Why God Gets Angry

God’s Anger

God is a God of love, and we all like hearing and talking about that.

But there is another side of love-one that is less pleasant, but no less essential-that is God’s anger.

God gets angry because He loves, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, I think it’s important that we establish that God gets angry.

Vance Havner said

The devil is not fighting religion. He's too smart for that. He is producing a counterfeit Christianity, so much like the real one that good Christians are afraid to speak out against it. We are plainly told in the Scriptures that in the last days men will not endure sound doctrine and will depart from the faith and heap to themselves teachers to tickle their ears. We live in an epidemic of this itch, and popular preachers have developed “ear-tickling” into a fine art. Today the art is to avoid negative preaching, and to accentuate only the positive.

As Chuck Smith said

“So many people go to church today in order to feel good about themselves. They want to feel comforted in their sinful state, rather than be convicted of their sin”. . . we rightly preach & teach that God is love, however, we point out that is not the whole story. God is a God of justice. God is a god of judgement. . .” from “the Man God Hates”

In the Old Testament there are dozens of passages you might think of as examples of God’s anger. I’d like to look at just one, at the end of the nation of Israel, as God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel and proclaimed His plan to judge and punish Israel for their evil.

Ezekiel 5:13

The context: Israel had rejected God, embraced idolatry, allowing corruption in government, injustice in the streets and even sacrificed their children to Molech. Therefore God sent judgment through nations that would invade Israel, and leave devastation in their wake.

12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.

13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.

This may serve as an example, but not the only one.

Exodus 15:7; Deuteronomy 9:7; Numbers 16:46; Joshuah 22;20; Psalm 2:27; 7:11, 78:38, 49; 106:23; Ezekiel 22:31; 25:17, 33:11; ; 2 Kings 17:18 Isaiah 13:13; 26:21 Nahum 1:2-6;

So,

God gets angry.

And this is not a teaching relegated to the Old Testament. The wrath of God is very much a New Testament teaching.

Matthew & Luke 3:7 (John the Baptist), Luke 21:23, John 3:36 Romans 1:18, 2:25; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22; 12:19; 13:4-5 Ephesians 2:3, 5: Colossians 3:4-10 1 Thessalonians 1:10, 2:16, Hebrews 3:11, 4:3, Hebrews 10:26-31

Revelation (most of the book-chapters 6-19, 6:16-17, 11:18, 14:10; 19:15, etc.

Ephesians 5:3-6

Colossians 3

4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.

7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.

8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices

God Gets Angry . . .

Why?

1. Because People Sin

What is sin?

When we think of sin we may think of a breaking of the Law-like disobeying the 10 Commandments. But sin is more comprehensive than that- & includes all injustice and abuse of others. God hates sin not because He is some Cosmic Killjoy in the sky, intent on ruining the fun of humans everywhere, but because sin steals, kills & destroys. We may think of getting drunk as some kind of fun or indulgence, but God sees it as dissipation (imagine trying to do something truly beneficial to society while drunk-the image doesn’t work). So, am I saying getting drunk is a sin? Yes. Why? Because it prevents us from being and doing all God has designed and called us to. This is only one example, but it serves as a pattern for understanding why God hates sin. God wants to focus our lives. Sin dissipates. God wants to bless our lives; sin curses. God wants to use our lives as a blessing, sin uses us as a curse.