Knowing God - His Wrath
Knowing God • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction:
Introduction:
I want to speak to you about a perfection of God that, admittedly, is not a popular subject even among some believers.
And that is the perfection of the Wrath of God.
Yet the wrath of God is a popular subject in the Scriptures.
In fact, in the OT alone there are over 580 references to the wrath of God.
In many instances, God’s wrath is described in very personal terms.
God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.
The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.
The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.
But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.
What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.
For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
When we begin to talk or even think about the fact that one of the perfections of God is His wrath, it is important for us never to equate God’s anger with often-sinful human anger.
God never has “mood swings,” and He never “flies off the handle.”
But the fact remains that God is a God of wrath.
Now, we would not say that the wrath of God is an eternal attribute, such as is love or His holiness.
Also, keep in mind that wrath is not natural to God the way that mercy is natural.
Notice what the prophet Isaiah says about the wrath of God.
For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
Wrath is God’s natural reaction to the phenomenon of sin.
And the OT says on 13 different occasions that God is “slow to anger.”
And the Scripture say that He delights is showing mercy.
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
Also, understand that wrath should not be seen as the opposite to His love but an outworking of that love.
The opposite to wrath is not love, but indifference.
Notice Paul’s injunction:
Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Notice this; Paul says that love must be sincere, but sincere love “hates.”
It hates that which is evil.
So, true love put true wrath on display because it exercises wrath as an evidence of the things that are good and right.
Failure to hate that which is evil implies a deficiency in love.
The best way to know the love of God is on the backdrop of His wrath.
So, in reality, when the believer does not want to speak about the wrath of God, then they are really saying that they do not want to talk about the love of God either.
Because God’s judgment on sin (His wrath) allows a greater display of His love.
It is similar to when people attempt to deny the existence of God because of evil.
They say things like, “well, if there were a God then there would not be so much evil.”
To which we respond, “The existence of evil, in fact, proves the existence of God.”
“How?”
Because the only way that you have any idea of a law breaker is because of the existence of the divine law giver.
They only way that you know and understand what is tight and wrong is because of a moral standard and the only way that you can have a moral standard is because of the existence of one is absolute in morality.
You would never know evil if you never had perfect goodness by which to compare.
And you can never full understand and appreciate the love of God if we did not have the wrath of God by which to compare.
So, as you can see, the wrath of God is essential to other realities of theology.
I. The Meaning of God’s Wrath
I. The Meaning of God’s Wrath
The wrath of God is defined as His indignation at sin, his revulsion to evil and all that oppose Him, his displeasure at it and the venting of that displeasure.
It is His passionate resistance to every will that is set against Him.
In his book “The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross,” Leon Morris said he counted more than 20 different Hebrew words that are used to represent the indignation of God against evil.
I cannot think of any concept in the English language that would have 20 different words to describe it.
Yet the OT has more than 20 different word for the one concept of the indignation of God against sin.
And as said previously, this concept is also found in more than 580 passages.
And it is not just a OT concept, but it is also a NT concept that is found in more than 100 passages.
Some of the most fearful ones are from the lips of Jesus Himself.
Probably the most fearsome:
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 abideth on him.
I personally searched and found 86 verses in just the NT that speaks about the wrath of God being displayed because of sin.
And always keep in mind that when we talk about the wrath of God, punishment is always the intention of punishment.
II. The Manifestation of the Wrath of God
II. The Manifestation of the Wrath of God
As it has been said above, there are somewhere near 700 passages in the Word of God that speak to the fact of the wrath of God, but I will pick one from the OT and one from the NT.
In Numbers 16, there was a rebellion that arose in the camp of Israel against Moses and Aaron.
One group that was led by Dathan and Abiram; they were jealous of the leadership that God had established and began to speak against Moses and Aaron, whom God had set us as the leaders.
The other rebellious group was Kohathties (Levites), led by Korah, the very group to which Moses and Aaron belonged.
And the rebellion was really for a few reasons.
Korah had become jealous that Aaron, rather than him, held the position of High Priest.
Seeing that the Reubenites were the descendants of Jacob’s oldest son, they thought that the responsibility of leading Israel should rest with their tribe rather than the Levites.
These men gathered a group of 250 leaders of the congregations (vs. 2), publicly charging Moses and Aaron with abusing their power.
They claimed that all the congregation should have equal access to the Lord.
Moses placed the dispute in the hands of the Lord, directing Korah and his company to bring containers as an offering to the Lord (vs. 5-7) and the one that the Lord chooses that will be the one that the Lord had determined to be the leader.
Korah did not like that idea and according to verse 19, Korah gathered to the people and were going to take their “case to the Lord.”
Moses and Aaron also had to deal with Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram.
They refused to meet with Moses and Aaron, and basically told them that they should not think themselves too important because it is no big deal that they led them out of the land of Egypt (vs. 13).
And the indictment was further escalated in verses 14 because of the accusation that they did bring them into the promise land.
Abd because Dathan and Abiram and their families would not leave their tent by remained with the people of Korah; notice the wrath of God.
And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.
They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.
Without a doubt, the congregation of Israel was in fear.
And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.
But that fear was so short lived.
But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the LORD.
Immediately the glory of God appeared.
And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation: and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared.
And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation.
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces.
And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun.
And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people.
We might rightly assume that the plague was lepersy, all we know that it was a “plague.”
Aaron did not make it to all the people with the incense to make atonement.
And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.
Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah.
In one swoop, the wrath of God was poured out and 14,700 people died because of complaining, that is not including the number of people that died with Korah the previous day who were swallowed up by the earth.
The prophet Nahum spoke about the city of Nineveh.
About a century after Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah, she returned to Idolatry, violence, and arrogance.
And God’s wrath was going to be poured out on her.
God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;
The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.
The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.
And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.
And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?
We see Nineveh’s destruction laid out in full detail in 2:1-10.
According to 1:8 there was a flood from the Tigris River that destroyed enough of the wall to let the Babylonians through.
Nahum also said:
Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.
After its destruction in 612 B.C., the site was not recovered until 1842.
The NT illustration is from the Epistle to the Romans.
And I believe that this is the kind of wrath in which we presently live.
Paul told the Church at Rome:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
The word “reveled” is “ἀποκαλύπτω” and it means to make known what was previously hidden.
The word is also in the present tense meaning that it is constantly being revealed.
There are different kinds of wrath that we could call the wrath of God.
There is eternal wrath, which is Hell.
There is eschatological wrath, which is the wrath of the final day of the Lord.
There cataclysmic wrath like the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
There is consequential wrath, which is the principle of sowing and reaping.
Then there is the wrath of abandonment, which is the removal of all restraint and letting people go to their sins.
And that is the wrath of God that we see here in Romans 1.
God’s wrath is revealed through the wrath of abandonment, because they have the truth but they live unrighteously having the truth.
And they suppress that truth; that is the word “κατέχω” and it means “to hold down.”
These people that are the product of the wrath of God of Abandonment have the knowledge of the truth, but hold down that truth.
Paul tells us about this truth in the text.
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Why are they the products of this wrath?
Because the knowledge of God that they have makes them inexcusable to live in this kind of debauchery.
This is, of course, not enough information to save them and that is not Paul’s point.
Paul’s point is that they have enough information that it makes them inexcusable.
And because they have this knowledge but hold down that knowledge, they are the recipients of the wrath of abandonment.
And what does this abandonment look like?
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
When truth is suppressed and God is not glorified and thanked, then empty becomes the purposes of men and spiritual darkness sets in.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
All of man’s great acts of “wisdom” only show then to be foolish.
And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
When the wrath of abandonment takes over, the ridiculous becomes the insane.
And people begin to replace the worship of the one true God, whose truth they have suppressed, to worshipping all kinds of things in its place.
Hindus have some 330 million gods, which amounts to about 8 gods per family.
A two-inch long discolored tooth, claimed to have belonged to have belonged to Buddha and to have been retrieved from his funeral pyre in 543 B.C., is venerated by millions of Buddhists.
Notice from this passage that the first creature that man substitutes for God is himself.
Instead of glorifying and worshipping God, he attempts to deify himself.
But the equally as ludicrous is the worship of birds and four-footed beasts and crawling creatures.
The Romans worshipped Eagles and the Egyptians worshipped the stork and the hawk.
The Egyptians worshipped the bull-god, he cat-goddess, the cow goddess Hathor, the hippopotamus-goddess Opet and the list goes on and on.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped the scarab beetle, which lives in manure piles and commonly referred to as the dung beetle.
And because man has rejected the revealed revelation of God, God has coincided them to the Wrath of Abandonment.
I also want you to notice a theme here in this text.
Verse 24, “God gave them over”.
Verse 26, “God gave them over”.
Verse 28, “God gave them over”.
How is a person “given over?”
Simple, just remove the restraint.
God removes the restraints on heterosexual conduct.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
When a nation becomes pornographic, when the general character of a society can be seen to be immoral, this wrath is in effect.
When man is abandoned by God, when a society is abandoned by God, it operates only out of the passions of its own impure heart.
When a nation is abandoned by God, lust dominates the heart, leading to impurity and the bodies follow in most dishonorable ways.
God removes the restraint of Homosexual conduct.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Notice the word “vile”.
It is the word “ἀτιμία” and means “degrading”.
It is translated, literally, in our verse as “degrading”.
So, we are not just talking about passions, Paul adds degrading; we are going down.
There is greater debauchery here.
The degrading passions can be defined as gross affections, vile desires, perversions or even inversion.
Plain ans simple, Lesbianism, homosexuality.
And the Holy Spirit here, I believe, refers to the degradation of women because they are usually the last to be affected in the decay of morals because they have a mothering instinct and a protective instinct over their own children but when the wrath of abandonment is in force, even the women fall to the degrading passions.
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And there is a little slip in of the consequential wrath.
What is the due penalty of their error.
They have received venereal disease, AIDS and that will continue to escalate in the wrath of abandonment.
Homosexuality is the second step.
So, look at society.
When you see a society that is pornographic, that is into sexual immorality, fornication, adultery as a way of life, as a dominant way of life, which is not only in existence but approved and exalted in every way in the media, you know that you have the wrath of abandonment in operation.
And when a society also exalts homosexuality, lesbianism, or sodomy, you know that it is sinking deeper.
But God also removes the restraints on the way that the mind of man works.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Many, many other ways in the Scripture that show The Manifestation of God’s Wrath, and many ways in which the God’s wrath has not been revealed yet.
III. The Material of the Wrath of God
III. The Material of the Wrath of God
The wrath of God is something that will be revealed and it is something that is being revealed now.
People that are rejecting Christ are not waiting for the wrath of God to start on them, they are they are receptionists of that wrath now.
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 abideth on him.
And as we saw in the last section; we see that we live in a pornographic society, we see that we live in a homosexual society and the promotion of those things shows us that the unredeemed are already in the wrath of God.
The job of the Church is to snatch them from that wrath.
And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Because of God’s wrath, out task is simple as well as vital; evangelize, evangelize, evangelize.
What is the ordained way in which God has chosen to build his Church?
Evangelize, Evangelize, Evangelize!!!!!
God’s wrath is being revealed even now, Churches must fulfill their tasks.