Romans 1 - What is the wrath of God?

Our theme for 2021 is “Redeeming the time.”

Lat week we began a series of “Hot Topics”

The messages that I am preaching in July & August come from requests that you made.

The first one had to do with anger - is it good or bad?

The answer is both!

Anger is bad unless it’s against something bad and that makes it good - that’s righteous anger.

But even when it’s good it can still be bad if you stay angry.

I also mentioned that two thirds of the Bible’s references to anger are about God being angry.

That brings us to today’ question, “What is the wrath of God?

Is God really angry?

Does God get angry when He tells us not to?

David Lamb in “God Behaving Badly” suggests that many of us think of God in heaven as just waiting for people to mess up so he can send thunder bolts to “smite” them.

There are lots of preachers these days who refuse to talk about God’s anger.

They only want to talk about God’s love and compassion.

I have to admit, that I don’t like to talk about God’s anger either.

Maybe its a reaction to hearing too many “fire & brimstone” sermons?

I don’t want people to get the impression that God is angry all the time, especially when He tells us not to be.

But avoiding the subject of God’s wrath is not helpful either because it’s in the Bible for a reason.

Yes, God is angry, but that is not His true nature.

His nature is love, mercy and compassion.

He is angry for a reason - He’s angry at sin and injustice.

And it’s precisely His compassion and love that makes Him angry at sin and injustice.

Anger is sometimes good.

God always has good reasons for His anger.

And behind those reasons is always one thing - love.

The person who submitted the question cited Romans 1 so let’s begin there.

Suppressing the Truth

Romans 1:18–20 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.

Last year when I preached on Romans, I said this: “The whole world is engaged in one giant conspiracy to suppress the truth about God!”

We hear a lot about conspiracy theories today - some of them have turned out to not be so far out.

What is the truth that people are suppressing?

God is good.

The biggest suppression of truth, perhaps for all time, is that all of the world’s problems are somehow God’s fault!

If God were truly good, why does he allow all the evil to exist or to continue?

If God is so good, why has there been so much hatred, injustice and even violence in the name of religion?

If God is good, why do I feel like dirt whenever I’m around Christians - it must be them; they’re judging me!

In order to know God or the truth about God, we must first establish that God is good.

God is not only good, He is the very definition of good.

He is the standard by which goodness is measured.

We only know what good is because of God.

James 1:17–18 TPT

17 Every gift God freely gives us is good and perfect, streaming down from the Father of lights, who shines from the heavens with no hidden shadow or darkness and is never subject to change. 18 God was delighted to give us birth by the truth of his infallible Word so that we would fulfill his chosen destiny for us and become the favorite ones out of all his creation!

The standard of Gods’ goodness is called “holiness”

Holiness is a word that means “completely other”

In other words, God’s goodness and holiness is completely incomprehensible or unattainable except that God helps us.

God initiated relationship with us.

He made us good in the beginning

And He is the one who is working to restore us to that original image.

Everything changed when sin came into the picture.

Sin is bad.

Most people think about sin as the bad things that we do, but it’s actually much bigger than that.

We know that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were punished for it.

But that’s not all that happened.

Genesis 3:4–5 ESV

4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

If only sin were as simple as doing a bad thing...

This wasn’t a mistake, it was rebellion.

They became convinced that God was withholding something from them.

that evil might somehow be good or that God might be evil.

It resulted in broken relationship with God.

And the result is a corrupted being.

Before this, they only knew good, now they become aware of evil.

And evil constantly corrupts our thoughts and our actions.

We have trust issues.

We no longer trust God’s goodness.

And we no longer trust each other.

In fact, I don’t even trust myself sometimes.

Now we are beginning to understand the reason for anger.

God’s anger is justified.

I talked last week about anger being a loss of innocence.

I don’t know if you have thought much about this, but I have.

I grew up in a good home working on the family farm.

It wasn’t a perfect family or a perfect life, but it was good.

I have to admit that We were pretty much sheltered from the world.

Not that I didn’t ever get in trouble because I did.

But sometimes I wish that I could go back to a life that was less complicated.

I didn’t know half of what I know now, so I didn’t worry about much.

I knew a lot more about good, than I did evil.

I wish I could still say that were true.

I was innocent… every child should be.

That’s why we get so upset when crimes are committed against children, because they shouldn’t have to take on adult worries as such an early age.

God is an adult and we are like children.

God saw his children loose their innocence long before it was time.

They were caught up in the rebellion that was taking place in the spiritual realm and needed to be cut off to preserve the possibility of future redemption.

Even with the fall, we still live in a world surrounded by beauty.

If anyone wants to know God and His goodness all you have to do is step outside, look up at the sky … or just look in the mirror.

Someone created everything you see. It didn’t just happen.

God created the earth and gave us the creativity to make everything else.

God is good… that’s why goodness even exists, because it resembles its Creator.

But we don’t think about God very much.

Do you understand why God might be angry?

He was betrayed by His own creation - both heavenly beings and earthly beings.

His beautiful masterpiece of creation was corrupted, flawed … broken.

It’s true that God already had a plan for redeeming the world, but it was going to mean a lot of trial and error, a lot of waiting and a huge sacrifice.

So why would God do all of that?

One reason - because of love - the ultimate goodness of God.

Dishonoring God

Romans 1:21–23 ESV

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.

What happens when love is not reciprocated.

You don’t stop loving, but it can become frustrating.

You might even become angry?!

“Anger and love are not mutually exclusive. Love leads to anger over a broken relationship.” - David Lamb “God Behaving Badly”

God’s anger is because of love.

His wrath is not actually aimed at us, but it is toward sin.

I think that much of God’s anger in the scriptures is not directed at people as much as the spiritual forces and the deception that is behind peoples choices.

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

We said last week that anger can be good, especially when it is against something bad.

God’s anger helps us to know the difference.

We have choices and our passage mentioned several of them:

Choosing darkness over light.

A powerful metaphor for God’s goodness and holiness is light.

Light is powerful, useful and bright.

It’s so bright that you can’t look at it.

That’s like the holiness of God which is so beyond our comprehension.

But have you ever had a sensitivity to light, where it seems like anything bright is just too painful to look at?

That’s what sin does to us, makes holiness seem painful.

God is angry with you, so you need to make up for yourself before you even try to go to God.

You need to get yourself together before you can come to God.

You need to hide all of your flaws so people won’t be disappointed in you.

It’s impossible to be good, so don’t even try.

All of these are lies - darkness, but they are easier to accept than the truth because the truth hurts, especially when you are not used to it.

It’s not easy to come into the light, but it’s worth it!

It will take time to adjust and it may be painful at first.

But light is SO much better than darkness

And truth may hurt, but it will also set you free:

John 8:32 NLT

32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

If you have been hiding from the truth about God, its time to open your eyes, step outside and see the beauty all around you.

Choosing foolishness over wisdom.

Nobody tries to be stupid, its what you become when you try be smart and don’t quite make it.

The truth is we all fall short when it comes to God’s wisdom.

What is wisdom? It is not just knowing, but knowing what to do with what you know.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable, but wisdom is knowing that even though its a fruit, tomato does not belong in a fruit salad!

The problem with our sinful human nature is that we spend so much time trying to get what we already have.

The serpent promised Adan and Eve that they would be like God.

They were already like God; made in His image.

he promised them that they would know good and evil.

They already knew the goodness of God, and evil is not something they would want to know if they only knew what it was.

We seek so much after knowledge but we miss wisdom.

Knowledge is knowing all about God.

Wisdom is knowing God.

You can know all about tomatoes, but if you have never actually tasted it, you might think it goes in a fruit salad.

They say that religion is the study of God.

Religion is man’s attempt to to know God.

A lot of people get deep into religion, but never learn to know God.

Why is that? Because it is God wants a relationship, not a religion.

You can’t get to God through knowledge, status, good works or through any human means.

You can talk about God all you want, but have you tasted God?

God wants to reveal himself to us in an experiential way.

He doesn’t just want you to know Him, He wants to know you.

He will let Himself be know when you let yourself be known.

Choosing idolatry over immortality.

God is spiritual, eternal and immortal.

He’s not of this world.

Light looking into the light, it may be easier to look at the shadows instead.

When we suppress the truth about God, we look for other ways to represent God that may contain a little bit of truth but which allow us to control how much truth we want to hear.

That’s what idolatry is - a truth coated lie.

In ancient times they would make statues of animals, birds or reptiles and admire them for their attributes.

It was believed, for example, the if you worship the bull god, you will be strong or if you worship the eagle, you will be above everything else.

These a creatures that reflect something of the Creator, but allow the worshipper to admire from a distance or worship on their own terms.

Today, that’s how we do idolatry; we worship God on our terms.

I want God to forgive my sins, but I don’t want to reconcile.

I want to go to church and get a good feeling, but I don’t want to serve.

I want read Christian books, listen to Christian music and attend Christian events but I don’t want to have to identify with the pain and suffering of others.

We want all the benefits of the Kingdom of God, but avoid the subjects of sacrifice or surrender.

I know, this was not supposed to be about us. It’s everybody else that God gets angry with; surely not us!

Its all about our choices.

God’s anger is love’s response to a lack of responsiveness.

When unresponsiveness persists, there is a natural withdraw from relationship.

Giving them over

Romans 1:24–25 ESV

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Love cannot be demanded.

If God’s wrath is really just and expression of His love, then why would He give up on people?

Don’t confuse giving up with giving in?

God wants people to love Him back, but when that doesn’t happen you have to give the relationship some space.

You can’t make someone love you.

It’s been the subject of countless movies and novels.

People can be very attractive and persuasive when they want to be, but at a certain point you are just making it more difficult.

If you succeed in making someone date you, live with you or marry you by force, they will probably resent you for the rest of their lives - and with good reason.

You can’t force love - it has to be voluntary.

What does God do when people reject Him over and over again? He lets them go.

There’s an often quoted saying that if you love someone, you should let them go, and if they don’t come back they were never truly yours.

I think its actually more complicated than that, but the essential principle is true that you can never really know unless you let go.

So God lets’ go; but He never gives up.

People need to be allowed to learn.

There’s a quote that I remember from Elijah House that says, “never take from a child the enterprise of learning.”

The idea is that rather than telling children a lesson and expecting them to remember it, you might let them learn on their own and they will never forget it.

Tell a child not to touch the stove and they will try again when you are not looking. Or let them touch it and be there with ice when they do and they will never do it again.

That is the primary explanation for why God allows evil; because if He didn’t we would never learn.

It is always God’s hope that we will connect the dots between our own bad behavior and the unpleasant results.

God’s anger is like the dotted line showing us the outline of the bigger picture.

If we sense God’s displeasure, hopefully we use that information to find out where we went wrong.

Sometimes God allows things that are beyond what we think he should allow: tragedy, crime, exploitation of innocent people.

It’s not that God doesn’t care, but He wants us to connect the dots.

Sometimes God let’s evil people do evil things so that they will realize that what they are doing is evil.

In the mean time, the question we should be asking is not: why doesn’t God do anything about it?” but rather, “Why aren’t we doing anything about it?”

Wouldn’t that be a good way to show God that we are getting the message of His love?

The truth will prevail.

I may worry about God’s reputation when it comes to His anger, but God is not worried.

When I get angry it’s not usually righteous anger.

But when God gets angry you know it has to be because of love, because God is love.

1 John 4:16 NLT

16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

God is good. Evil is corruption.

Evil has not power except to twist, distort and defile that which is good.

In short, evil can only destroy and it will eventually be destroyed.

God’s wrath reminds us of what is good by exposing what is evil.

Paul’s letter to the Romans’ says that God’s goodness can be seen in nature. Have you ever stood outside during a thunder storm? I know that sounds crazy, but it’s awesome! To see the enormous power of air masses colliding in the encompassing sounds of thunders and flashes of lightning.

Generations of ancient peoples correlated that experience with God’s anger but I just see his awesome power and His majesty. Why? Because I know he loves me.

I’m not afraid of God’s anger because I am responding to His love.

Questions for reflection:

What do you feel when I talk about the wrath of God? Which do you feel more; God's anger or God's love? Can you see that His anger is motivated by love?

How do you respond to God’s holiness? Does it make you want to hide? Do you feel hopeless? Or are you curious, maybe even drawn toward the light that you can’t actually look at? God want’s you to know Him more.

Is knowing God a struggle for you? Do you know about God or do you really know Him? Are you religious or do you have a relationship with God?