INTRO.- ILL.- On one occasion Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the agnostic lecturer of the last century, was announced to give a lecture on hell. He declared he would prove conclusively that hell was a wild dream of some scheming theologians who invented it to terrify people. As he was launching into his subject, a half-drunken man arose in the audience and exclaimed, "Make it strong, Bob. There's a lot of us poor fellows depending on you. If you are wrong, we are all lost. So be sure you prove it clear and plain."
God’s wrath or righteous anger expressed in any form, including hell, is something that people don’t want to hear about or perhaps haven’t heard about in a long time.
ILL.- Leighton Ford (Associate evangelist to Billy Graham) wrote these words: “Many things we don't know about hell. But Jesus and the New Testament writers used every image in their power to tell us that hell is real, it's terrible, it's something to be feared, and something to avoid. In his description of the last judgment, Jesus taught that some would go to eternal punishment, some to eternal life (Matt. 25:46). In other words, hell will be as real and as lasting as heaven.
“The horror of hell is not physical pain. After all, the Bible tells us hell was "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41), and they're not physical beings. Rather the fire and outer darkness and the thirst depict spiritual separation from God, moral remorse, the consciousness that one deserves what he's getting.
“Hell is disintegration -- the eternal loss of being a real person. In hell the mathematician who lived for his science can't add two and two. The concert pianist who worshiped himself through his art can't play a simple scale. The man who lived for sex goes on in eternal lust, with no body to exploit. The woman who made a god out of fashion has a thousand dresses but no mirror! Hell is eternal desire -- eternally unfulfilled.
“But there's another side. G.K. Chesterton once remarked, "Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human personality." Hell, a compliment? Yes, because God is saying to us, "You are significant. I take you seriously. Choose to reject me -- choose hell if you will. I will let you go."
“God’s wrath is expressed or demonstrated in hell, a place that no man should desire. And yet, people of all ages have joked about it as if there is no such thing or that should no one would really experience it.”
Peter Kreeft said: The national anthem of hell is, "I Did It My Way."
C. S. Lewis: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. ”
J. Vernon McGee: “Don't say that a loving God is going to send you to hell - He's not. The thing that's going to send you to hell is that you're a sinner and you don't want to admit it.”
PROP.- The wrath of God is too hot to handle. This text shows heat from the wrath of God toward mankind.
1- God’s wrath is revealed from heaven
2- God’s wrath is reserved for the ungodly
3- God’s wrath is restrained from the godly
I. GOD’S WRATH IS REVEALED FROM HEAVEN
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
God’s wrath. Not WILL BE revealed. It already is revealed and will continue to be revealed. Can you think of any examples of God’s wrath being revealed? I can. He’s sitting in jail for 150 years, but he won’t live that long. Guess who? Bernie Madoff.
It seems to me that Bernie’s jail sentence could be an example of God’s wrath on his life for cheating so many people out of their life savings. Of course, that’s not all of God’s wrath on his life. It could be a whole lot more unless he repents and turns to Christ, which is doubtful he will.
The beginning of God’s wrath is seen in this world on the lives of some people who continue to persist in doing evil. Of course, some many only experience God’s wrath when they leave this world. And it will certainly be enough.
ILL.- Another vivid example is one of the most famous murderers who has been imprisoned for 46 years. Charles Manson is now 77 years old and he exhibits no signs of repentance. Prison is his home and it’s the best of what he’ll get the rest of his life and once his life ends, what do you think will happen?
God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against the godlessness and wickedness of men. That could cover a lot of territory because there is a lot godlessness and wickedness in our world.
ILL.- What about Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden and others? Could it their deaths be a result of God’s wrath on their godlessness and wickedness? IT COULD BE. And what about the infamous Madalyn Murray O’Hair? On August 27, 1995, O'Hair, her son Jon, and granddaughter Robin suddenly disappeared.
One year after the disappearance, William Murray filed a missing persons report. He had previously stated that he would not file such a report due to the inevitable media attention that it would bring. He also noted the lack of evidence of foul play, stating, "I don't want to search for people who don't want to be found." The O'Hairs were declared legally dead, and many of their assets were sold to clear their debts.
In January 2001, David Roland Waters, who had worked as a typesetter for American Atheists informed the police that the O'Hairs were buried on a Texas ranch, and he subsequently led them to the bodies. When the police excavated there, they discovered that the O'Hairs' bodies had been cut into dozens of pieces with a saw. Could the wrath of God have something to do with her/their ultimate demise?
And what about murderers and child abusers, etc.??? Many have already experienced the wrath of God beginning in this world.
ILL.- On 19 April 1995, Timothy McVeigh, with the help of Terry Nichols, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, claiming the lives of 168 victims and injuring more than 680 people. The blast used by McVeigh destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on 11 June 2001. His execution was the first federal execution in thirty-eight years. And perhaps the wrath of God on his life.
God’s truth is sure: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
II. GOD’S WRATH IS RESERVED FOR THE UNGODLY
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Oh wow! Are some people really as evil as this text says? Yes. And God’s wrath is reserved for these people.
ILL.- Over 400 bikers gathered to pay their last respects to “Grandpa Bob.” Bob Shields, a founding member of the once-feared motorcycle gang known as the Bandidos, died of cancer at the age of 78. Middle age and older bikers gathered to drink beer and swap stories of the good old days of drug-running, assault, terrorism and murder, not to mention some legal sins.
“Give ‘em hell, Grandpa,” one gray-bearded biker said. “The devil’s in the unemployment line now.”
Lamont, another heavily tattooed gang member, is reported to have said, “Where he’s gone, that’s where we’re all going someday. He’s just waiting on us.”
“I don’t want no preachers ranting and raving over me,” he wrote. “Besides, I’m down below, drinking whiskey and . . . on the devil.”
Bob Deffinbaugh is a pastor/teacher and elder at Community Bible Chapel in Richardson, Texas, wrote: “I do not know if these bikers believe there is a hell, but they certainly do not have a correct view of the wrath of God. Most people do not want to think of God’s wrath at all, preferring to think and speak of God’s love. Those who do believe God is a God of wrath as well as a God of love prefer to think of His wrath in the past tense. Many seem to believe God’s wrath is an Old Testament truth, and that with the coming of Christ, we are now safe to think only in terms of God’s love. This is wrong thinking about God.”
I think many people today have a wrong view about God’s wrath. They may well think that God has changed his mind about people and will allow all people into heaven regardless of what they believe and how they have lived.
ILL.- John Wayne Gacy: Known as the “Killer Clown,” because he entertained kids at parties in a clown outfit, Gacy was convicted of the torture, rape and murder of thirty-three males between 1972 and the time of his arrest in 1978. Twenty-nine bodies were discovered in the crawlspace of his Chicago home, which led to his arrest. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980, and he was executed by lethal injection in 1994. AND JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED TO HIM?
And Ted Bundy is another. Ted Bundy: This attractive man was one of the most prolific known serial killers in U.S. history. Bundy confessed to over thirty murders that he committed between 1974 and 1978 in a nationwide crime spree, but the exact total of murders he committed may never be known. Bundy bludgeoned and then strangled his victims (all female), and he often engaged in rape and necrophilia. He was executed for his last murder and rape of a twelve-year-old girl in Florida in 1989.
God’s wrath is reserved for ungodly people and there are plenty of those kinds of people in this world. Some of them will experience God’s wrath here and now and more later!
III. GOD’S WRATH IS RESTRAINED FROM THE GODLY
Earth is all the heaven some will know. And earth is all the hell God’s saints will know. We will not experience hell is in the next life and it’s because we know the Lord and belong to Him!
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. SOME DESERVE DEATH.
But what about the reverse of this text? What about those who do know God’s righteous decree and put it into practice? They will be spared from God’s wrath. God’s wrath will be restrained from the Godly.
Why? How could this be? IT’S CALLED HIS MERCY and grace. Mercy means that God will not give what we deserve and what we all really deserve is His wrath by virtue of the fact that we’re all sinners. Instead, because of His grace, He will give us what we don’t deserve that’s pardon from punishment.
ILL.- Preacher Charles Swindoll recalled his last spanking when he turned thirteen years old. Chuck said, “Having just broken into the sophisticated ranks of the teen world, I thought I was something on a stick. My father wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was with my great importance and new-found independence.
“I was lying on my bed. He was outside the window on a muggy October afternoon in Houston, TX, weeding the garden. He said, ‘Charles, come out and help me weed the garden.’ I said something like, ‘NO, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, REMEMBER?’
“My tone was sassy and my deliberate lack of respect was eloquent. I knew better than to disobey my dad, but after all, I was the ripe old age of thirteen. Dad set a new 100-meter record that autumn afternoon. He was in the house in a flash and all over me like white on rice, spanking me all the way out to the garden. As I recall, I weeded until the moonlight was shining on the pansies.
“That same night he took me out to a surprise dinner. He gave me what I deserved earlier. LATER HE GAVE ME WHAT I DID NOT DESERVE. The birthday dinner was a matter of grace. He showered his favor on this rebellious young man. And I enjoyed grace.”
If our parents can act graciously and restrain punishment, how much more our loving heavenly Father! We human parents are no match for our heavenly Father. God’s wrath is and will be restrained from those who are in Christ!
Acts 15:11 “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Romans 5:9 “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
CONCLUSION------------------------------
The wrath of God is something that we don’t like to talk about or even think about, but it’s real, according to scripture and scripture is all we have to go by.
I remember hearing a sermon one time at Ozark Christian College and the preacher said, “We must tell people the good news about Christ and then if they don’t accept the good news we must tell them the bad news of what will happen to them.”
It could be that some people need to be told that “bad” news of God’s wrath if they don’t want to believe and surrender to Christ.
John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”
The fear of God and the fear of punishment still moves people to believe God. And we must tell some people about the bad news.
Steve Shepherd, Cape Girardeau, MO, shepherd111@hotmail.com
