Week 3 - Sunday

The Wrath of God

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in ungodliness, (Romans 1:18)

Most of today's preaching about the gospel either downplays or completely ignores the wrath of God. People are offered a better life and the joy of salvation if they will simply accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. However that's not the way Paul presented the gospel. He devoted much of the first three chapters of Romans to explaining God's wrath against sin and the reasons for it. Paul wanted his readers to know the bad news about man's sin and God's anger over it, before he explained the good news of salvation through Christ. Paul knew that if people were going to want to come to Jesus Christ to be saved from their sin, they had to first feel the need to be saved. The first reason Paul gives for coming to Christ is to escape the wrath of God . A lot of people don't believe that God is really going to judge sin. They especially don't believe He will condemn people to hell. To them it sounds too cruel. But God's judgment of sin is actually a loving and merciful act. The world's greatest hope is that God will judge sin. If God doesn't judge sin, the world will be sinful forever. Think about what heaven would be like if everyone went there. Heaven would be no better than it is here. Can you imagine a heaven where things like adultery, murder, rape, theft, lying and drunkeness were commonplace. That wouldn't be heaven at all. God is going to judge sin because God is holy and His kingdom will be holy too. God has already revealed His wrath against sin many times throughout history by events such as the Flood (Gen. 6:5-17) and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:20, 19:24-25). But the most graphic demonstration of how much God hates sin, can be seen in the death of Jesus on the cross. God hates sin so much, He felt it was necessary to have His own Son die on the cross to pay the penalty for it. Sin is the only thing God hates and He hates it fiercely.

Starting in Romans 1:18 and continuing on through Romans 3:20, Paul shows that the wrath of God is both certain and deserved for everyone who fails to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The first reason Paul gives that mankind deserves God's wrath, is because of their ungodliness and unrighteousness. Ungodliness refers to man's failure to worship God properly, and unrighteousness refers to their sin. It isn't that men don't know any better. The reason for their rejection of God is that they suppress the truth. Because they do not want a holy God interferring with their sin, people all throughout history have either invented their own gods or denied the existence of God altogether. A person can give any number of reasons for choosing not to believe in God. But the way God sees it, they are all nothing more than smokescreens to hide the fact that they do not want to give up their sin. Rather than admit their sin and acknowledge their guilt before God, they choose to deny the truth. Until a person sees themselves as a hell bound sinner, and know they deserve it, they cannot fully appreciate God's offer of salvation. Once a person understands God's anger over sin and His hatred of it, they can be truly amazed at His love and grace in saving them. Then they can honestly say with all their heart, 'Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.'

Readings for today: Psalm:7:11-12; Psalm 2:11-12; John 3:19; John 3:36; Rom. 5:8-9