And if you ever tell people that God does not have fierce wrath toward the sinner, not just the sin, but towards the sinner, then you are lying to them. Because I don’t find verses that speak and show God to pour out wrath on sin. What’s that?
How do you pour out wrath on sin? Where is it? Listen to this. I’m just going to give you five verses that deal with God’s wrath. You tell me who the recipients of the wrath are. Exodus 22:22-“You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them… and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry and My wrath will burn and I will kill you with the sword.” Leviticus 26:27-“But in spite of this, you will not listen to Me, but walk contrary to Me then I will walk contrary to you in fury.” -“For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book and do according to all that is written concerning us.” Ezra 8:22 -“The hand of our God is for good on all who seek Him and the power of His wrath is against all who forsake Him.” Psalm 21:8 -“Your hand will find out all Your enemies, Your right hand will find out those who hate You, You will make them as a blazing oven when You appear, the Lord will swallow them up in His wrath and fire will consume them.” Folks, His wrath is directed against sinners, not just sin.
Let me tell you something else about His wrath. It’s fearful. There is no other way to put; it is infinitely dreadful. So often it’s likened to fire; I find various times its likened to drinking a cup. Even the dregs of the cup, which I think is where we get picture that Christ uses when He’s in the garden. If it was possible, He was praying to His Father that He would be delivered from that cup, a cup of wrath. But more times that anything else in the bible; You tell me. You listen to this. You hear what this wrath is likened to, Exodus 15:7-“You send out Your fury, it consumes them like stubble.” -“the burning of His great wrath.” Psalm 21:9 -“You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear, The Lord will swallow them up in His wrath and fire will consume them.” Isaiah 66:15 -“For behold the Lord will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind to render His anger and fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.” Jeremiah 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts O men of Judah and Jerusalem lest My wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds.” Ezekiel 21:31 -“I will blow upon you with the fire of My wrath.” Ezekiel 38:19-“My blazing Wrath.” Jeremiah 17:4 -“In My anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.” Isaiah
30:30 -“in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire.” Deuteronomy 32:22-“For a fire is kindled by My anger and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.” Deuteronomy 29:20-“The anger of the Lord and His jealousy will smoke against that man.” Folks, this is one of the most fearful verses that I have ever read in the bible. Ezekiel 22:20 -“As one gathers silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into a furnace to blow the fire on it in order to melt it, So I will gather you in My anger and in My wrath and I will put you in, and melt you; I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath and you shall be melted in the midst of it.” You know what? Man wants to ignore it, he wants to forget it, he wants to suppress it. Man likes to think, “Oh my sin isn’t that bad,” and, “God isn’t that angry.” And man some how thinks, some way, some how, “Well even if hell is real I’m going to be down there with all my friends.” [Ezekiel 22:20-] “I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath and you shall be melted in the midst of it.” Man thinks he is going to stand up to it. But I tell you what, when God blows upon him with the Wrath of His vengeance, with the fires, a smoke, a blaze. Man will yield immediately. There will be no fight in him. He will succumb to that wrath. Folks, the Wrath of God is fearful.
And I’ll tell you this, nothing but sin brings out this characteristic of God. Wrath is the way a holy God does respond and must to the wickedness of men. But I’ll tell you a third thing about this wrath, it is righteous. Listen to this, Romans 2:5 -“But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” You know what most men feel? They feel that the wrath of God… If it’s as bad as the bible says it is, And the bible says it is terrific, it’s terrifying to the uttermost. If it is that bad, man looks at it and says, “Wait a second.” “If it is that bad, this is excessive” “God’s going over board here.” Men can not conceive of God having such a massive reaction, on God’s part, “to our little sins.” So they say, “This can’t be. This is overkill.” I’ll tell you what, the problem is not that God is excessive. It is not that He’s extreme. It is not that He is disproportionate. The bible says that His judgment is righteous.
Folks, the problem is we underestimate the degree of our crime, our guilt. Our guilt is on a level that we know not. The problem lies not in our assessment of His wrath. The problem lies in our assessment of the expressiveness of our sin. That’s where it lies. God’s wrath should not make us think of an over reacting God. It should make us think of underestimating foolish men. God’s wrath is reasonable if we understand our sin.
