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It is without a doubt THE single most unpleasant topic in all of the Bible. The subject of this week’s PODCAST: God’s wrath.
We discuss it here because here in Matthew 10, Jesus made reference to the iconic display of God’s wrath: the twin-cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And for good measure, Jesus also referred to “the day of judgment.”
Since Jesus brought it up, we will bring it up — unpleasant or otherwise — providing some Much-Needed-Clarification to an Often-Misunderstood topic.
Upon reflection, I suppose the overarching questions raised by this sobering subject are these: Is Jesus a gentle Jesus? Is Jesus a wrathful Jesus? Or both?
And if both, how does the one (gentle) square with the other (wrathful)? Especially in light of what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah.
My friends, as always, we have a ton to talk about.
Let’s begin by reading Matthew 10:14-15
14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
Now, to contradict the commonly-held opinion that God is an angry God, know this: Nowhere in the Bible does it describe Him as such. Jesus, quite clearly defined Himself as gentle, but never as angry. I know that He did get angry a grand total of four times: twice when He cleansed the temple of its money changers and thieves; when He healed a man on the Sabbath and the religious leaders accused Him with their hardened hearts; and at the Pharisees when they demanded so much of the people and never lifted a finger to relieve their burdens.
Four times. Over three years. Each time for very good reasons.
It is most important to note that Jesus’ anger was the exception, not the rule. It was rare and uncharacteristic of Him. It did not define Him. Gentleness did.
And the same can be said about God.
As Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” The two are one in the same.
Cases in point: God got angry at the time of the flood, at the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, during the ten plagues in Egypt, and when He wiped out the Assyrian army.
Four times. Over thousands of years. Each time for very good reasons – extreme circumstances that demanded extreme measures to stop what had become a malignancy in the human race that threatened to devour all humanity.
But, what were the triggers that put God to those points, and are we headed in that direction?
Genesis chapter 6 describes the first of the four times God was angry:
5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. 7 And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.” 8 But Noah found favor with the Lord.
Extreme measures in the face of extreme circumstances.
Yet, even in the face of all this, He withheld His judgment for 120 years! He also provided for the salvation of a remnant: Noah, his family and anyone else who would have repented of their evil ways, as Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2:5 –
Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment.
It took Noah 120 years to build a boat because he was also preaching… warning people of what was coming!
Now, as extreme as it was that God flooded the entire earth and wiped out the evilness that was spread throughout mankind, His grace was still noticeable all over this story!
Then, there was Sodom and Gomorrah’s extreme behaviors that drove God to anger. We read about it starting in Genesis 18:20-32
20 So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah, because their sin is so flagrant. 21 I am going down to see if their actions are as wicked as I have heard. If not, I want to know.”
22 The other men turned and headed toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham. 23 Abraham approached him and said, “Will you sweep away both the righteous and the wicked? 24 Suppose you find fifty righteous people living there in the city—will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes? 25 Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”
26 And the Lord replied, “If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake.”
27 Then Abraham spoke again. “Since I have begun, let me speak further to my Lord, even though I am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose there are only forty-five righteous people rather than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”
And the Lord said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five righteous people there.”
29 Then Abraham pressed his request further. “Suppose there are only forty?”
And the Lord replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the forty.”
30 “Please don’t be angry, my Lord,” Abraham pleaded. “Let me speak—suppose only thirty righteous people are found?”
And the Lord replied, “I will not destroy it if I find thirty.”
31 Then Abraham said, “Since I have dared to speak to the Lord, let me continue—suppose there are only twenty?”
And the Lord replied, “Then I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”
32 Finally, Abraham said, “Lord, please don’t be angry with me if I speak one more time. Suppose only ten are found there?”
And the Lord replied, “Then I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.”
There weren’t even ten righteous people in the whole citizenry of those two cities! And the handful that God did find (Lot and his family), God spared! So, what was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexuality? Approval of gay marriage? Lack of hospitality to God’s angels? It actually was a perversion so wicked that the whole earth hasn’t seen anything like it sense, as we read in Genesis 19:1-10
That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom. Lot was sitting there, and when he saw them, he stood up to meet them. Then he welcomed them and bowed with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “come to my home to wash your feet, and be my guests for the night. You may then get up early in the morning and be on your way again.”
“Oh no,” they replied. “We’ll just spend the night out here in the city square.”
3 But Lot insisted, so at last they went home with him. Lot prepared a feast for them, complete with fresh bread made without yeast, and they ate. 4 But before they retired for the night, all the men of Sodom, young and old, came from all over the city and surrounded the house. 5 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”
This is an entire town full of men who wanted to rape angels!
6 So Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. 7 “Please, my brothers,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two virgin daughters. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do with them as you wish. But please, leave these men alone, for they are my guests and are under my protection.”
9 “Stand back!” they shouted. “This fellow came to town as an outsider, and now he’s acting like our judge! We’ll treat you far worse than those other men!” And they lunged toward Lot to break down the door. 10 But the two angels reached out, pulled Lot into the house, and bolted the door.
Talk about extreme! So, if you are fearful that God is going to pour out His wrath on Oregon for their progressive stance toward marriage equality, know this – even Oregon hasn’t reached Sodom and Gomorrah’s level of perverseness. And there are certainly at least ten righteous people in the state.
But, back to Genesis…
11 And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door.
God couldn’t let this type of behavior spread across all of mankind. It had already spread too far in that every man and boy of the city were compromised!
And, once again, before God poured out His holy wrath, He pulled out the Godly remnant.
Then there were the ten plagues sent to Egypt. Talk about mercy, this was after God’s people had endured 400 years of tortuous slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. And all they had to do was let God’s people go, and not a single gnat would have fallen upon Egypt. And after each plague, if Pharaoh would have released the Hebrews, his people would have been spared the next plague. The judgments would have been turned off like a faucet.
Then, there were the Assyrians. Now, Hezekiah was a very Godly king of Judah – one of the few. When the Assyrians invaded Judah, Hezekiah send messengers begging them to spare Jerusalem. And Assyrian king replied in the extreme:
Don’t let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria.11 You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? (2 Kings 19:10-11)
What the Assyrians did – and even bragged about it – was, dare I say, more barbaric than that ISIS is doing throughout the Middle East today.
But, the Assyrian king didn’t end his taunt there. He went on to taunt the God of Israel:
12 Have the gods of other nations rescued them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? My predecessors destroyed them all!
You see, if God had not intervened, His people would have been totally obliterated from the earth, as the Assyrians did to the missing ten tribes of Israel that was to the north of Judah. God had to intervene, otherwise there would be no Jerusalem today. There would be no Jews today. There would be no Jesus today.
So, here is how king Hezekiah responded:
14 After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: “O Lord, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 16 Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God.
17 “It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. 18 And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 19 Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” (2 Kings 19:14-19)
And God answered Hezekiah’s prayer in a mighty way:
35 That night the angel of the Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. (2 Kings 19:35)
God decimated their army. It was an extreme response to an extreme set of circumstances that resulted in Jerusalem and a remnant of God’s people being preserved at a time when the threat was aimed at annihilating them once and for all.
All four of these stories underscore this fact: God’s anger is the exception, not the rule. It is rare and uncharacteristic. It doesn’t define Him. It’s always the last resort, never the first.
Now, when we previously spoke about miracles, I pointed out certain rare, specific ages of miracles (during the times of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus to name a few). And, while God does miracles today, we are not living in an “age of miracles”, as exemplified by these eras. Miracles today are the exception, not the rule.
The same can be said about God’s anger and wrath – and even more so.
Yet, I hold that – contrary to many who believe that God is about to come against America as a response to our nation’s sins and rejection of His will – I believe that God has already come against America.
He already has.
Did you get that? We are not in danger if His wrath coming someday soon. It has already happened.
Why do I say this? Because the Bible does.
Firstly, I submit that the raining down of fire and brimstone is not God’s typical wrath. That was a one-time event on Sodom and Gomorrah. Same with the flood and the sending of the angel of death to kill the firstborn sons of the and the Assyrian army.
Instead, I refer to Romans 1:18-23, and Paul’s crystal clear definition of what God’s wrath looks like.
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Paul is writing about a nation, empire even, full of people who though they are surrounded by God’s creation and have an innate knowledge of God, they willfully choose to reject Him, think that they are wise yet become foolish in their pursuit to replace God with anything else.
So, what does God do? Tie them to the floor and force His truth on them?
No.
The thing about God that scares me the most is that, given enough time, He will give us exactly what we want.
That is the wrath of God.
Paul describes it as he continues in Romans 1:24-32
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
You see, if we choose to reject God, He will allow us to live without Him. That is God’s wrath – a life without Him and all that comes with Him.
