The Wrath of God

Understanding the Holy Wrath of God

MUS games- Unsuccessful Skittles Attempt

Jason Hindman/Nicole- Charlotte or Henry gets the skittles correctly

Sean Bowie/Emily- Bryce or Thomas got everything except the Skittles twice

The pharmacist documentary-

His son dies, the father attempts to solve the murder mystery. Along the way his eyes are opened to the drug epidemic which led to the death of his son.

He begin to rage war on his profession

Romans 1:18–23 ESV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Last week we are introduced to the revelation of righteousness; now Paul goes to the revelation of the Wrath of God.

I am not ashamed of the Gospel. . Gospel imperatives and the likes are easy.

Those of us who do share the Gospel with others, find it easy to tell about the peace we have in Christ.

Paul says later in chapter 5

Romans 5:1-2 “1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

We talk about the goodness and joy.

But oftentimes, those who share never touch on the wrath of God. . . THAT IS BEING revealed.

This is different from Hell/Fire/Brimstone

This is what is happening now before our eyes. Paul says BEING (present tense) revealed. Not to be revealed, has been revealed. .. . but is being revealed.

Anyone use that in your witness and evangelism?

The romans road evan-

THE PLAN OF SALVATION Is anyone perfect? As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. (Romans 3:10) This means no one is perfect Is there any exception? ForallhavesinnedandcomeshortofthegloryofGod. (Romans3:23) None of us meet God’s holy standards. Where did sin come from? Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (Romans 5:12) Adam, the first person created by God, sinned and passed sin on to every human being. What do we deserve for our sins? For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6: 23) Because of our sins, we are supposed to die. Who paid the price? God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5: 8) Instead of us dying, Jesus died in our place in order to give us life. What is the way out? That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. (Romans 10:9-10) For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13) Jesus is the only way out. How can I get out? By Salvation, which is as simple as A...B...C: A - Admit you are a sinner B - Believe in your heart that Jesus died and rose from the dead C - Confess with your mouth that God raised Jesus from the dead, and that you accept Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life.

EvangeCube-

God’s Holy wrath is a fly by.

Keller on the Wrath of God. Why is it being revealed

Romans 1–7 for You Anger Revealed

God’s wrath—his settled, fair, right anger—is, Paul says, a present reality. It “is being revealed” (v 18). He does not say: The wrath of God will be revealed. It is seen now, today. This prompts two questions: Why is it being revealed? and How is it being revealed? The rest of the chapter gives his answers.

verse 18 as the main idea or main topic for the rest to come through chapter 3.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 1:18

1:18. This verse serves as a topic sentence for this entire section. In addition, it stands in contrastive parallel to verse 17. The continuing revelation (the verb is being revealed is in the pres. tense) of the wrath of God is an expression of His personal righteousness (which also “is being revealed,” Gr., v. 17) and its opposition to human sinfulness. Therefore people need the continuing revelation of “a righteousness from God” (v. 17) that He provides. God’s wrath is directed against all the godlessness (asebeian, “lack of proper reverence for God”) and wickedness (adikian, “unrighteousness”) of men, not against the men as such.

in the coming weeks, we will see Paul is building a case against 1. Those how are unsaved, 2. Moralist , 3. The people whom the promise was given.

Everyone is culpable!

what has given way to God’s wrath?

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 1:18

Failure to give God His due inevitably results in failure to treat people, created by God in His image, the right way. Conversely, people (in their unrighteousness toward others) continue to suppress (katechontōn, lit., “holding down”) the truth (cf. 1:25; 2:8) concerning both God and man.

Keller

Romans 1–7 for You Suppression

Suppression

What draws God’s anger is “godlessness and wickedness.” The first speaks to a disregard of God’s rights, a destruction of our vertical relationship with him. The second refers to a disregard of human rights to love, truth, justice etc, a destruction of horizontal relationships with those around us. It is a breaking of what Jesus said were the greatest two commandments: to love God, and to love our neighbor (Mark 12:29–31).

Johnny Mac

The wrath of God is the Beginning of Evangelism, The starting point

The theme verse of the entire book of Romans is in Romans 1:16-17

· I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ

· The gospel of God verse 1, God is the source , the gospel of Christ is the culmination

· This gospel is for all who believes Jew first then the Greek

After Paul talks about the glorious Gospel and its power for salvation to all who believes, he immediately jumps to the wrath of God, wow

I am sure in our day and time, the wrath of God is not discussed and definitely not in the beginnings of our evangelistic efforts. The wrath of God, its real but seldom discussed. Believers must have a good grasp on this because it helps us understand more strongly the beauty of his love and his grace and his mercy.

· Engagement: marriage counselor did not say congratulations on your engagement; Damon as a part of your love for her map out your funeral, estate planning, life insurance , etc.

o Although this shows further my love for my wife by having these things in place, it is never discussed and people wait too long to prepare, some never prepare

· I remember after Erika delivered our first born, Daniel we were all excited and the joy of successfully delivering and all that jazz, my best friend Damon (lives in Georgia) says time to start thinking about schools, were he’s going. WHAT?!! He recently moved from Memphis and was well aware of complications. So we began watching documentaries and stuff

What paul does here is opposed to our modern thinking and flow.

Most of our evangelism avoids the wrath of God and moves quickly to : LOVE, HAPPINESS, FORGIVENESS, JOY AND PEACE.

We ask people: here don’t you want this, Joy and Peace. . and never mention judgement. Its all about Love and being a friend of God

I have to be honest, I can probably count on my hands the number of times I have introduced wrath and judgment in my opening arguments in evangelism.

From Paul’s perspective fear becomes the first pressure applied to evil men.

Let them know about the wrath of God

This is a hard subject; but the beginning of the GOSPEL and proper preparation for the announcement of grace is The Wrath of God

How can we understand what God loves and we don’t understand God’s hate? How can we understand His grace if we don’t understand His Law?

How can we truly understand forgiveness if we don’t understand the penalty of sin?

We will not seek salvation and grace if we don’t understand the grave danger we are in; this pushes us to want to change

Let me stop here and say, I am not and advocate of forces people into the kingdom wit Hell, Fire and Brimstone. I do believe it is important for us to grasp the Full context of the Beauty afforded to us by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

For God so lOved the world, he gave is only Son, so all would not perish but have eternal life.

· That can’t be the same God who is one of anger and fury and terror right?

We when first think of his wrath we must see this as being a part of His attributes.

Communicable Attributes- ways we are like God

· Love, knowledge, wisdom, jealousy

Incommunicable Attributes –ways God is different from us

· Holiness, Ominscience, Eternal,

There is a good balance between his divine attributes

· If there was no anger or wrath he would not be God

· As much as he is loving, He also must hate the things he doesn’t love

Hebrews 1:9

· “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity.”

It has totally been taken out of most things in Christian culture as well as the songs. Elder Steve Tucker said this: “I don’t understand this Christian culture, this culture has a Low view of God’s holiness and lax when it comes to sin.”

Think about the songs we sing. I came out of a traditional African American Baptist church. . very very conservative. No gum chewing, no coffee in the sanctuary, and the list goes on.

· We sang hymns like: Alas and did my savior bleed and did my sovereign die; would he devot his sacred head for SUCH a WORM as I.

· This song has been changed to soothe the harshness of being a worm. . to sinners such as I. Sinners and Worms. . same meaning perhaps. . . not the same impact.

· We have attempted to soften the lowly estate we were in prior to coming into a loving relationship with Jesus.

We will only understand the depths of his love when we understand what he hates

Lets look at scriptures

· Psalm 2:1. “Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”

· Look at Psalm 76, another illustration. This is reflecting back on the judgment of God upon the Egyptian army. It says in Psalm 76:6, “At thy rebuke, 0 God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a deep sleep. Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment.”

· Look at Psalm 78:49. And here is God’s wrath poured out against the enemies of Israel again, verse 49. “He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to His anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength n the tabernacles of Ham.” God was angry. God was fierce. God had wrath. God had indignation. And God brought trouble, very severe.

· Psalm 90:7, it says - and this speaks of man as he stands before a holy God, “For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thine wrath are we troubled.” Verse 11, “Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is Thy wrath.” This is the hymn book of Israel. And I would hasten to add that they had hymns about God’s wrath. It was equally a part of God’s nature.

· In Isaiah 9:19 it says, “Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened - ” and then this amazing statement “ - and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire.”

· Jeremiah also spoke of the wrath of God, 7:20. “Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, Mine anger and My fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.”

· Ezekiel, the prophet of God, 7:19 says that, “not their gold, nor their silver shall be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their stomachs: because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity.”

OT stories of his wrath: Sodom and Gomorrah, Tower of babel

New testament

In John chapter 3, John, that wonderful gospel written by a man of love, that gospel that presents the Lord Jesus Christ in all His wonder and majesty and beauty, is yet a gospel that speaks of God’s wrath.

John talks about it in several places, how that God’s wrath will be poured out. But one particular one is at the end of the third chapter, the last verse. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.” It is not well with people who do not know Christ. It is not well with them. The wrath of God abides on them.

And in the very epistle which is before us, Romans, Paul points out the wrath of God when in 9:22 he says, “What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?”

And so it goes. In Ephesians 5:6, “Let no man deceive you with vain words: because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience

So following Pauls roadmap, we must have the bad news before we have the good. When we go to the doctor we must get the problem before we can treat the problem.

· DR. Duncan and the C. Diff Clostridium Difficile

We are all born into sin, shaped in iniquity. ALL!

Ephesians 2, we are all born dead in our trespasses and children of wrath. By our nature

Everybody born into this world is a child of wrath. Everybody born into this world is a victim of lust and desire toward evil things. Everyone is born spiritually dead. “We are all,” says Paul, “condemned already - ” or says John, rather “ - condemned already because we believe not in Christ.”

The whole human race is damned to hell. We are all children of wrath under the judgment of God. Man is born condemned. All men are born into the world under the wrath.

This is were the Gospel starts

Wrath of God qualities

1. First, the quality of wrath, the quality, the essence of it. What kind of wrath is it? Well, it is the wrath of God. It is divine wrath, and that is a very important beginning. It is divine wrath.

· Not like when we get angry or mad

· Its holy wrath, righteous wrath

· His wrath is perfect

God could not Be Holy, if he did not react to evil

· Habakkuk 2: thou art of purer eyes that you can’t look at evil (sin,iniquity)

Jesus in John 2, his first public act in Jerusalem. . whipping people out of the temple. There was a dishonoring of God (lying cheating, extortion)

His wrath is always perfect and Holy

Psalm 58:10- the righteous rejoice when they see the vengeance of God

The story of Achan Joshua 7:19

· God said, “When you go in to take Jericho, don’t steal anything.” And Achan just stole everything in sight, just disobeyed. He came back and buried it all in the ground in the middle of his tent. Joshua went to him and said, “Confess your sin.” Joshua 7:19, “Confess your sin and give glory to God.” Now what did he mean by that? He meant that Achan was really going to get it. I mean, he was going to get it, and he did get it. You know what happened? He died and all his family with him. Then they must have been implicated in the whole operation.

· But he says, “Before you get your due judgment from God, you confess your sin.” In other words, you say, “I am guilty. What God does to me is the proper reaction of His holiness.” You see? That’s the issue. In other words, don’t you ever impune God as if He did something impure. Even when God is angry it is the right expression of His utter holiness.

2. Time of Wrath (revealed). . constantly revealed. . always brought to light

· In the Garden

· The Flood

· The Cross of Calvary

One may ask the question of “why do the wicked prosper”. . when will they experience the wrath of God.

It’s coming!!!!

3. Source of Wrath: From Heaven

· two ways

o Moral order-

§ When God created the world he built certain laws within it

o Personal action- on behalf of God

§ He did not just create the world and let it run on its own, he is personally involved

4. Nature of wrath- against sin

· against ungodliness, and unrighteousness of man

o Jude 1:15 God is going to “come and execute judgment on all, and convict all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed.”

5. Extent of God’s wrath –ALL

· All have sinned and fallen short

6. Cause of Wrath- those who hold true of unrighteousness

· Goes into the next section of Romans

End of lesson