God's Wrath

When I refer to Jesus, I am speaking of Him in the physical human body. Wholly God, yet altogether human. Christ's anger burst over the profiteers of the Temple for their selling items and corrupt greed. The few times Jesus appeared angry can be very telling. The same sinful factors that aroused His anger, run evermore rampant throughout today's “enlightened” world. But the ministry of Jesus was of compassion and forgiveness, not anger or hate.

Should we ask ourselves what this can tell us about where we need to focus our spiritual lives and growth? Matthew 6:24 communicates quite plainly, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. We cannot simultaneously serve God and money, fame, status, or what other things we may value more than our Lord. Those temple merchants were so fixated on the monetary gains that they forgot about the meaning of spiritual sacrifice. Some shameful Christians of today focus mostly on increasing their material gains. They may find God doesn’t always help them. Others, that are not Christian, seem to have the Midas touch. Who is wealthy is not of our concern. What our concern should be is: Which Master do you serve? God or Satan?

To say that Jesus was at odds with the religious leaders of his day would be a gross understatement! Those religious leaders were never enthralled having Him in their proximity. If Jesus were alive today, which denominations do you think He would take to task—akin to the ways He chastised the Pharisees? One can only hope your personal beliefs are steadfast, even if your Church drifts slightly away from His perfect truths.

Jesus had no patience for the religious figureheads present during His ministry. Actually, He condemned them by calling some “the children of the devil.” First John 3:10 states Jesus said, “By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. Just being a spiritual leader of a church doesn’t mean that person is pleasing to the sight of God. Just because a person regularly attends church and Bible study doesn’t mean God has assured their salvation. If becoming a member of a religious order could save you, then the Pharisees would have been saved for they were more religious than most, though often very hypocritical. We can venture to guess many of them would not find their names written in the Book of Life. Upon their deaths, they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, and their false teaching prevented others from entering as well. More's the sadness in that.

Matthew, chapter 23 tells us Jesus pronounced seven (or eight) woes to those Pharisees. The NIV omits verse 14 having only seven woes as a result. But in the KJV Jesus made a woe against the Pharisees for stealing from the poor and needy and faking their prayers. These woes were interspersed with epithets describing who the priests were in his sight. They were repeatedly labeled as “hypocrites,” religious actors who through dramatic play of their parts, pretended to be pious and godly when in fact they were far from it. These “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” increased their personal wealth and stature, while praying upon the emotions of the faithful people attending the worship service for the correct reasons. Those priests were despicable. Even more so, Jesus also called them devours of widows, children of hell, blind guides, and stated they were full of extortion and excess. He went on to charge them with being serpents and vipers, whitened tombs appearing beautiful outside but dead and corrupt inside. As “ religious killers” the Pharisees could not escape the damnation of hell according to Jesus.