastors and others.

Some of you have been through significant hurricanes, and you know this is not going to be a situation where people quickly return to normal.

I won’t recall all of the damage as I’m sure you have seen the news reports as I have.

But in the midst of this is a great gospel opportunity!

We will be informing you in the coming weeks of ways to help.

If you have ideas of how we as a church can help, please share that with the church leadership.

It may be that in the coming months we will make trips out there to help, both with physical labor and needs, and to share the love and peace of Christ.

The emotional stress is going to be extremely high for so many people.

Losing a home is among one of the top stressful things that can happen to a person, whether they are a child or a senior citizen.

And even those whose homes remain, there may be significant repairs needed.

Some people will lose close friends who choose not to rebuild and move to another part of the country.

Some will lose jobs because their place of employment is no longer there.

In the midst of this very real emotional stress, there will be people turning to many things to try to numb the pain.

Some will use drugs, either prescription or illegal, to try and numb the pain.

Some will turn to other types of sins in an attempt to forget the aching sadness they feel.

Our prayer should be that for the hurting, there will be a better option for them to turn to, that the gospel of Jesus will be heard by the hurting and those in pain, and that they will be convicted of their sins and their need for a Savior, and put their full trust in Christ.

Until we find out some more specific needs, you can give either through the church or through the C&MA website to the disaster relief fund.

I would encourage you to do that.

You can also pray for those impacted as I am sure many of you already are doing.

And we should pray about how God would use us, Oasis Church, to make a positive impact.

It is biblical for us to help other Christians who are in need.

In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul writes about the Macedonian church, and how they gave, from an outpouring of joy, they gave beyond their means, and even begged for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.

The Corinthian church should follow their example, Paul wrote, because when one believer is in abundance he should help the one in need, so that later on, the favor may be returned, for we all will end up in some kind of need.

2Cor8.13-14

This generous giving should not only be applied to money, but to the gift or presence, that is, being present for someone who needs encouragement or someone to listen.

We should be generous in thinking of these churches, perhaps finding ways to communicate to them about how we are praying for them.

So please keep all of this in mind, and as I said, we will be communicating ways to help that are more specific as we learn of the greatest needs.

Let’s take a moment to pray for our family in Christ that has been affected by the hurricane.

Why did God Command the destruction of Nations?

Part 3: The Beautiful Wrath of God.

Over the past few weeks, we have been examining a passage of scripture that certainly can make some people uncomfortable.

And the main reason it seems uncomfortable to many people is because in this passage God commands the destruction of several people groups by Israel as they enter the promised land.

My hope is that as we have been examining this and considering it within the framework of 4 key doctrines, that you and I will be more comfortable with what God has commanded in these passages.

So two Sundays ago, we considered this passage in light of the holiness of God.

God is perfectly holy, and set apart from sin, so that he cannot forever tolerate sin.

Sin must be punished in time, although God is patient, or forbearing, and does not always punish sin immediately, as soon as it happens.

And that is a very good thing, because if God punished every sin the moment it happened, none of us would be around to talk about God’s holiness this morning.

So God is holy, but he is also patient.

However, since He is a just God, he cannot allow sin to go on forever without recourse.

Last week, we considered the concept of sin and the danger of sin, which leads nicely into this weeks topic, the wrath of God, because ultimately the wrath of God is burning against sin.

And next week, Lord willing, we will look at God’s Sovereignty in all things, including salvation.

We will begin by looking at the passage in full: Deut7.1-11

Now the wrath of God is revealed in this passage in three spots: Deut7.2

and Deut7.4

God’s wrath is revealed in verse 2 in the devotion of those enemies of God to complete destruction with no mercy.

Israel is warned that if they do not do this, they would soon be the objects of God’s wrath because they would be turned by these pagans.

We see that in verse 4, and He says he destroys those who hate him in verse 10.

All of these are examples of what triggers God’s wrath.

Idolatry, wickedness, violation of the covenant, outright hate for God, all of these things will stir up his wrath against the guilty.

Now, to begin talking about God’s wrath, we probably ought to define it.

Here is one definition

The wrath of God or divine wrath are concepts used in both the OT and NT that invite readers to consider the anger of God in contrast to his mercy.

The concept of divine wrath emphasizes the danger of opposing the divine will and expresses, in human terms, the emotional reaction provoked in God by sin and rebellion.

Here is another definition:

WRATH, WRATH OF GOD Used to express several emotions, including anger, indignation, vexation, grief, bitterness, and fury.

It is the emotional response to perceived wrong and injustice.

Both humans and God express wrath.

When used of God, wrath refers to His absolute opposition to sin and evil.

When used of humans, however, wrath is one of those evils that is to be avoided.

Do you see the difference?

You and I are not to have wrath.

But why, if it is bad for us, is it good for God?

Because in God’s case, his wrath is always perfectly aligned with his attributes, like holiness, justice, forbearance or patience, love, and all of the other attributes of God.

For us, wrath could only be sinful because inevitably, our sinful parts will infect any sense of holy wrath or anger we may have.

People cannot have righteous anger in the perfect sense that God can.

James1.20

While we speak of what it means that God has wrath towards sin and sinners, we must also say some things that God’s wrath is not.

In mythology throughout history, people have invented all kinds of gods, and these gods of man’s invention were often knowing for being, for lack of a better word, emotionally unstable.

And this was not a good thing.

One of the legends was that one of the gods got so angry he could had to be restrained by other gods.

The anger of the gods was not necessarily consistent.

This is why people feared these gods and took special care to keep them all pleased, so they had temples and idols, and gave gifts and sacrifices to keep the gods appeased.

But these emotionally unstable gods had no absolute standard, so people rightly lived in fear, since at any moment those gods may decide what was good yesterday is bad today.

And even if you did everything right, they may just have a temper tantrum, and this may be in the form of an earthquake or a storm or a flood or something.

We know that even people who are explosive are not fun to be around, it’s like walkign on pins and needles to keep them happy, or their wrath will be kindled.

This is why the proverbs warn about being around people like that: Prov

Many proverbs and other scriptures warn about men of wrath, how much worse, then, must people have feared these man-made gods who they believed would act wrathfully towards them.

God’s wrath towards sin is nothing like that wrath of the mythological gods, and nothing like the wrath of people who cannot control their own emotions.

The wrath of God, I hope you will agree with me before we part ways this morning, is beautiful.

And that is because the wrath of God is coupled with his mercy, and with his love.

One commentator said God’s wrath is not capricious, which means given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior, but is always a moral and ethical reaction to sin.

And another pointed out that the Old testament holds the doctrine of the wrath of God in balance with three other doctrines: his forbearance, his love, and his readiness to forgive.

God’s wrath in the Old Testament was mostly focused on Israel when they violated his covenant, and on the enemies of Israel, who were his own enemies.

These were God haters, they mocked him outrightly, and his wrath was on them.

But really, God’s wrath ultimately is against ALL sin and ALL sinners.

Not one sin is too small to not merit the wrath of God.

We also are enemies of God before we come to Christ.

Before any of us put faith in Jesus, we really were no different than the god-hating pagans that the Israelites were to wipe out in Deut 7. We can think of God’s wrath in 2 acts, if you will.

The first act is his present, ongoing wrath against sin.

and the second is God’s final wrath on the rebellious, wicked people who refuse to ever repent and believe in Jesus.

The first act is partly what we see in Deut 7, and part of what we see all around us in the world today.

And his wrath is carried out presently in 2 major ways.

His wrath is carried out by people that he has created to be agents of his wrath, or it is carried out by other created means that he has created.