THE WRATH OF GOD

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23 NLT)

God's wrath is not capricious anger, like some divine rage that erupts occasionally. Wrath is the holiness of God yearning for the wholeness of creation. Wrath is goodness offended by evil, compassionate love recoiling at hatred. Wrath stands over against sin, condemning it and ultimately destroying it… All can be made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

-- Richard and Julia Wilke in “DISCIPLE: Remember Who You Are”

#5515

THE ANGER OF GOD

"So the LORD'S anger burned against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the entire generation of those who had done evil in the sight of the LORD was destroyed. “  (Numbers 32:13)

God is angry at evil.

For many, this is a revelation. Some assume God is a harried high-school principal, too-busy monitoring the planets to notice. He’s not.

Others assume He is a doting parent, blind to the evil of His children. Wrong.

Still others insist He loves us so much He cannot be angry at our evil. They don’t understand that love is always angry at evil.

Many don’t understand God’s anger because they confuse the wrath of God with the wrath of man. The two have little in common.  Human anger is typically self-driven and prone to explosions of temper and violent deeds. We get ticked off because we’ve been overlooked, neglected, or cheated. This is the anger of man. It is not, however, the anger of God.

God doesn’t get angry because He doesn’t get His way. He gets angry because disobedience always results in self-destruction. What kind of father sits by and watches his child hurt himself? 

-- Max Lucado in “In the Grip of Grace”


#4546

ANGER LEADS TO HARM

“Stop being angry! Turn from your rage! Do not lose your temper -- it only leads to harm.”  (Psalm 37:8 NLT)

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. 

-- Frederick Buechner in "Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC" 


#4537

AN ACT OF CONFESSION

“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… Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before Him. The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him,…”  (Nahum 1:3, 6-7 NIV)

Although our God is caring and compassionate, holiness cannot tolerate wrongdoing and evil. They simply cannot coexist. God’s indignation at evil is consuming and complete.

God’s anger with us is assuaged in Christ Jesus, yet we still are asked to be holy because God is holy (see 1 Peter 1:16).

Is there anything in your life, past or present, that cannot dwell alongside God’s holiness? Is there anything for which you need to ask forgiveness?

As an act of confession, list your wrongdoings. Confess them to the Lord who “protects those who take refuge in Him.”  Roll up that piece of paper, and throw it away or burn it. Experience the joy that comes from letting God cleanse you from all your sin.

-- From “The Meeting God Bible (NRSV): Growing in Intimacy with God Through Scripture”


#4294

THE LOVE AND WRATH OF GOD

Some years ago in a small town in England a man escaped briefly from an institution for the criminally insane. During his few hours' liberty, he captured, raped, and murdered a small girl and was then apprehended by authorities. At the same time he arrived at the police station under escort, the father of the child arrived, too. The father was a mild-mannered man, but when he saw the person who had murdered his beloved child, he went berserk, and it took a number of lawmen to control him. There was no incompatibility between his love and his wrath; in fact, there was a clear connection between the two. Strangely, the intensity of his love was demonstrated in the intensity of his anger. Love for the beloved was shown in anger against that which had destroyed the beloved.

The love and wrath of God must be seen as a continuum of the divine emotion for humankind. The intensity of the love of God for people is clearly mirrored in the intensity of His antipathy to that which marred His creative masterpiece. And the greatest manifestation of the love of God, the cross of Christ, is itself the fiery focal point of the divine wrath. You cannot look at the cross and see love without wrath and wrath without love. The cross stands tall in human history as the epitome of the relationship between both.

-- Stuart Briscoe in The Fruit of the Spirit: Cultivating Christian Character

#3842

TURNING AWAY ANGER

Whether at work or at home or in some other setting, you know what it's like when someone gets mad, gets their feelings hurt, and accuses you of something you didn't do. Instead of coming to find out what really happened or to talk it out calmly, they start right in with the accusations.

First reaction is what? "If they've got the nerve to come in here blaming me for things they don't even know about, they'd better have the guts to hear what I think of it… and of them."

Same thing happened to an Old Testament hero named Gideon, who famously took 300 men on a nighttime raid of a huge enemy encampment, armed with nothing more than trumpets, torches, and a bunch of empty jars. When God gave this tiny band an unlikely victory, some of the other fighting men of Israel swooped over to get into the action. But they were steamed that Gideon hadn't seen them fit to be part of the initial attack. "They criticized him sharply," the Bible says at the beginning of Judges 8. Still, instead of getting into a shouting match, he calmly told them he wasn't half the fighting man they were. Cooler heads carried the day. "At this, their resentment against him subsided."

Remember this:  "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1). Next time someone wants to start something, let your low-key response put an end to it. 

-- Joe Gibbs in Game Plan for Life Two-Minute Drills 

#2946

GOD'S RIGHTEOUS LOVE

It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man's moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God's unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love.

-- R. J. Campbell in The Call of Christ


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