I have a relative that once told me
‘God just wants to love us.’ I believe that I said nothing when this relative
shared that bit of insight with me. I knew better than to say anything. Because
I understood a very different God and He isn’t the all loving God that sits
patiently by, overlooking all the sinful things that people do, just waiting to
throw His arms wide and thank that sin filled person for coming back to Him the
moment that person gets a mind to decide to.
There is a whole other side to God…one
that is all too often overlooked by the majority of professing ‘Christians’
today. That is the wrath of God.
For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 1:18
Where is the loving God in that verse?
And how can the ‘Christians’ that believe God is only love fail to see the
many, many verses that speak of His wrath?
It would even be fairly safe to say
that the Gospel is incomplete without the wrath of God. And I know that that
single statement very much goes against the commonly held belief that God is
love but…if God is love, and only love, why, then, would Christ have needed to
die on the cross to pay the payment for sin? If God were only love there would
have been no need for any payment.
And so…the Gospel is the story of
Christ and we could say that that story starts with the wrath of God. Christ
was sent to the world for one purpose only…to save the elect. He came to save
those that were chosen out of all time to belong to the Lord. He came to save
His people.
And what did they need to be saved
from?
Sin.
For
the wages of sin is death… Romans 6:23
There it is straight from the
Scriptures. The cost of sin is death. Why? Why would death be the outcome…the
price we pay…for sin? If God were only love…wouldn’t He simply brush our sins
aside and gently tell us not to sin again? Why would we need to pay for our
sins with our very lives…and I say we in the sense of all mankind?
If God only wanted to love us…if He was
only love…would there ever need to be any payment for sin? He would be an all
loving God, and all forgiving God. He would…in no way need or require any sort
of payment for our sins.
But…
There is another side to God. He is a
holy God. A jealous God. A vengeful God. He is a God of wrath.
This God that supposedly only wants to
love everyone…is the same God that destroyed all but eight people in the entire
world because of their evil, wicked…sinful…ways. This is the God that destroyed
entire cities. He is a God that took children. He is a God that demanded
payment be made for the evil deeds of the people He claimed as His own.
And so…we might say that the Gospel
began with the wrath of God. It was because of His wrath and the payment He
demanded that Christ needed to die to cover those evil sins.
Growing up in ‘church’ I don’t think I
ever heard about God’s wrath. I was taught that ‘Jesus loves you.’ That may, in
fact, be the single underlying lesson to everything I ever learned in ‘church’.
God’s wrath, like hell, seems to be a topic that most ‘churches’ avoid. It is a
topic that makes people uncomfortable. It is a topic that makes people have to
face their sins. It is a bitter pill to swallow and most preachers and teachers
avoid administering the dose.
Those same preachers and teachers will
tell a person how much God or Jesus loves them but they won’t tell them that He
hates them.
Not all that long ago my husband
teasingly told me that I could sit at the side of the road and hold up a sign
telling everyone that passed by that Jesus loves them. I don’t remember what
prompted my husband to say that but I do remember telling my husband that if I
did that I would be lying to the people that read that sign and that I should
instead hold up a sign that says God hates you.
And there is the difference in the
messages being taught by the professing ‘Christian’ world and the message that
should be taught. If preachers based all their messages off of ‘God hates you’
instead of ‘Jesus loves you’, what might they teach as they stand before their
audiences?
But they don’t base their messages off
of ‘God hates you’, instead they base them off ‘God loves you’ or ‘Jesus loves
you’ and so they teach and talk of love and happiness. They might give a sermon
on forgiveness, using the oft cited Jesus forgave you message. But where in
there do they teach that God hates sin and He hates the sinner?
The
LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves
violence. Psalm 11:5ESV
For
you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The
boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. Psalm 5:4-5
ESV
Just in case
anyone wants to dispute those verses…anyone that sins (breaks God’s
commandments) is wicked, they are evildoers. It would seem that all
‘Christians’ should know that but one would think that they should also know
about the wrath of God too. But just as our modern day preachers and teachers
shy away from teaching the wrath of God, if they even know about it, they also
shy away from teaching their congregation that they are wicked evildoers.
I don’t
suppose it would go over well if a preacher got up before his congregation, a
group of people that have joined to hear how much their god loves them, and told
them that they are wicked evildoers. I would guess that the majority of those
in the congregation believe themselves to be good people. I have heard, more
than once, the justification of someone being a good person based off the fact
that they have never been to prison. Wrong justification. I’ve heard them say
they are a good person because they’ve never harmed another person. Again…wrong
justification. They’ve said they are a good person because they are kind to
children and animals. Once again…wrong justification.
Most people
would say they are a good person, no matter what they have or have not done in
their life. People rarely see their own wickedness and even less rarely see the
evil of their souls based off Scripture. I have met ‘Christians’ that do not
believe in sin. I have met others that do not believe that people are
inherently evil. And still more that do not know that Scripture says that all
people are evil.
This is very
much a by-product of our modern day ‘Christianity’, our have it your way
‘Christianity’. These professing ‘Christians’ are fed a weekly diet of watered
down Scripture that has been changed and twisted to not offend anyone. It has resulted in a loss of the fear
of God, loss of a hatred for sin, an acceptance of sin and sinners as they are
without the need to show them their sins, and building after building filled
with people that believe they are saved despite the fact that they live no
differently than the unsaved world.
My
husband has recently begun to refer to the professing ‘Christians’ as ‘the
many’.
Enter
through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads
to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. "For the gate is
small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find
it. Matthew 7:13-14
There are many that find the broad way.
It’s easy to claim to be a ‘Christian’ but how many of those professing
‘Christians’ show any signs of true conversion? How many pass the test of 1
John? How many find the narrow gate?
My husband and I have discussed ‘the
many’ numerous times. There is a popular television show that glorifies evil,
people flock to it week after week. Professing ‘Christians’ watch it. I find
myself often wondering how anyone that watches such can even begin to think
that they are a ‘Christian’. And yet scores of professing ‘Christians’ watch
this show every week. They profess to be a ‘Christian’ while using foul
language, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and watching movies and shows that
openly promote the things that God hates. How is that living differently than
the world? How are they any different than those they would label as the
unsaved?
And yet few, if any, preachers touch on
this. They just go right on teaching the many that they are saved and that God
loves them. That very thought process, and teaching, has led ‘the many’ into
believing that their sins either aren’t sin at all or that their sins aren’t
that bad. It’s led them to believe that God will simply overlook their sins and
will forgive them, even if they don’t repent of those sins. God is often given
the personality of a doting grandpa, patting a misbehaving child on the head
and telling them it’s okay, or sitting idly by while the child misbehaves,
waiting for them to come running back to collect the hundred dollars ‘grandpa’
is holding out before they run off to misbehave again.
Wrong!
That is the God of love. That is the
God that loves everyone regardless of their sin. That is not the God of
Scripture.
Sin separates us from
God.
…but
your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins
have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2 ESV
Sin was the reason Christ was crucified.
God’s punishment for sin was the DEATH PENALTY. God’s sentence to all who sin
is death. There is no loophole. There is no escaping the sentence. And there is
no verdict of not guilty. Scripture tells us that we are born into sin.
Therefore, just as sin came into the
world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men
because all sinned… Romans 5:12 ESV
For as by the one man's disobedience
the many were made sinners…Romans 5:19 ESV
The wicked are estranged from the
womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. Psalm 58:3 ESV
Sin fills
our hearts from birth, from before birth. It’s hard to see how a newborn baby
can be wicked, hard to see how they can be considered a sinner, or to
understand how they can sin when they can do little more than cry and eat, but
Scripture says that they are born sinners and our human eyes can begin to see
that sin manifest in only a few short months after they are born.
With every
person ever born, except for Christ, being born into sin, there is no denying
that we are all sinners.
For all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23ESV
At least there should be
no denying it. And there can be no denying it if we are basing our
understanding and beliefs off of Scripture and not off our own human
understanding. I’ll go ahead and admit here that the way I see newborn babies
is in direct contrast to Scripture. My human eyes, mind, and heart cannot see,
or understand, how sweet, innocent, newborns can possibly sin. I fully
understand how they can grow a bit older and then sin but I do not understand
how those tiny babies can sin….or be sinners. But Scripture says they are
sinners, it says they are born into sin so whether than base my understanding
on my own human emotions and thoughts I will base them on Scripture and know
that newborns being sinners is only one of many things in Scripture that my
human heart and mind cannot understand. I must then look to Scripture and set
my own thoughts aside.
And so…as I turn my
understanding not to my own thoughts and feelings but to Scripture, I must
admit that Scripture is clear on teaching that everyone is born a sinner.
Therefore, there is no escaping the death penalty. Death is demanded in payment
for the sin that we are all born into. We are sinners at birth. We come into
this world as sinners. We, therefore, are required to pay the penalty for our
crimes, even long before we can comprehend that we have committed any kind of
crime. We were found guilty of the crime of sin before we were born. That
sentence was waiting for us as we came into the world. It’s as if a newborn
baby, all red skin and wails, sweet and snuggly, makes its debut into the world
and the moment it draws its first breath shackles are placed upon it’s ankles.
The penalty was there, waiting for every one of us ever born. It was there,
waiting for every one of us ever conceived.
Behold, I
was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:5
ESV
We were
sentenced long before there was ever any hope of us understanding the crime. We
were sentenced long before we ever were. Adam committed the crime that placed a
punishment on every person to come after Him. There is no escaping that
punishment. We were born into the crime. We are all guilty of committing it.
And we must pay the price for it. That price is the death penalty. God…our righteous,
holy…LOVING…God…demands the payment of death from all sinners. There is no
escaping that demand. There is no getting out of it. There is no hope of being
let off the hook. Sin is the crime and death is the punishment.
And our all
loving God is the judge that is demanding that punishment. No one escapes the
punishment. Every person ever born must pay the price for the sin they
inherited simply by being conceived. In a way…I guess we might say that sin is
the price we pay for living. Because we are born into sin, tiny babies that no
human mind can imagine ever being evil, yet hiding sin within our tiny hearts
until the day that we are able to let it loose in our lives, and because we do
have that sin within us, even long before it manifests itself to others, the
sentence is pronounced. We lived, therefore, we must pay the price for the sin
we held within us. And the price we must pay is death.
For the
elect, though, there is an escape. God…lovingly…made a propitiation for their
sins (1 John 4:10). He sent Christ to be a savior of His people. Christ came to
earth to save the elect from the sentence of death that was demanded from them
because they were born sinners. Someone had to pay the price for their sins.
Someone had to die because the sentence had already been demanded. That
sentence is demanded of all people. There is no escaping that someone must die
to atone for the sins that drew the wrath of God…the same God that people today
claim is a God of love. That God of love demanded…in His wrath…that everyone
that commits sin must die. And because He demanded that there had to be someone
to die for each sinner. It is a payment that each individual person must make
for themselves.
Only…
God…the all
loving…all vengeful…full of wrath…God that demanded death in payment for sin,
out of His love for the elect, for the born again, regenerated, SAVED,
Christians, sent Christ to pay the price for those sinners. Christ came to
earth to be a savior for the elect, to save them from the payment that they
must pay. Christ took the sins of the elect on Himself. He paid the price for
the sins that we should have paid. He stood in our place and experienced the
wrath of God in our place. Christ
paid that penalty for those that are His but the penalty still remains for those
that are not His.
God is not simply love.
There are many verses in
Scripture about God’s wrath.
the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
John 3:35-36
Put to death what is earthly in you: sexual immorality,
impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which are idolatry. On the
account of these God's wrath is coming." Colossians 3:5-6
Those are just
two examples of God’s wrath, neither of which is in the Old Testament. I’ve
heard many say that the God of the Old Testament was an angry, wrathful God but
that the God of the New Testament is love. Not so. All we need do is look to
the New Testament to see that The God of the Old Testament and the God of the
New Testament are one and the same God, and that He pours His wrath onto the
unbelievers. We all live under God’s wrath unless He chooses to pour His mercy
onto us and save us from our sins and from His wrath.
So many times
I have heard that ‘God hates sin but loves the sinner’. Really? Can you show me
that in Scripture? If God loves the sinner despite his sin then why were
sinners destroyed in the flood? If God loves the sinner but hates the sin than
why were the people of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed along with the towns? Why
weren’t the people in those cities, as well as those in the flood, not saved
out of that destruction and had their sins forgiven? It is sinners that God
sends to hell not their sins. It’s entirely possible that God could wipe the
sins from a person and cast those sins into hell but that is not what He does,
instead He sends the sinner to hell.
But that
message is rarely, if ever, taught by teachers and preachers in today’s ‘church’
buildings. How can a person possibly understand the Gospel if they don’t
understand God’s wrath? Why do we need to be saved if God already loves us? Why
would Christ need to die for our sins if our sins are so easily overlooked that
God can love us even while we sin?
From a simply
human perspective I find it hard to believe that anyone ‘saving souls’ would
avoid God’s wrath, that they would avoid telling people that they are sinners
destined for hell unless they ‘get saved’. Wouldn’t you ‘catch’ more converts
by telling them that their sins…their lying, love of money, love of things,
love of sexual sin, love of sin in general….are going to doom them to hell
unless they say a five minute magical spell, labeled as prayer, and save their
soul from hell? It seems to me that more people would want to avoid God’s wrath
by saying that prayer than those that would want to say it to assure themselves
the love of God, which they believe they already have, to attain forgiveness
that logic says they would have either way, since God loves them so much, and
to attain a peace that surely they must already experience considering there is
no wrath upon them for their sins.
That’s kind of
like trying to lure a child out of an all you can eat ice cream parlor by
waving a popsicle at them. Why would the kid want to give up the huge selection
of ice cream for a single popsicle?
If, on the
other hand, the person dispensing ice cream was yelling angrily, their face
dark red, and coating every scoop of ice cream in fire ants and poisonous
spiders that child just might think that popsicle looked mighty appealing.
But maybe
that’s just me. I remember reading once that every six year old child wants to
be ‘saved’ when they are told that they will go to hell if they aren’t ‘saved’.
What six year old wants to go to hell? They’ve experienced very little of life
and in their young and impressionable minds being burned up by fire sounds like
about the worst thing they’ve heard. Sure they want to go to heaven where they
get to sit on clouds and walk streets of gold, where there is no hunger, no
thirst, no pain. Sure does sound like an easy choice to me, especially if you
take into consideration that that same child has probably been told that Mommy
and Daddy (or Grandma and Grandpa) will be in heaven. And for sure Fido and
sweet kitty are in heaven. Doesn’t sound like a hard decision to make. Heaven
it is.
That six year
old child has no idea of what they’re really doing. They don’t begin to
understand the Lord and His ways. And they certainly haven’t been saved by the
Lord. They are simply repeating the magic spell…er, prayer…that will give them
a false sense of security for the rest of their earthly lives. After all…they
said ‘the prayer’.
And there is
your candy coated version of the gospel, the version that starts with ‘God
loves you’ or ‘Jesus loves you’ and ends with the saying of a very short magic
spell…er, prayer…and BOOM! Salvation attained.
And just in
case you missed your chance to say your magic spell…er, prayer…at the age of six,
the offer still stands. You never grow too old to say your magic spell…er,
prayer. If you’re lying on your death bed having lived a life of sin, so far
gone that you can no longer count the number of people that you’ve killed and
abused…no problem. Simply say the magic spell…er, prayer…and BOOM! Instant
salvation. You can even say it with your very final breath and be assured that
you will awake in heaven.
It’s like
holding a life insurance policy.
And it all
started with love. God’s love for you. Christ’s love for you. But why did we
even need a Gospel. Do you know that Gospel means ‘good news’? How can it be
good news when God already loves all sinners? How can it be good news when
their sins are smiled at and forgiven without the sinner ever needing to stop
what they are doing or repent? How can it be good news if Christ paid the price
for sins where there was no payment demanded?
But wait. I
grew up in ‘church’. I know this story well. The God of the Old Testament was
filled with wrath. He demanded a payment for sin but that payment was paid by
Christ on the cross and now all sinners are covered because…
God so loved the world that he gave His only
begotten son so whoesoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have
everlasting life. John 3:16 KJV
And that
changed everything…which it did…because Christ paid the price for sin…which He
did…and now God simply loves us…He does not…and all we have to do is ‘ask Him
into our hearts’ so that we can be ‘saved’…not attainable unless the Lord
grants us salvation.
Why did the
world need a savior? If God loved the whole world…why does it need to be saved?
Who or what was He saving it from? If God loves the sinners…why do they need to
be saved? Who or what are they being saved from?
If the gospel
begins and ends with love where is the need for a savior? Where is the need for
salvation? Why would a God that loves us so much send us to hell? If He loves
even the most heinous sinner than why would that sinner need to be saved? What
danger does their sin pose to them or the love that God has for them?
If, on the
other hand, the gospel doesn’t begin with love but with wrath…we have a whole
different story. All the way back to just after creation, when Adam and Eve
sinned the very first time, God displayed His wrath against sin. He punished
the sinner with spiritual death and cast them out of the Garden of Eden,
causing them to struggle in their earthly life. From there…God just kept on
pouring His wrath not onto sin but onto sinners. And it wasn’t just any wrath
but a righteous, holy, wrath that cannot stand to look upon sin. It is from
that wrath, from the sin that draws that wrath upon us, that we must be saved.
And there is
where we find ourselves in the position of needing, of wanting, of embracing,
the good news of the Gospel. Because God isn’t love but wrath. Yes, I know that
God is love too but we must first understand that God is wrath or what is the
need for good news? Can we have good news unless we first have bad news?
Recently our
dryer went out. I gave my husband that bad news by phone when he called me one
morning. I wasn’t even sure yet that our dryer had gone out. All I knew was
that it wasn’t working correctly. The good news came when we had a replacement
dryer. If I had called my husband on the phone and told him, ‘good news, honey,
our new dryer is here and it works good’, while our old dryer was still working
perfectly fine, I don’t imagine that would have been good news. It might have
been confusing news. He might have asked me how it was good news when our old
dryer worked fine, but I doubt it would have been good news.
For something
to be good news we must first have the bad news. We must be in a situation
where we believe and understand that there is something better than what is
happening now. The people in Scripture understood that, at least some of them
did. When the good news was declared they were in need of a savior, they had
been putting their faith in a savior that was to come…a deliverer. Mosses was
the deliverer of the Israelites because he delivered them from the bondage of
slavery. When Christ came He was the good news because He was the deliverer of
the people. He was the savior they anticipated. He was there to save them from
the bondage of sin and the wrath of God that sin brought upon them.
Our modern
world barely understands the concept of sin. Lying is no longer considered a
sin, after all everyone lies. Coveting isn’t sin, in fact most people don’t
even know what covetousness is. Adultery isn’t considered sin. Stealing isn’t
sin. In fact, I’m not sure anything is considered sin in our modern world or at
least in our modern American culture.
How then can a
savior be good news when we live in a world that we don’t feel as if we need to
be saved from? To be saved we must first be in a situation where we need to be
saved. Shipwreck survivors only need to be saved if the ship actually wrecks.
Lost hikers only need to be saved if they are truly lost. And sinners only need
to be saved if they are indeed sinners.
But where
there is no perceived sin…can there be any understanding of being a sinner?
And where
there is no wrath…
I don’t even
know how to finish that. Because where there is no wrath from God…there is no
God. The God of Scripture is wrath, just as much, if not more, than he is love.
We see His love in Scripture but we also see His wrath. His love is reserved
for the regenerated, born again, believers that He has saved from His own wrath
by giving them mercy and granting them salvation. And so…everyone lives under
God’s wrath at some point in their lives but only those that God chooses to
save ever live under His love.
He does not
love everyone as ‘the many’ professing ‘Christians’ would have us to believe.
He loves a select few that find the narrow gate, the few that He has chosen to
draw to himself (John 6:44) and pour His mercy onto by giving them salvation.
But you won’t
hear that in one of the many ‘church’ buildings filling America today. You
won’t hear that from the mouths of preachers standing before the congregations,
caring for their ‘flocks’ seeing to the needs of their souls.
You won’t hear
it because to hear it you must first be told that God is wrath and He does not
love you unless He has drawn you to Him and granted you salvation, thereby
washing you clean of your sins, and removing the sin that separates you from
Him. Then and only then can you be told that God loves you.
Because God
does not love the sinner. Instead of pouring his love onto the unrepentant
sinner God pours his wrath onto them.
But somewhere
in our modern American version of ‘Christianity’ God’s wrath has gotten lost.
There is no wrath, only love. And yet…how can anyone understand the love that
saves the born again…the regenerated…when they do not understand what those
that are granted salvation are being saved from? If hell is not taught, how can
they understand heaven? If the wrath of God is not taught, how can they
understand the salvation that is given? And if the payment for sin…death, an
eternity in hell…is not taught, how can they understand the great gift of
salvation, an eternity in heaven?
And yet it
goes deeper than even that. How can one understand God’s grace if they do not
understand His law? That’s like expecting a child to understand escaping
punishment when they never understood that there was a rule that they broke.
Only…that is much too small of a comparison. Maybe it would be better said to
ask how someone facing execution for a crime could understand the enormity of
being given their freedom, with no punishment, when they never realized they had
committed a crime or that they were on trial. If God’s law…and the sins that
are committed by breaking that law…is not understood then how can a person
understand the grace that is granted to the one that breaks the law?
And if they do
not understand the nature of God, that He is wrath to the sinner, wrath to the
one that breaks His laws, then how can they understand the huge import of the
grace that is poured out on the sinner when they are given salvation by God? A
holy God that is so far removed from the sinner that they can’t even be
compared. In our world people as a whole tend to see God as something they can
touch and almost command to do their bidding. They often demand things from Him
expecting to get everything they want, exactly when they want it.
When people see God in such a way can they
ever begin to grasp the magnitude of His grace and forgiveness? I grew up with
the belief that I gained salvation at the age of six. I can’t remember what
prompted me to say the magic ‘prayer’ but I can remember my own feelings at
having done so. I was proud of myself. Somehow I had done the right thing.
Everyone was so happy with me and I was puffed up with that and my own decision
to do what I was told was the right thing. I said the prayer for reasons that I
can’t remember now but I am absolutely certain that whatever those reasons were
they had little to do with the Lord and everything to do with myself and those
around me. I certainly didn’t say ‘the prayer’ because I understood that the
Lord’s wrath was on me. I didn’t say it because I understood that the Lord was
giving me salvation from His wrath.
Not that that
prayer actually gained me salvation but at the time I thought it ‘saved’ me.
But I have no doubt that I did not understand what it was I was supposedly
being saved from. How could I? I highly doubt I had ever been told much more
than the most basic levels of the Gospel. I’m sure I understood, in the
abstract way that six year olds can, that Jesus died on the cross for me and
that by saying ‘the prayer’ I was saving myself from hell and gaining a spot in
heaven.
For a six year
old I don’t suppose that was too bad of an understanding, except for the fact
that the prayer I was taught was a lie and so was the belief that I could save
myself from anything. Beyond those things though, understanding that Christ
died for us and that salvation…eternity in heaven…is given through his death. I
suppose is a pretty good beginning for a six year old to understand.
Only thing is,
so many of the professing ‘Christians’ of today never advance beyond that
understanding. For a six year old it’s a pretty good beginning, if you could
but erase the lies that I was taught, but for someone that claims to have been
a ‘Christian’ for months or, worse, for years, should have advanced well beyond
that point.
God is not
love. Christ is not love. Jesus is not love. Yes, they are love but they are
not only love and we do not receive their love without also first having lived
under God’s wrath.
But where are
most people to learn that?
In our modern
society, the visible ‘church’ is what people understand to be ‘Christians’. If
they go looking for answers about the Lord, more often than not they are going
to walk into some ‘church’ building and get those answers from the preacher and
leaders of that ‘church’. They will take what the preacher says to be true.
They will gain their understanding of Scripture from the teachers within that
‘church’.
With that
‘church’ indoctrination fully planted in their minds when…if…they study
Scripture on their own, they will approach it with the understanding that they
gained while being taught in the ‘church’ building.
A while back I
did something of a Bible study with someone I know, although I’m not sure Bible
study would be the proper word for what we did. It might be more of an iron
sharpens iron sort of thing. I believed one thing, this person believed
another. We were both firmly planted in what we believe. Through that
conversation we never did come to an agreement on our beliefs. We both came out
of that conversation clinging just as firmly to what we believe as when we went
into it. But I gained something invaluable from that discussion. I learned that
when a person approaches Scripture with a belief in mind, it is possible to
gain from Scripture everything one needs to know to support that belief. At
least it was on the topic I was discussing with this person.
I had never
thought about it before that conversation but during the course of that
discussion I clearly saw, and understood, that the other person had studied, at
length, the Scriptures while looking for stories and verses that supported a
certain belief. Or at least they studied them while looking for examples of
certain things, things that supported what they believed. In doing so this
person read things into Scripture that simply wasn’t there.
But just to
make for certain I wasn’t doing exactly the same thing, I read and re-read the
passages of Scripture we were discussing. I read it simply for what was written
in the text. I read it with others. I discussed it with others. I asked others
to read it and tell me what they got out of it. I asked non-believers to read
it and tell me, from their perspective of holding nothing of any more
importance that just any other book, what they gained from those passages. And
guess what…Scripture was simply what was written on the page. I wasn’t missing
something that the other person was getting out of it.
From that I
learned that people can approach Scripture with a certain idea in their heads
and read Scripture but gain way more from it than what is actually there, and
in the process gain way less than what is there.
And so if a
person, indoctrinated to a certain belief, approaches Scripture with that
belief in their minds and hearts, they will get from Scripture things that
support those beliefs.
What I’m
trying to get at here is that if a person is taught to believe that God is
love, that Jesus is love, then if they try to read Scripture on their own, they
won’t get from Scripture what is written within its text but will, instead, get
from it the same things they have been taught to see in it. In other words…they
can read the Bible cover to cover and still walk away with the complete belief
that God holds no wrath toward man, that He simply loves them.
They cannot
see the truth in Scripture because they are blinded to that truth. The Lord has
blinded them to it through the teachings of those that have instructed them in
the things of Scripture.
Did those
teachers, those instructors, those preachers, teach that God is love because
they believe that and nothing else or did they teach it for other, less noble,
less understandable, reasons? I do not know the answer to that question. Years
ago I had a doctor tell me that doctor’s often know things about their patients
that they don’t tell their patients. I understood that at the time but I also
understood how fundamentally wrong that is.
I can fully
understand a doctor keeping something from a patient that might worry or upset
the patient but I also believe that the patient has every right to know
everything the doctor knows about them. If that information worries or upsets
them then it is their health to worry or be upset over.
I can
understand a preacher or teacher trying to gauge whether or not a person is
ready to learn more of the truths of Scripture. I’m not even close to being a
teacher or preacher of Scripture and yet I have found myself weighing my words
when talking to others about Scripture. There have been times when I have told
someone, even professing ‘Christians’, less about certain parts of Scripture
than I knew. I deliberately held back information, understanding, even held
back certain parts of Scripture, because I knew they were not ready for those
deeper things.
But I don’t
believe that is what most preachers are doing, and even if they were, God’s
wrath against sinners isn’t a deeper truth. It is a very basic truth. It should
be at the root of everything being taught about Christ and salvation. Scripture
tells us that the Gospel is basic. Repent and believe in Christ. That is the
Gospel. It doesn’t get much more basic than that. But…what are we to repent of?
Why do we need to repent? God is holy. He is just. He has laws. Man (all of
mankind) is born into sin and has evil in their hearts. We break God’s laws
before we can even begin to understand them. Then we break them because we see
no evil in doing it. And in the breaking of those laws, every single time we
broke them no matter our age at the time, we gained…and deserved…God’s wrath. We
must therefore repent of the sins we committed by breaking those laws. And
there is the reason we must repent.
How can the
Gospel be given without also teaching of God’s wrath? How can people understand
the savior without understanding why they need a savior? And so, I can’t see
that God’s wrath is anything but the basics of the Gospel. Repent and believe.
Repenting, though, requires an understanding of what one must repent of.
I watched a
video online not all that long ago where two men questioned atheists on their
beliefs. These men pointed out that an atheist can be gotten to by simply
taking them back to the law. Ask them if they have lied. Ask them if they have
ever stolen anything. Ask them if they have ever looked at someone with lust.
The Ten Commandments, these men claimed, are the place to gain ground with an
atheist. I have no idea if that’s true or not, I’ve never tried it, but what I
do know is that someone must first understand what the law is, they must
understand the laws, to understand that they have, indeed, broken those laws.
Then and only then can they be shown that they are living outside the law and
possibly be shown that they deserve punishment, in the form of God’s wrath, for
what they have done.
What is
salvation when you are being saved from…nothing?
But back to
preachers and teachers. Do they preach and teach that God is love, that Jesus
is love, and not teach that God is wrath, because they don’t understand that
themselves? Or do they teach it because it is a difficult topic? Because it
will make people squirm in their seats? Because it will shake the foundation of
the security the professing ‘Christians’ have in their salvation…a salvation
built on God’s love for them and not on their total depravity before a holy
God? Do they teach that God is love because it would send people running from
their padded pews and out of their air conditioned buildings? Do they teach
that God is love because they believe it or because it will remove people from
their congregations and with every person that walks out their door they lose
money in their, often well-padded, pockets?
Do they teach
that God is love because they truly do not understand themselves that God is a
God of wrath, a God of fury, or do they teach that God is a God of love despite
the fact that they understand Him to be a God of wrath, because a God of wrath
does not pull in the people, He does not pack the pews on Sunday morning, He
does not fill the offering plate, and He does not fill their own pockets?
But God is
love, some might say. Yes, He is. He is a God of great love. A God of perfect
love, a God of such profound love that he gives mercy where no mercy is
deserved, he grants grace to those that do not deserve it, He gives salvation
to those that could never earn it on their own. God’s love is so great as to be
the most perfect love there is but His hate is equally great. He loves but He
also hates. He gives grace but he also pours out His wrath. He gives salvation
but He also demands punishment for those that break His laws.
God is love
but He is also wrath. God is wrath but He is also love. It’s balanced. It is
all a part of God. You cannot separate the two. You can’t simply pick and
choose what He is to make Him into what you want Him to be. God is love. But He
is also wrath.
Scripture
tells us…Jacob I loved but Esau I hated
(Romans 9:13). In that single sentence we get both sides of God. Jacob I loved.
Esau I hated. Love. Hate. God held both love and hate at the same time. To one
brother He gave love. To the other…hate. One got love. One got wrath. There
wasn’t a God of love that loved Jacob and Esau. There was but one God, the same
God that loved one brother and hated the other.
Scripture also
tells us…
Thou
hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity. Hebrews 1:9
And there we see in Scripture, once
again, both love and hate from the same God. It is a balance. There is a flip
side, you might say. There is love and there is hate. There is no having one
without the other. God is love. God is hate. To separate the two would be like
trying to have only one side of a quarter. You can’t have the front of the
quarter without having the back side. You also can’t have God’s love without
having His wrath.
Today’s preachers and teachers either
miss that or they deliberately overlook it. What a horrible thing they do if
they knowingly choose to overlook that God is wrath. What atrocity are they
committing if they teach that God is love and ignore the knowledge that God is
wrath when they teach those before them?
The New Testament teaches us, Paul
teaches us, what qualifications a leader should have. Anyone that does not
fully understand Scripture fails the test in Scripture for a leader (or what is
now called a preacher). Whether or not a preacher or teacher understands the
wrath of God…if they don’t teach it…by Scriptures standards they cannot be a
leader.
I’m not sure there is even a word to
describe what takes place when a person that fails the test of Scripture,
teaches Scripture anyway. Only…they aren’t truly teaching Scripture. They’re
teaching some watered down version of Scripture that is, more often than not,
designed not to offend anyone.
I read something recently about why and
how margarine was invented. I don’t remember the details but I do recall that
it said chemically, margarine is only one…molecule, I believe it said…off from
plastic. Not only that but margarine is white in color and must be dyed yellow
to have any semblance to butter. Margarine is an impostor. It is an imitation
that must be changed or enhanced to come close to resembling the real thing.
Years ago I had a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. It made the best chocolate
chip cookies I had ever tasted, or at least it made the best homemade chocolate
chip cookies I ever had. That recipe called for a certain type of margarine. A
margarine that was made to look like sticks of butter. I don’t know what the
difference was in that margarine and regular margarine but it sure made some
very good cookies.
I’m not getting into the health issues
involved in margarine or butter. I’m not promoting either one here. I’m simply
pointing out that in the world of butter, margarine is an imposter. And to
compete with butter, margarine must be changed, adulterated from its original
form to resemble butter. But even in its changed form margarine is still not
butter. It will never be butter. Butter is the real thing. Margarine is the
imposter.
Margarine may make some very good
cookies, those cookies might taste, smell, and feel like cookies made with
butter, they may even have an outward appearance or taste that exceeds that of
a cookie made with butter, but inside, if that cookie were tested, it would
show that margarine is what is in the cookie and not butter.
Margarine may look and act like butter
but it will never be butter. It can never be butter. And if put to a test that
distinguished real butter from any other stand-ins, margarine would never show
to be the real thing.
And that is what we have when anyone is
given a gospel of God is love but never given the gospel that He is also wrath.
When both are put together we have the real gospel. The gospel of Scripture.
But when they are separated, when God is picked apart, when Scripture is
changed or altered to create what the teacher or preacher wants it to be…it is
adulterated. The listener, or student, then gets an adulterated imposter for
the real thing. They get margarine and not butter. It may look, act, and even
smell like the real Scriptures but it is nothing but an imposter that is
misleading those that don’t realize the difference.
And most people don’t realize there is
a difference. Today’s ‘Christianity’ is so far removed from Scripture that it
is a ‘Christianity’ based on human emotion and not on Christ. It is a
‘Christianity’ that starts with man and invites Jesus in so long as Jesus loves
them and accepts them as they are, more or less. Some do tolerate Jesus
requiring them to change a bit. But still…this ‘Christianity’ is so watered
down and adulterated that we have margarine instead of butter. There is an
imposter being sold to the masses that gives them the illusion that God is
simply love. This imposter completely ignores that God is wrath. This imposter
shouts that it is butter from the rooftops while being margarine.
In the world of food, unless one is
concerned with the health consequences of butter verses margarine, or is
allergic to one or the other, then it doesn’t much matter if butter or
margarine is used. If you put butter into chocolate chip cookie batter you
get…chocolate chip cookies. If you put margarine into chocolate chip cookie
batter you get…chocolate chip cookies. Same thing if you use butter for grilled
cheeses sandwiches. With butter you get grilled cheese. If you use margarine
instead of butter you get…grilled cheese.
But what is a simple substitution in
food, becomes an eternal consequence in Scripture. If Scripture is butter, and
butter gets us eternal salvation, then margarine gets us…eternal damnation.
That’s a huge difference.
I recently held in my hands a book that
is being sold and labeled as a Bible. This book is an interpretation of the
Scriptures and not a very good one. Scripture is so changed in some of the
verses in that book as to be not recognizable as Scripture in any form. That
book removes from its passages certain warnings against sin and instead
justifies the same sin that Scripture calls an abomination.
That book is like margarine. It’s is an
imposter that lies on its very cover and continues to lie throughout its pages.
Only unlike margarine, that book, and the man that wrote it, is playing with
the words of the Lord and with the eternity of people’s souls. Which is the
exact same thing that preachers and teachers are doing when they twist
Scripture in any way. And to leave out the wrath of God as they teach that ‘God
is love’ is to do exactly that. There is no love in God that isn’t balance with
a hate in God.
Supposedly old time hymns, dating back
to the 1800’s, were filled with the wrath of God. I haven’t personally seen a
hymn book from that time so I can’t verify that. I’ve heard that hymns from
that era were filled with God’s wrath, His anger, judgement, and even His
vengeance. I can’t personally account for that but it makes sense to me. I do
know that sermons of that time were often referred to as ‘fire and brimestone’
sermons. There was supposedly much about hell and sinners in the sermons of
that time so it makes sense to me that their hymns would have been filled with
the same thing.
A few months back I read a review on a
Bible. In the back of that Bible it had the Psalms for singing. Until I read
that Bible review I had no idea that there was such a thing as Psalms for
singing. Apparently ‘churches’ used to sing the Psalms. I find that very
interesting and as I read that Bible review I found myself wishing I could look
at that version of the Psalms. I’m not musically inclined so hymn books do me
no good unless I already know the hymn, but I did wonder what the Psalms
written for singing would look like.
As I write this now I find myself
thinking of those Psalms for singing. Many of the Psalms are about God
destroying the wicked. Can you see ‘churches’ today singing about God
destroying anyone? I can’t. To sing about Him destroying the wicked, His wrath
would have to be acknowledged, His hate would have to be admitted to.
And modern day ‘Christians’ do not want
to hear about or admit that God hates anything. They happily, eagerly even,
accept and embrace His love but they don’t want to hear about His hate.
Several months back I watched a movie
about a young woman that was raped. I wrote about that in a post I titled ‘How
far can forgiveness go’. The woman in that movie forgave her attacker to the
point that she took their infant son to meet him and then continued to take
their son to see him. In the process of all of that she and the man that
attacked her formed a friendship. It sounds unlikely. It goes against
everything our society teaches us. Today, our world, would tell that woman that
she has every right to hate that man and that she should NEVER tell him about
their son.
In fact many ‘Christians’ would tell
that woman the very same thing. Oh, they might say that she should forgive him
but they would also be the first ones to question why she would ever consider
telling him they had a son.
That was a fictional movie. The
storyline was made up and the forgiveness offered to the attacker was nothing
more than the figment of someone’s imagination. But the reaction that most
people would have if that situation were to happen in life is very much real. I
remember years back when there was a shooting in an Amish school, the victims’
families forgave the shooter. What stands out in my mind about that isn’t the
forgiveness but the response of the American people to that forgiveness. It was
a foreign concept to most people. They couldn’t believe that those parents
could, or would, forgive the shooter.
That is very much the American mindset
today. If someone wrongs you, hold onto the blame. It seems that people, even
professing ‘Christians’, are allowed to be bitter, angry, and to hold onto
their wrath and their grudges, but those same professing ‘Christians’ do not
want to hear about the wrath of God. Why is it that people can hold wrath for
wrongs and perceived wrongs but it’s wrong for God, the God that created the
entire universe, to hold any wrath at all?
They want the love of God but they do
not want the hate. They want the smiles God shows them but they do not want His
anger. They will take the blessings but they don’t want to take the punishment.
Just as they want the status of being a ‘Christian’, the salvation they think
they have by being ‘saved’ but they do not want the commandments that mark the
life of a Christian.
And because they only want the love of
God, they never understand that he is also a God of hate. This all-encompassing
love they believe He holds for them pales so far in comparison to His real love
that they will never know or understand just how great that real love is. They’ll never understand, that is, unless the
Lord saves them, unless He draws them to Him and gives them true salvation.
Then and only then will they begin to understand just how great that love they’ve
claimed for so long is. Because unless they understand how great his hate is,
how strong his wrath is, then they can never understand just how huge His love
is.
Reading through Scripture we can see
that they understood God’s wrath, they knew he held deep hate, they saw and
gave credit for his vengeance.
…
Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when
once thou art angry? Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven;
the earth feared, and was still, when God arose to judgment. Psalm 76:6
Who can stand in thy (God’s) sight when
He is angry? What a deep question. How much does that say for the anger of God?
He gets so angry that no one can stand in his sight yet today professing ‘Christians’
wave away their sins, claiming that God loves them. They may, or may not, admit
that God hates their sin but they believe that they are living in God’s love.
Just that single sentence out of the many, many sentences in Scripture tell us
that no one can stand in sight of God’s anger.
This, though, would not be believed by
the majority of people packing the ‘church’ buildings on Sundays. It wouldn’t
be believed by ‘the many’ that profess to be a ‘Christian’. God is love. God
loves them. He looks on them like a doting parent or grandparent, all smiles
and happiness no matter what they do.
There is a very popular thing today.
Parents (and grandparents) flood social media with pictures of their children.
These children have everything they do captured by camera and quickly uploaded
to social media. These children are referred to as princes and princesses. We
get to see everything from their first moments on earth to them learning to use
the toilet. Their little faces are plastered on the internet smeared with cake
and spaghetti. We see their first bite of food, their first foray into the
world of sugar, their first step, their first potty chair, and their first
skinned knee. There is nothing sacred, nothing held back. And what these
parents don’t capture with a camera, they capture in words. Somehow we managed
to miss getting a picture of the little prince sleeping for a solid four hours
so it’s written into social media minus the accompanying picture. Opps…Mommy
and Daddy didn’t have the camera ready when little Princess made her first spit
bubble…words will tell the world that she accomplished it. And to fill in the
gaps we get videos of their first time in the swimming pool, them riding in
their new stroller, and opening their birthday presents.
These babies are like little play
things whose parents are so far beyond proud of them that there is nothing
outside of what little prince or princess is doing next. I’ve often wondered if
the parents ever stop to realize that everyone connected to their social media
does not want to see every little thing their child does. And even more than
that I’ve wondered if they ever to stop to think about how little Johnny and
Susie may not want every single private detail of their life shared on the
internet for all to see. These kids get more ‘media’ attention than most famous
kids do. And all because their doting parents think they are the greatest think
since air was created and that everyone else should think so too.
I won’t go any further into what I think
about that and, lest anyone should ask, yes, I love my children. I always have.
I always will. But no, I don’t believe everyone else should be totally fascinated
with them, I don’t believe that every single thing they do is just oh so
amazing and I firmly believe that children should not have their lives
plastered before the world, be that in television or in social media.
But here’s the thing…people today kind
of see God like those doting parents. There He is, all His love for us
plastered on His face, His camera at the ready, smiling and snapping pictures
as we throw a tantrum on the living room floor, laughing as we enjoy that television
program filled with filth that defies every one of the Ten Commandments, chuckling
in understanding as we use His name in vain, He snaps another picture as we buy
yet another video game, adding to the hundreds already owned, while complaining
about not having enough of something.
This is the image that people seem to
have in mind of God. He is so enamored with every last human being that He just
‘loves them to pieces’ as the saying goes. He wants so much to love on us, to
pull us into a big bear hug and just love us. I can easily picture the God of
love standing up in heaven somewhere grinning and snapping pictures of every
person while quickly uploading them to some heavenly social media while writing
captions about how wonderful that person is. I can picture it but I know that
it is no more real than the God of love the world wants to believe in.
But in a way I can understand people
wanting to believe in that God. What child wouldn’t rather stand before a
parent that laughs at their misbehavior and snaps picture after picture of it, essentially
encouraging them to keep misbehaving, than to stand in front of a stern faced
parent, knowing full well that what they did was wrong and they are in trouble?
And what sinner wouldn’t rather stand
before the God of love while he smiles indulgently and snaps pictures of them
in their sin rather than stand before a God that is so filled with hate and
wrath that He pours it upon them? A God like this one…
He
cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and indignation, and
trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to His anger;
he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the
pestilence; And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in
the tabernacles of Ham. Psalm 78:49
That God is not filled with love. That
God did not stand back, smiling indulgently, laughing at the sins of people.
That God was angry. That God was so angry who could stand before Him?
That God poured such wrath onto those people that it would make anyone shake in
their shoes and run to try and escape that anger. Who wouldn’t want to run as
far from that punishment as they could get.
And who wouldn’t rather imagine a God
of love than a God like that?
But Scripture gives us and even
more troubling view of that wrath. Isaiah 9:19 says…
Through
the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened and the people shall be as
the fuel of the fire.
And the people shall be as the fuel of
the fire. Have you ever fed a fire, kept one going? Do you know what happens to
wood, the fuel of the fire, when you feed it into the flames? It is consumed by
the flames, slowly, fiercely. In the above verse we see that it is through the
wrath of the Lord that the people will be as the fuel of the fire.
Ummm….
Where is there a God of love in that
verse? Do you throw those that you love into the fire to use them as fuel? And
who would you rather imagine you’re standing before…a God that love you and
smiles indulgently while you defy His every word…or a God so filled with anger
that he uses you as the fuel to keep the fire going? It’s not hard to see why
people prefer their imaginary ‘God of love’ over the real God of Scripture.
Trouble is…that God of love does not exist. He is a figment of their
imagination.
‘The fear of God’ used to be a fairly
popular saying, or so I understand. How many people today truly fear God? How
many people see Him as anything to be feared? Who fears the parent laughs at
the child while they throw a fit in the middle of the store because they want a
cookie or a toy? What child fears the parent who tells them to do that again so
they can capture a picture of it…even though what the child just did was in
direct defiance of what the parent had just told them to do? People today, as a
whole, have no fear of God.
Do you suppose Noah, his wife, his sons
or his sons wives, feared God after the flood. Yes, they were the chosen
people. They were the ones that God saved out of all the world. But they were
also the only witnesses of His great wrath. Do you suppose they were careful to
try and follow God’s rules once they came off that ark? Do you suppose they
simply laughed and said that God was a God of love and went right ahead doing
exactly what they wanted to do without giving a thought to God and His wrath?
Do you suppose they would have said that God just wants to love people?
What about Lot? Do you suppose He
thought God was only love? He was there when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed.
His wife was destroyed for disobeying God. He was there. Do you suppose He ever
believed that God was just love? Did He ever doubt the wrath of God?
Those are just a handful of people that
witnessed God’s wrath. And those are just a few verses that speak of His wrath.
We don’t need to see His wrath to know it’s there. I would almost be interested
in doing a study on God’s wrath. To look up exactly where and how God’s wrath
was poured out on man. One of these days I might just do that.
I can’t help wondering if that isn’t
what those fire and brimstone sermons were filled with. Could a person escape
the understanding that God is wrath if they sat through sermon after sermon
hearing about how God’s wrath is poured out upon the earth? Can they miss His
wrath if they do an indepth study on God’s anger and He unleashed a world wide
flood’s worth of water? Could they miss His hate when they imagine the people,
men, women, children, BABIES, that died in that flood. God did not love those
people or He would have plucked them out of that water and saved them.
Today we don’t hear of studies on God’s
wrath, we aren’t told that He hates sinners, we don’t hear sermons on how angry
God is. Instead we are told how much he loves us and just wants us to come to
Him. Again…that puts me in the mind of a toddler who angrily screams at their
parent than takes off running in the opposite direction. Does the parent stand
by and wait for the child to come running back to them? In this God is love
version, I suppose the parent laughs at the ‘cute’ antics of the child, grabs
their phone to get a video of the screaming, arm waving, stomping toddler now
running down the driveway and into the path of an oncoming car.
That, after all, must be what the God
of love does when people break His commandments and live in defiance of Him.
But that isn’t the image I have in mind
of God. I simply can’t see the God that sent the flood, calling the hearts of
all men wicked, the God that destroyed sin-filled cities, the God that sent
plagues on the Egyptians, the God that even unleashed His anger on the
Israelites, the very people He saved…I can’t see THAT God smiling idly while
people live in sin, flaunting the very things that He hates.
But that’s the God of the Old
Testament.
Yes, I’ve heard that many times. I
guess I grew up hearing that. The common belief there is that the God of the
Old Testament isn’t the God of the New Testament, nor is He the God of today.
What? Did we get a new God? I can’t
recall ever seeing that in Scripture. Maybe because it isn’t there. God doesn’t
change. The God of today is the God of the New Testament, He is the God
of the Old Testament.
Many New Testament books speak of God’s
wrath. Romans comes to mind, so does the book of John, chapter 3...
He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;
but the wrath of God abides on him.
The wrath of God aides on those that do
not believe in Christ. This isn’t a passing belief in Christ, but a saving
belief. This is salvation, true salvation given by the Lord. Ephesians 5 (verse
6) speaks of the wrath of God coming in the sons of disobedience.
All those verse are in the new
testament. Those are not the God of the Old Testament but the God of the New
Testament. And if that isn’t enough, how about this one…
…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from
heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who
do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
2 Thessalonians 1:7-8esv
There’s the ‘Jesus loves you’ of Scripture.
Does that sound much like, ‘Jesus loves you’? God isn’t just
a God of love, Jesus isn’t a Jesus of love. Before we can get to the love of
the Lord we must first get through His wrath. And He is most definitely a God
of wrath. I can’t see how anyone that truly studied the Scriptures as they are
written, without reading what they want to into them, could ever say that God
is not filled with wrath.
I think again of the conversation with
my husband when he teasingly told me I could sit by the road holding a sign
that says ‘Jesus loves you.’ And I think of the sign I offered to hold instead…God
hates you.
What good does it do to tell people
that Jesus loves them when that is about as far from the truth as we can get?
We do them no good to walk up to them, knowing that they are living a life of
sin, and say to them, ‘Jesus loves you.’ Well…if Jesus loves them where can you
go from there? But imagine you walked up and told them, ‘God hates you.’ Oh
boy, the can of worms that would open. Truthfully, I think you would immediately
lose your audience because so many people have been indoctrinated to the idea
that Jesus loves them. But if they didn’t walk away…oh, the starting point that
would give.
It is the entrance into the Gospel. The
real Gospel. The Gospel that starts with a God that laid down His law and said
anyone breaking it is a sinner, a God that demands the death penalty for
breaking that sin, a God that sent His son to be the Good News of a Savior for
those that are given salvation. Then, and only then, does that same God become
love to those that He gives salvation to.
Good news only means something once you
receive the bad news. What good does it do to tell someone that you can repair
their vehicle if they haven’t first been told that a hundred foot tree fell on
top of it? What good does it do a doctor to tell a patient that they can heal
their broken leg if the patient is walking up and down the hall unaware that
they are a patient? We must first understand the bad news before we can
appreciate the good news.
And the bad news is…
God hates sinners.
