The Wrath of God

Something which many people fail to address any more is the wrath of God. The only people who seem to want to teach on that are the wackadoodles like the Westboro Baptist Church, who are on the far too extreme side of things or the ones who say “there is no longer wrath” or the increasingly fewer ones who actually preach it rightly…that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is loving, just, kind, merciful, slow to anger, good—but also wrathful.

  

For people to say that God hates everybody except for them is wrong…for God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life(John 3:16). For people to say that God wants certain people to go to Hell is also wrong. For, as Scripture tells us in II Peter 3:8, Yahweh is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

  

For people to say that there is no longer wrath is perhaps the most dangerous of the doctrines concerning the wrath of God, for it removes all consequence of sin. If there is no wrath, why preach the Gospels? Why attempt to reach anybody? Let us all eat, drink, and be merry, for nothing will ever come of our evil.

  

In order to say that there is no longer wrath, one would have to reason within themselves that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God of the New Testament…that, somehow over the course of time, Yahweh changed. (I hear that having children can do that to a person). One would have to reason that, whenever God says that He never changes and is always the same(Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8)he didn’t mean it.

  

I have come across several teachers who teach that, sometime between the Old and the New Testaments, God changed. Yet, this is in complete contradiction to Scripture. If Scripture says that God does not change and yet He does change, then Scripture is false, and what ground is there for your faith? If you do not believe every word of Scripture to be true, then how can a person say that anything in Scripture is true? How can any person, by that presumption, claim that Jesus Christ died on the cross and was risen from the dead to save man from his sins? If there is no longer wrath, why would Jesus have needed to die on the cross anyhow? Therefore, one must claim that part of Scripture—and as a result, all of Scripture—is false, in order to claim that there is no more wrath. And in order to claim that Scripture is false, one must claim that their faith is a sham. And if one’s faith is a sham, why listen to their teachings on faith?

  

Can one claim that all of humanity is now saved and that, somehow, the death and resurrection of Jesus turned the wrath of Yahweh from off of all of humanity?

 On the night of the Passover, in Ancient Egypt, the Jews covered their doors in the blood of lambs. Doing this did not spare the Egyptians. It spared the Jews because the Jews were the ones who trusted that, through the blood of a lamb, God would keep them safe.

  

Yahweh is a holy God. He cannot look upon sin. This is not to say that He does not see it, but that He is so incredibly holy that He simply cannot be around it. This is why, for just a few moments on the cross, Yahweh turned His face from Jesus. For, in that moment, the sins of the world weighed upon the shoulders of the One on the cross.

 In order to understand that the wrath of God must still be around, one must understand just what sin is. Yahweh created the universe and all that is in it. By all rights, it is His. We are just given permission to steward it, but we are to glorify Him in it. To sin is to act against the will of God. To act against the will of God is to rebel against the Creator. To rebel against the Creator—the King—is to claim subservience to the enemy. Even we, as humans, understand that this is base treachery and that, if you were to stop fighting for your nation and fight for another nation, you would be killed. Yet, in society, nobody has any problem with traitors of a nation being executed. It is only whenever we betray our King that we believe punishment to be unjust.

 If sinning is acting in direct opposition to the will of God and acting against the will of God is also rebelling against the King, then sinning is rebelling against the King. For a person to say that rebelling against a King will have no consequences is like saying that pulling the pin out of a grenade and then putting the pin back in will somehow keep the grenade from detonating. You’ve pulled out the pin, tripping the spring and igniting the spark. If you put that pin back in, the grenade is still going to explode because the spring is already tripped. In the same way, if you rebel against God and then say “nothing will come of this”, chances are that that won’t keep something from coming of it. You’ve offended a Holy God and I guarantee you that He has the power and the right to strike back harder and faster.

  

There are only two sides in the war of good and evil. There is no Switzerland. If you are not for God, then you are against Him. If you are against Him, then you are for the enemy. If you are for the enemy, then you are under the wrath of God. From the moment in which you are able to understand right from wrong, you are liable for whatever sins you commit. Therefore, no person is exempt from the wrath of God on their own, for the wrath of God is against all unrighteousness. To sin is to be unrighteous. Therefore, if you are a sinner, then you are unrighteous. If you are unrighteous, then you are under the wrath of God.

 This is why Jesus came.

 In Ancient Egypt, the Jews had to take the blood of a lamb and put it over their doors in order that the wrath of God—in the form of the angel of death—would pass over their homes. This was the final plague against Egypt and it would be what finally convinced the Pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery.

  

Throughout Scripture, we hear of Jesus being called the “Lamb of God”. This is because, whenever we are covered in His blood, the wrath of God passes over us. He was beaten for our sins and bruised for our iniquity. He took upon Himself the punishment that rightly belonged to us. By His wounds, we are healed…by His blood, our sins are hid. They are no more.

 You have been alone in a cell, beating your head against the wall. The shackles around your ankles keep you restricted to one small section of the cell…imprisoned even from being able to move around your prison. And whenever you accept Jesus as your Saviour, He comes and breaks the shackles. He opens the cell and says “follow me.”

  

What do you do?

  

Do you follow Him? Or do you take one step outside of your cell and then step back in? It would seem easier and far less risky to stay. Even though you can see the form of Jesus ahead of you, the corridors are dark and smelly. The air is damp and full of mold. At least now, you are free to leave whenever you want to, because you accepted Jesus as your Saviour. You said the prayer…you may even have been baptized…but, right now, what is familiar to you seems better than leaving and walking down that dark hallway. Who knows what you might meet? No, perhaps it’s better to stay behind…you’ll leave if you need to, now that you can, but it’s just so much more comfortable…

 What you did not know and He did know is that, at the end of the hall, there are steps leading out of the dungeon. And once out of the dungeon, all you would’ve had to do is to follow Jesus until you were out of Satan’s kingdom and into the Kingdom of God.

  

And after that?

 Sure, you still would have needed to follow Jesus, but you would be in the Kingdom of God…there would be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more darkness…it would’ve been easy once you got away from the enemy’s kingdom and were free of his allies.

  

And all it would’ve taken was to step out of that cell…but because you stayed, you kept sin and Satan as your master, rejecting Jesus Christ as your rightful King. Therefore, whenever the King would be ready to lead the Army of the Lord against the kingdom of unrighteousness, you would be beneath its palace in the dungeons…and whenever the castle of Hell is brought down upon you, who can you blame? Because Jesus had offered you an out…and you didn’t take it…

 The wrath of God is poured out against all unrighteousness…and he that believes on Jesus has everlasting life: and he that does not believe on Jesus shall not see life, but the wrath of God is on him…therefore, choose ye this day whom you will serve…as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Acrobatic Gallant

I was supposed to be filling in at the church for the youth minister, who would be away on this day. Being a bit of a procrastinator and having a lot on my mind-what with being engaged recently and having a bit of a disparage with my fiance during the week and my mom's temporary visit to the hospital-it was Saturday before I started digging for something to teach. I had thought some through the week, but nothing stood out to me. And then I remembered my outlook on purity and how firm I am in my stance on that and I decided to teach on that for this Sunday. So, I stayed up until around Midnight, making sure that I had everything I would need and the proper Scriptures. I then got ready for bed and read my Bible. I prayed that night, asking God for His will to be done in this lesson and telling Him that I had no idea what I was going to do, seeing as how this was only the second time I had ever taught a class on anything and the first time, I had to bribe them with some koolaids and some gummi snacks so that they would behave. I was nervous and I'm not too good at speaking in front of people, so who knew what would come of it...? But I needn't have worried, because He didn't want me there, anyhow.

I had to wake up at 7:00 the next morning in order to be ready for church by 9:00. (It's about a 45 minute drive or so). I texted my fiance and asked if he could drive me because I was too tired to drive and knew that it wouldn't be a good idea for me to drive being that tired. It had been after Midnight before I managed to fall asleep, having recently begun suffering from the occasional insomnia. There was no answer because, for the first time, he overslept and my text didn't wake him up. Usually, my texts will wake him up, but it didn't do so this time.

So-admittedly, a little annoyed that I'd have to drive being that tired-I got into my car and started for church. I reached a town between my city and church and stopped for some donuts. I'd bribe this class too, see, and then they might not be too chaotic.  Now, from this town to my church, it's about 20 minutes. As I got back into my car, I realized that it was 8:40 or so. I needed to be at the church before 9:00. So, a little panicky, I did a very stupid thing and decided to drive 5 miles above the speedlimit.

If you are familiar with Missouri roads, you'll know that this is never a smart thing to do in the country. But, I'm usually a decent driver and had never had a car accident before, so I thought "you can handle it". Bad idea. For one: I was breaking the law, which is wrong in and of itself. For another thing: It was sinning against God to break a government law that was not anti-Christian. And for another thing: It was dangerous. I shouldn't have done it and I won't do it any more.

Having not eaten this morning, due to the fact that I was in a hurry and had stupidly already brushed my teeth, I had a chunk of zucchini bread sitting in the passenger seat. I went around a curve and heard something slide across my seat. I looked at the seat to make sure that the bread had not fallen, which took all of one second. Whenever I looked back up, I had begun to go into the other lane. I quickly pulled back into my lane, which resulted in my back wheels going into a slide. A curve was coming up at the end of the straight, so I knew I needed to get control of my car soon, so I fought for control of it, knowing that you're supposed to turn into the skid, but it didn't work and it begun to swerve all over the road. The curve was getting closer and I was tired and so, not thinking in my exhaustion, I hit my brake.

My car didn't listen too well and it went off the road towards a fence, on the other side of which was a large hill with a pond at the bottom. I knew that this was a horse ranch, and accepting the fact that I was going to pay for my stupidity, I closed my eyes. My car hit the ditch head on, which flipped it in its momentum, carrying my car over the fence. I threw my arms up over my head, feeling the car flipping and having no idea how many times it was flipping, but not wishing for my head to hit the steering wheel or the window or anything.

This was it and I knew it and I had accepted the fact that I would probably not survive this. I have Jesus, so I know where I would be going, anyhow. Fear was definitely not an emotion I was feeling...which is odd, seeing as how I tend to be a bit of a coward in the small things.

My car landed and I felt it finish moving and I opened my eyes.

The first thing that I remember thinking was that my airbags had not deployed.

After that, I remember wondering where my cellphone was and trying to open the door. I had to get out of the car. It's never a good idea to hang upside down inside of a wrecked car in somebody's horse pasture. My door wouldn't open, though, but I didn't unfasten my seatbelt yet. Even though you shouldn't hang upside down for too long, I knew that-if I unfastened my seatbelt-it would be more difficult to see around my car and to figure out how to get out of my car.

After that, I thought of the window. So, I pushed the button, though it was far too dark to be sure of which of the four buttons I was pushing. I heard the inner mechanisms working, but it sounded too strange and the window wasn't moving. Then I thought of the sunroof. (Oh, wait, I'm upside down) And then I looked down at my finger that was still pushing the button and I wondered if I was pushing the right button. So, I felt around and pushed another one. I had been accidentally pushing the passenger window (which I later learned had been busted out completely)

Unfastening my seatbelt, I crawled out of the driver window and stood up. Some farmhands were nearby, asking if I was okay, but I needed my cellphone. I assured them that I was okay and got down to look inside of my car to find my cellphone. I called my fiance to let him know and to ask him to call the pastor to let him know that someone else would need to take the class. Afterwards, I called the police.

While I waited for the police and my fiance to show up, the farmhands stayed with me and I began to consider the situation. I was unharmed. I felt no pain and I wasn't bleeding or bruised anywhere. I was shaken up and my car was upside down and the horses seemed confused, but I was okay.

I should have died in that accident. My car didn't just roll over. It did somersaults. It was resting with the trunk on the fence and the fence was on the ground. Between the fence and the road, there were three trees, none of which were broken. Way up the road-I don't know how to describe it in distance, but it was a good ways-there were marks in the grass where my car had run off the road. I had no idea how my car got to where it did or how I survived however my car decided to get there.

The police arrived soon and then my fiance arrived. I answered a lot of questions and even admitted that I had been driving 60mph in a 55mph zone. The police officer didn't say anything about that and he decided to overlook it.

After a while, a tow-truck came and turned my car back over. I was shocked at what I saw. The windshield was shattered, but still in place. The driver's side was unharmed, other than the axles being a little bit broke. The glass on the sunroof didn't even crack. The driver mirror was hanging off, but the passenger mirror was gone. The passenger side of the roof was caved in and the window was busted out. But the driver's side appeared to be fine. Looking at my car on all four wheels, I knew for certain that I should not have walked away from that crash unscathed. Something on me should be broken, but I didn't feel hurt at all and I wasn't bleeding or anything. I did still feel tired, though, but I felt mostly calm. I was shaken, but calm. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I understand too much, but I didn't feel afraid...I couldn't stop shaking, but I didn't feel scared at all.

God wanted me in that car. There's no other explanation for it. My fiance very rarely oversleeps, but whenever he does, my texts always wake him up. He never sleeps through a text from me...I don't believe he ever had until that day...they usually wake him up. But God wanted me in that car so that, whenever it was totaled, I could walk away from it unscathed and Yahweh be glorified.

Yesterday, whenever I woke up, my neck hurt whenever I turned it and my legs were hurting and I ached in more places than I knew I had. Today, whenever I woke up, my neck just feels like I slept on it wrong and no other part of me seems to hurt unless if you apply pressure to it.

A little bit of pain is to be expected...and I will endure whatever comes because I know that I have Jesus and I can make it all be for Him...

But this was God. He kept me from being killed or even very seriously injured in that car accident. Glory be to God always and forever. Amen.