15. The Wrath Of God Series

[IN GOD’S IMAGE – 15 – THE WRATH OF GOD]

This message is part of a series of 90 sermons based on the title, “In God’s Image – God’s Purpose for humanity.” This series of free sermons or the equivalent free book format is designed to take the reader through an amazing process beginning with God in prehistory and finishing with humanity joining God in eternity as His loving sons and daughters. It is at times, a painful yet fascinating story, not only for humanity, but also for God. As the sermons follow a chronological view of the story of salvation, it is highly recommend they be presented in numerical order rather than jumping to the more “interesting” or “controversial” subjects as the material builds on what is presented earlier. We also recommend reading the introduction prior to using the material. The free book version along with any graphics or figures mentioned in this series can be downloaded at www.ingodsimage.site - Gary Regazzoli

God’s Wrath.

• Mankind rejected God’s invitation to live in relationship with Him and instead choose to live independently of God.

• This created a painful rift or separation in the relationship between God and humanity.

• The decision resulted in a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering as humanity descended into such a state of depravity and wickedness that God had to take the drastic step of practically annihilating mankind with the Flood.

As this would seem to be an extreme decision for God to take, it wouldn’t be right to leave this sorry situation without saying something about the wrath of God.

• It is similar stories like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and other accounts in the Old Testament that give people the impression God is just waiting for us to step out of line so he can zap us.

• From a human perspective it would seem His wrath was unjustified and God is acting from a vindictive desire to get even, to pay back and even destroy those opposed to Him.

• This and other misleading concepts have developed over the centuries that can give a misrepresentation of the true nature of God.

• There is the subject of hell where many people, including Christians, continue to view God as this harsh judge who hates sinners and can’t wait to punish them for their wrongdoing.

• When some natural disaster or calamity occurs some misguided televangelists claim God is punishing that particular city or nation because of its wickedness.

• Then there is the “good cop, bad cop” routine where God the Father is so angry with sinners; He had to send Jesus to clean up humanity so He could accept us.

• Jesus is there to placate the Father’s wrath so He can present us to the Father, but only after we smarten up and repent of our sinful ways.

• In all these scenarios, God comes off looking like an arbitrary tyrant who is hell-bent on punishing the wicked.

We have already addressed some of the issues surrounding these events like the flood as to why God acted in a particular way, but we need to return to the question of God’s character to understand this subject of God’s wrath or anger.

• Right from the start, we should acknowledge one thing about God’s character, and that is, He is a holy God who hates sin, wickedness and evil, and these things make Him angry.

• Psalms 5:5 The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong.

• But is it a bad characteristic to hate sin? Would we prefer a God who is not holy, not just, not righteous, one who doesn’t hate sin, wickedness and evil?

• This is not a human judge we are dealing with whose judgment can be clouded by human tendencies such as favouritism, prejudice, bigotry, or partiality.

• This is the judge of righteousness and truth whose judgement is always determined by another of God’s characteristics and that is “love.”

• As we saw earlier, the one characteristic that best describes God is “love.”

• The apostle John expressed it in the simple sentence, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

• So the overriding principle that governs everything God does flows from this one overriding characteristic.

• If God is creating, it’s for the purpose of love.

• If He is redeeming, it’s for the purpose of love.

• If He is correcting, it’s for the purpose of love.

• In the same sense, we can only conclude that any display of God’s wrath is also an expression of God’s love as He responds with justice to an injustice.

• It would be a mistake to separate the wrath of God from the love of God.

• So in those cases where we witness an expression of God’s anger towards humanity, it has to be in reaction to some extreme wickedness, some injustice or hurt that opposes what God ultimately stands for, loving relationships!