“God’s Gracious Anger”
Romans 1:18-32
Introduction
Can you imagine what it would be like for the Apostle Paul to go on one of those daytime smut talk shows? Most of you have seen the topics they have shows on. I have heard them advertise a show titled My step dad slept with my sister. They have all sorts of strange topics like that.
The most disgusting thing about it is how the audience supports the most putrid and vial activities of people in the name of personal freedom. If you have any knowledge of the scripture at all you know that freedom has nothing to do with the evil things men and women do to them selves and to each other in our country today.
Try and imagine that Paul was asked on as a guest to offer a rebuttal to some of the evil things you hear about on some of these shows. I would imagine he would come in calm and collected, with a Holy Spirit filled heart, full of confidence in what is right. However, his confidence would never lend itself to arrogance but rather to concern and disgust over the evil that was being talked about.
When asked to tell how he feels about the way the people were living, I expect Paul would say, “It is not how I feel that matters. It is how God feels.” He would go on to say, “Evil angers God because evil destroys his children. What these people are doing is evil.”
To that the crowd would surely hoot and haler in disapproval. One of the other guests might accuse Paul of being out of touch with reality. To that Paul would respond, “Out of touch, no, out of place, yes. You see, God does not sit by silently and watch his children indulge in perversion. He lets us go our sinful way and reap the consequences.”
“Every broken heart, every unwanted child, every war and tragedy can be traced back to our rebellion against God.” After saying that you would imagine the place would erupt in shouting and cursing as the host called for commercial break. The words of Romans chapter one, shout God’s hatred of evil today.
I. God hates evil!
A. Verse 18 speaks of the wrath of God against evil. For many this is a revelation. They think of God as the “man up stairs” or as some old grey haired fellow who is blind to the evil of his children. Still others think of God as too loving and kind to ever be angry enough to bring his wrath on our sins.
B. God is holy and holiness is the moral condition necessary to the health of the universe. Whatever is holy is healthy. The holiness of God, the wrath of God, and the health of creation are inseparably united. God’s wrath is his utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys. Just like the mother hates the disease that would take her child’s life, God hates the evil that would take our souls.
II. The fact is, God has every right to be angry and to point out our fault.
A. Most people tend to confuse the wrath of God with the wrath of man.
1. Human anger is typically self-driven and prone to outbursts of temper and violent deeds.
2. God gets angry because disobedience always results in self-destruction.
3. The angry response of God is not directly the result of our hurting him but to our hurting ourselves. What kind of Father sits by and watches his child hurt themselves without doing something about it?
B. Folks, mark it down and don’t ever be fooled into thinking that God does not hate the sins we commit. He is not content as we are to say, “oh, their only human, and they are going to sin.” God is holy and our sins disgust him. According to Hab. 1:13, “God’s eyes are to good to look at evil, he cannot stand to see those who do wrong.”
C. What is our typical response to a person God is using to point out our sin. We get angry at them.
Its like the preacher who had just concluded a hot and scathing sermon on the sin of swearing. He had stated several times that he knew that one of his members was guilty. The service ended. The worshipers one by one filed out of the door.
The first one to go was a woman never suspected of using foul language. With a red and angry face she exclaimed, “I will never darken this door again.”
Before the pastor could recover another said, “Well brother, if I had known you were listening last week, I would have been more careful with my language.”
A third said, ”I think you might at least have come to me privately about it, rather than telling it to the whole church.”
Then came the real culprit - to one to whom the preacher had aimed all his remarks. With a bland and innocent smile he grasped the hand of the preacher and said, “Brother, that was what I call a real sermon. You certainly did pour it on them today!”
III. The truth is, we have no excuse when we do evil.
A. Many of you grew up in a strong Christian home, some did not. I had the privilege of growing up in a household that was rather strict. Some would say that is why young people sow wild oats after they get out of the house. Thus it was the parents fault for being strict on them, bull.
B. Let me tell you, my dad was hard noised against things like drinking. Even though I may have tried it, I certainly could not blame him for the problems it caused me in doing so.
C. Just like my dad left no doubt in my mind that drinking was evil because of the potential it had to destroy lives, God has left no doubt in the human mind and heart that sin is evil, it destroys our lives and wants us to avoid it.
D. Notice verse 19-20 again.
E. We cannot say that God has not warned us about evil. We cannot blame God when we get some disease later in life because of a bad habit early in life. We will not be able to stand before God in judgement and say, “God you never told me what I was doing was evil and destructive.”
F. To do so would be a lie and it would be slander against God. We are without excuse. Listen to the words of Ps. 19:1-4. God has revealed himself to us in creation.
1. Hundreds of years ago Tertullian wrote, “It was not the pen of Moses that initiated the knowledge of the Creator....The vast majority of mankind, though they had never heard the name of Moses, to say nothing of his books, knew the God of Moses none-the-less....Nature is the teacher; the soul is the pupil.”
2. Folks, creation is God’s first missionary. Those who have not and those who never will read the Bible in their tongue. Those who lived before Christ and those who live in distant jungles and will never hear the gospel. All these have an eternal hope because the human heart can know God through the handiwork of nature.
3. To the one who has little, little is expected, but the one who has much, much is expected.
G. You see the problem is not that God hasn’t spoken but that we haven’t listened. God tells us clearly that he hates anything and anyone who suppresses the knowledge of truth. In the same breath he tells us that he loves his children and that his wrath will fall on the things that destroy them.
Conclusion
Friends, I am not here today to stomp on your toes. The Lord knows, my toes would get stomped if I did. What I am trying to communicate to all of us is that we haven’t the right to say, “how dare a loving God be angry?”
What we should realize is that a loving God cannot feel anything less when we sin. So many people need our help, as some what mature believers, to understand that God is a gracious God of love, however, when we sin and when we allow evil to enter into our lives, God loves us to much to let it go unnoticed.
God doesn’t have to bring pain into our lives when we sin as some form of punishment. The evil we do causes enough pain as it is. The best thing we can do is acknowledge that fact and ask God every day to help us and show us how to avoid it.
You can’t hide evil and sin from God, he sees everything. He does not want to look at our sin, that is why he sent Jesus, to cover our sin with his blood which was shed on the cross.
If you want to know the cleansing power of that blood today then you need to get your sin out in the open. That doesn’t mean you have to tell me or anyone else what it is, it just means get it out before God and deal with it before it causes you or someone you love any more harm.
God’s gracious anger has one simple purpose today. To show us our need for the righteousness of God. How long has it been sense you bowed before our Holy God and said, “Father I confess to you, please forgive me.” Well that is to long!
