Today we have become a people who see the world as being governed by impersonal forces of nature and physics. Our world has chosen a god of their imagination.
He is not a Holy God who is righteous anger must be propitiated. He is a kinder, gentler god, grandfatherly you could say, who is grieved when we do bad things, because He understands how difficult it is to be human and that wrongdoing isn’t really our fault, so he doesn’t really punish sin.
The god of our culture looks more like a pathetic passive father than the almighty Creator who genuinely cares for His Creation.
Theological Truth about God
- A God of love must hate anything that harms those that He loves.
- A God of love must take action to protect the innocent.
- A God of love must be serious when declaring certain behavior wrong.
- A God of love must have the capacity for anger.
The wrath of God is not the kind of bellowing anger we have come to associate with abusive people.
While it is indeed a passionate upsurging response, it is completely consistent with God’s character, which is love. His wrath is, without question, fearsome, yet also controlled, deliberate, measured and utterly just. His wrath is nothing less than a reasonable expression of His righteous character and His unfailing love when confronted with evil.
Three Realities of God’s Wrath
- God’s wrath burns against ungodliness and unrighteousness
1 John 4:8 says, “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
God is love. This is why He will not stand idly by while evil consumes His creation. The word ungodliness means attitudes and actions of irreverence. Unrighteousness means violation of divine law.
This divine law refers to the standard of conduct given through Moses, which was to be modeled by the Hebrew nation of Israel. These standards of conduct are not a made-up arbitrary thing. God did not sit one day and created rules to spoil our fun. These rules for living are an expression of His character.
Therefore, ungodliness and unrighteousness represent not only a violation of certain rules of conduct, but an utter rejection of God himself, His deity.
When you choose to sin, you are expressing contempt for God’s character. God’s truth, by which He spoke the universe into existence, is suppressed by the evil intent of our hearts.
- God’s wrath burns against those who suppress the truth about Him
God has surrounded us with His handiwork. When we look into space with a telescope, we can admire the comprehensiveness of His intellect.
John Calvin said that “Nature itself if the best argument for intelligent design, leaving men and women without excuse.”
Yet, mankind has suppressed this truth, producing tragic consequences. Romans 1:22 says, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” How do you suppress the truth of God? When you twist His words to fit your actions.
- God’s wrath burns against those who twist creation into something wicked
Romans 1:23 says, “and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.”
This foolishness does not merely distract us from seeking God, it also leads us to twist creation into something that is not.
The Spiral of Wickedness
- Willful ignorance of God leads to clever imitation of God and ends with wholesale replacement of God.
- It has been the habit of mankind to trade the One True God for one of their own making.
Our fallen nature prefers a creator who does not hold us accountable for wrongdoing and passively waits for us to reinitiate our relationship with Him when we have grown tired of our sin. But God is not a passive parent. And the consequences of our rejecting Him in favor of sin are far graver than we can imagine.
That’s why in His great love, He provided a way out, Jesus. He became sin, so we could become the righteousness of God.
What is my worldview?
Many people in our culture prefer to form their beliefs only after objectively analyzing data and performing unbiased evaluations and theories. However, their preference begins with a big presupposition, that anything that cannot be tested or scientifically observed must be unreal.
Accepting the unreality of God is not the result of an objective analysis of the data and an unbiased evaluation of theories. It’s a decision, a choice, based upon a presupposition to see the world a certain way.
The Creator has provided evidence of His existence. The underlying order of the universe, though marred by the Fall, points to God. The mere fact that humans crave meaning suggests that the universe is not an accident.
So, if belief or unbelief begin with a choice, it would logically follow that accepting the reality of God is a moral choice rather than an intellectual conclusion. And if belief does not require one to be unreasonable, those who choose not to accept Him will have no excuse when they eventually face Him.
How have you chosen to view the universe? Are you willing to put your decision to the real test?
The Bible proclaims this truth: God exists, and God is unlike anything you imagine Him to be. This is why it is so important to see Him as He is, to know and understand what He has revealed to us about Himself in Scripture.
Pastor Chris Williams
To learn more about Pastor Chris and his teaching, visit us on the web at fcfamily.org and make sure you subscribe to receive these weekly encouragements in your inbox.
