Fat Church
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Brothers and Sisters, there are two things you need to hear this morning - that our God is angry, and that our apathy in the face of such anger is appalling.
We love to talk about Salvation. It is the message we proclaim! In fact each week we gather here to celebrate and remember the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. We want the world to know about that salvation, and to come to Jesus to be saved.
We proclaim the love of God, the mercy of God, the Grace of God, the forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus!
Yet in our day we have neglected part of the message. All these things we should proclaim, without forgetting the other great attributes of God that are essential to the salvation story.
We minimize or gloss over things that make up a very important part of our faith, namely the anger or wrath of God.
To be sure, we often mention God’s Justice, but only as a stepping stone to explain the need for the forgiveness of sin. Then we’ll get back to talking about the comfortable stuff like love and mercy.
But today we will to start setting things right. Today we are going to think about the wrath and displeasure of God, especially toward his people. We’re going to push against our tendency to just brush over it and move on.
The Standard
The Standard
You see God is good. He is the definition of Good. We can only measure goodness against him. He is righteousness itself, alignment with God is measure of good and right and true, like using a ruler or a straightedge to mark a straight line, we can only mark out straight and upright lives according to God.
It is not for us to invent our own standards of justice, and then measure them against God. The witless atheist will allege that God is somehow evil for pouring out his justice and wrath against rebellious nations. Or state the God is unloving because bad things happen in the world. But by what standard?
How can that atheist measure good and evil?
He is only making a faux-righteousness, that suits himself, and then holding it up as an excuse to blaspheme God. The fool says in his heart that there is no God, and then strives against God until he comes face to face with God and meet His good justice.
God is good, all the way through. He is perfect!
He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
There is nothing lacking in God! He cannot be any better or worse than he has always been. He is in a perpetual state of perfection, and everything that he does represents that perfection and goodness.
So, when the scriptures speak of God’s wrath, His anger, His vengeance, we must remember that this is good anger, good wrath, good vengeance. It is holy and right and awesome!
Now this wrath and anger is terrifying. In the old speak, we would say that God is terrible, that is, he inspires terror.
The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.
Now, lift up your voices and praise him! Praise our good and wonderful LORD!
Do you balk at this? Do you shy away from praising God in the splendor of his holiness?
Why?
Humble yourself before the Lord, and don’t presume that you know better than him. Praise him, glorify him, ascribe greatness to our God the Rock for all his wonderful attributes.
When we see jealousy and anger in our fellow human, it is often flawed. There is a right place for anger and wrath and jealousy. Such as,
Anger from a mother against those who hurt her daughter.
Vengeance by the civil government against murderers.
Jealousy of a husband over the affections of His wife.
Yet, we innately understand that while there is a good place for these, we are more likely to mess them up. It is much more likely that our anger is misplaced, vengeance is incomplete, or our jealousy is founded on selfishness and pride. We are poor reflections of God’s character in this area.
So, don’t look to each other for that standard of what is good anger and jealousy, look to God! His perfection will never fail. Look at his wrath, look at his anger.
Know your God.
Fat Israel & Angry LORD
Fat Israel & Angry LORD
God saved Israel out of slavery in Egypt. There’s was an obvious salvation - the were literal slaves making bricks and oppressed by the Egyptians.
God promised to save Israel from there, and bring them up to the Promised land. God was going to do all the work, they just had to trust and obey God while he pulled it off.
God loved his people Israel, he chose them out of all the other nations to set his love especially on them. And he cared for them and provided their needs.
Now God brought them up to the Land, and the people were preparing to go into the promised land and start claiming it. And they send spies into the land who cam back to report about what was ahead.
Of the 12 spies sent into the land, 10 came back afraid, and 2 came back saying “Let’s go and get it!”
But Israel listened to majority (the majority is not always right!), and they shirked their responsibility. They didn’t trust and obey.
And the LORD’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years (Nu 32:13).
They were still his chosen people, whom he loved, but a whole generation of them balked at what he was calling them to do, and so they lost out. They died in the wilderness on the way to the fullness of blessing.
So a whole new generation rose up, and they entered the transjordan, on the eastern side of the river Jordan, and they listened to God and went to battle and had victory. Moses had lead them this far, but Moses, the great prophet of God, he had been disobedient, and so he was not going to enter Israel proper. We was about to die.
But before his death God asked him to write a song. This song we call the “Song of Moses”.
“Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.
This song was a song of encouragement and warning for Israel. It was a song to teach the people about God, and his nature. It was to prepare them for what was to come as they entered the promised land.
We can’t go through the whole song today, but I encourage you to go read it at home this afternoon.
For us today, there are a few key verses I want to bring to your attention, that we need to hear on this topic or wrath and apathy.
“But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
Jeshurun is a nickname for Israel, in the good times. It means “upright one” - the kind of name that should go hand in hand with being God’s people.
This is a poetic prophecy for Israel, they are about to take the land, a gift from God. And they were going to grow fat on it. Yet they should have this song on their lips, God knew what was going to happen.
This is what happened - they entered the land, and they settled there. They took houses they did not build, and vineyards they didn’t plant.
They brought their herds from their desert wanderings, plus God gave them great herds and flock of livestock as plunder from the conquest of the land. They had abundance. They had everything the needed for the good life.
They grew fat and lazy, they grew stout and sleek. Like a good cow, they bulked up, they had a good shiny coat, and then they kicked the one who fed them and protected them. They pushed away the one who provided for them and cared for them!
They received the blessing, pushed God away, and then went off to do their own thing.
They were like a gold digger, who marries someone rich for their money. At first they are fawning and attentive, appearing as the devoted partner, and then they ignore their new spouse when they have everything they ever asked for. They have to goods in the bag, and so there’s no incentive to invest in the relationship.
Israel cried out to God in Egypt, and he was their only hope, but then when times would be easy, and the threats of yesterday are past, then their devotion faded.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
Israel grew fat and lazy, they forgot God. They pushed him to the side to do their own thing. In fact, they even started to dabble in worshiping other gods, they found idols that were more interesting and exciting than their Savior.
So God’s anger was kindled against them. His righteous, and justifiable anger was aroused:
For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
God’s anger, in this verse, was not for the enemies of his people, but for his people! His own treasured possession who he loved!
God’s great anger goes deep, to the bottomless depths of the pit. From the wells of Sheol, enough to burn down the whole earth.
Our God is a consuming fire!
It is perfectly good anger toward his people who were rejecting him, who were pushing him to the side. Who were happy to receive the benefits of God's love, but not remain loyal.
They were like a spouse who was happy to have their marriage and the benefits of that, but wanting to fool around and keep affairs cooking on the side.
God is righteously angry with them. And that great anger was poured out on his people at times through their history in Israel. They experienced disasters, and disease and famine as punishment from God. They experienced sorrow and war.
God basically says, were it not for my reputation, I would have wiped you off the map.
Friends, we are like Israel
God has given us great bounty, we are rich beyond imagining.
Even if you have no personal possessions - the collective wealth in public property is huge - from public toilets, to librarys to infrastructure.
You can go to an opp-shop, and with a few weeks hundred dollars you can furnish a comfortable home. It may not match or be the latest style, but it will be luxurious in comparison to the great majority of people down through the ages.
Look at the vast array of fruits at our fingertips, many of these were from distant lands and very rare for most humans throughout most of history, now I can walk into the supermarket and choose between many different types, and even different varieties! All there at my convenience! for a few dollars i can buy the most exotic fruits so that they can rot in my fruit bowl at home and be thrown away.
We are so wealthy as a country, we are the inheritors of the west. Christian infused ideology, politics, morality and culture has been handed down generation by generation, and we have benefited from that and been blessed (yes we have made some bad choices and taken things that are not ours, but that’s not related to my main argument)
We have grown fat and forgotten the LORD. We have pushed him aside to dabble in the things that are more enjoyable to us. We have taken the blessing, and kicked the blesser.
God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. We stand under the wrath of God, and we should be consumed by his fury.
What hope is there for us?
Jesus Removes Wrath
Jesus Removes Wrath
God’s anger against the unrighteousness in his people should mean that we are wiped off the face of the earth. He can’t stand sin; it is a stain on his world and an affront to his holiness!
All of have sinned, and stand condemned before God.
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
We should have no part in God’s Kingdom, in fact we should be under wrath because of what we have done!
Yet, God makes a way - in Jesus the wrath is taken away.
God’s wrath is revealed against unrighteousness, Jesus was made sin for us, Jesus propitiated God’s wrath for his people.
Gift of salvation is given to us. Receive it and escape!
But those who remain outside Jesus Christ have the wrath of God on them.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Now to our present situation.
Fat Church & Disciplining Father
Fat Church & Disciplining Father
God’s wrath is taken away from God’s people in Jesus Christ, so no more anger from God right?
God’s people have escaped the wrath of God against sin, but we may still experience the consequences of sin and displeasure of God in this life.
His people are his chosen possession, so he will chastise them when they do not trust and obey.
The NT Examples of God’s temporal judgement
Annanias & Saphira
Hymenaus & Alexander (1 Timothy 1:19–20)
Lord’s Supper profaners
Sickness from sin (James 5:14–15)
Destroy churches (Rev 2-3)
“ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
Eternal consequences for disobedience/unfaithfulness
Escaping as through fire
No “treasure” in heaven.
Your work will be judged.
Where to from here?
Where to from here?
Revelation 14:9–12 (NIV)
A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.