Humility Three: Humbled by The Wrath of God (6800)



Humility Three: Humbled by The Wrath of God (6800)Readings: Nahum 1:1-8, Rom 1:16-32 Our first talk in this series suggested that humility is the great virtue, and pride the great evil. Humility is the fuel that feeds the other virtues—love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, mercy, self-sacrifice, etc.. We also learned that Humility is the ability to see ourselves and all of life as God sees it. Isaiah 66:2 reads, “This is he to whom I will look, he that is humble, contrite, and trembles at my word.” These three virtues are progressive. Humility begins the process. It is also necessary for conversion and sanctification. Last week’s sermon exhorted us to be counter cultural. We learned that our culture is uniquely infatuated with self. We proved that by looking at our advertising and the discipline of social psychology. We compared that with the clear teaching of the Bible, and the testimony of past Christian greats. If pride is our great problem then it follows that God must have engineered the gospel to humble sinners, and this is exactly what we find in scripture. For the next five weeks we are going to take a hard look at the first three chapters of Romans. There we find a gospel engineered by God to humble all who approach him through it. All of this brings us to a difficult, unpleasant, but necessary subject, the wrath of God. At a family gathering I was visiting with one of my Christian nephews. For some reason our conversation turned to the wrath of God. Another relative—one that I deeply love—was standing a few feet away. He is very religious (i.e. he trusts in his attempts to be good to secure a good relationship with God). He is a longtime church attender. I could tell that he was listening in on our conversation. A few minutes later my friend walked away snorting, “I can’t believe any rational person, living in the modern world, could actually believe that God and wrath go together.” He left upset. Since that time tension has marked our relationship. Although his reaction hurt deeply, it did not surprise me. There is nothing more counter-cultural, more humbling (and sometimes more confusing) than the wrath of God. We are all convinced that God is love, especially the non-Christian. Most people believe that God is good. By that they mean he would never punish anyone, hurt anyone, or do anything to make us uncomfortable. But wrath? The word is like a spiritual stun gun, like an ice-water shower on a hot summer day. Nevertheless, we must deal with the wrath of God because it is all over the Bible. J. I. Packer: “One of the most striking things about the Bible is the vigor with which both Testaments emphasize the reality and terror of God’s wrath. A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.” We must deal with for a second reason. As upside down as this may sound, the wrath of God is essential to our happiness, our godliness, and our spiritual growth. In Romans chapters 1-3 the wrath of God is central. God’s wrath is where Paul’s gospel begins. I want to make two points this morning. 1st When Paul proclaimed the gospel he started with the bad news. 2nd The Wrath of God is central to the bad news. Paul’s Gospel Emphasizes the Bad News The first three chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans are a tutorial for how he communicated the gospel. He begins with a clear statement of the gospel in Romans 1:16-17. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” However, Paul knows that, by itself, this statement is not enough. He knows that his reader is proud, and that his pride has blindfolded him. The first thing to which he is blind is his spiritual peril. He is ignorant of God. He is ignorant of his own sinfulness. He is ignorant of his eternal danger, a problem compared to which all other problems are trivial. That problem is the wrath of God which hangs over his head. Paul also knows that pride will make his listener reluctant to face this problem and grapple with it. Therefore, Paul announces the Good News then immediately detours. From Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20 he labors to impress his reader with what I will call the “bad news.” 1:18-32 The bad news begins with the wrath of God. 2:12-29 The bad news includes the accounting to God that we will give on the Day of Final Judgment. 3:9-20 The bad news concludes with a declaration of our sinfulness. All men are bound by sin. None are righteous, no not one. 3:19-21 Paul concludes: On the Day of final Judgment all mouths will be stopped. No one will have an excuse. All will stand condemned. In other words, as we read about in Isaiah 2, on the Day of Final Judgment, all will be humbled. All will agree that God’s judgments are just. Only then does Paul return to the Good News in Romans 3:21-26. In other words, Paul begins his presentation of the gospel with bad news. In fact, the bad news dominates his explanation of the gospel. From Romans 1:18- Romans 3:20 he writes 1,262 words to convince the Romans of their problem. Only then does he conclude with a presentation of the Good News in six short verses (3:21-26). If we add up the two statements about the Good News that bracket the bad news , 1:16-17 and 3:21-26, we only have 188 words devoted to the Good News. Between these two statements we have 1,262 words devoted to the bad news . Almost seven words of bad news for every word about the Good News. This should not surprise us. We have spent two weeks discussing the blindness that is our because of our pride. Paul is attempting to batter down the doors of pride. He wants to open the shutters that cover our spiritual eyes so that the clean breezes of humility blow in. Two weeks ago we learned that humility is the ability to see things as God sees them. My contention is that Paul knew that men and women would only joyfully embrace the gospel to the degree that they were humbled—to the degree that they see their problem and are then motivated to run to God, the Father, for refuge. The Bad News Starts with the Wrath of God Because the wrath of God is such a difficult subject, the rest of this sermon is going to do four things. 1st We are going to Wrestle with the Wrath of God. 2nd We are going to look at Expressions of the Wrath of God. 3rd we are going to Behold the Wrath of God. 4th We are going to Rejoice in the wrath of God.Wrestling with the Wrath of GodIn the 1960s the great missionary, Roland Allen, wrote, “We have lost the sense that the Judge is at the door and that the wrath of God against all ungodliness is ready to be revealed. We no longer look upon the acceptance of our message as ‘deliverance from the wrath to come.’” This was my experience. I was converted in 1971. I heard no one discuss the wrath of God or preach on the wrath of God until after 2000. No one that I knew wrestled with the wrath of God. Paul was determined to not let this happen. That is why he begins his proclamation of the gospel with Rom. 1:18—“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” The Bible is clear. God is angry with everyone outside of Christ, and biblically his wrath is not a minor subject. Leon Morris: “In the Old Testament more than twenty words are used of the wrath of God...The total number of references to God’s wrath exceeds 580, so that it cannot be said to be an occasional topic…In the Bible the wrath of God is intensely personal.” However, as I experienced with my relative, all you have to do is mention the wrath of God and hackles will raise. Why do people get so upset with the wrath of God? There are at least two reasons. God cannot sin, and human wrath is often sinful. Human wrath is often sinful. We know that God never sins, so how can he be wrathful? Answer: Human anger is often sinful. However, anger in itself is not inherently wrong. It can be virtuous (i.e. Phineas, Num 25). Paul tells us to “be angry, but do not sin” (Eph. 4:26). God’s anger is not like human anger. It is always virtuous. It is never capricious. It is never excessive. It is never unjustified. It is never too severe. It is never out of control. Instead the Bible goes to great lengths to assure us that God is slow to anger (Exod. 34:6). Unlike human anger, God’s anger is never sinful. Instead, it is an aspect of his goodness. It is an essential aspect of his glory. In fact, we would not be able to trust a God who does not get angry at evil. Let me explain. We would all agree that a perfectly good Being must love virtue with an infinite passion. Likewise, if sin destroys lives, eviscerates human happiness, and robs God of his glory, then an infinitely good Being must hate evil in all of its forms. A force (sin) this destructive, a good God could not be passive toward and still be good? For example, a “good” God could not be passive about the holocaust. In the presence of evil, anyone really “good” must take sides, or they are not good. We would not call someone “good” who was indifferent to the sexual abuse of a child or the rape of its mother. It would be difficult to convince you that a person like this was “good.” You might call him a marshmallow. You might call him indifferent, you would probably abhor him, but you wouldn’t call him good. We all expect and want just the opposite. We expect real Goodness to get angry, to get worked up, to take sides, to stand against what is wrong. We want Hitler punished. We want Stalin punished. We want Mao punished. We want Idi Amin punished. We want this because God is just. We have a sense of justice because we are made in God’s image. God is not a “marshmallow.” God is infinitely good. Therefore, he opposes evil with an infinite opposition. He gets angry. In fact, the Greek word for this anger is so freighted with emotion that we must translate it “wrath.” It is a strong word. After thinking all this through, anyone who is honest will admit the truth. We don’t really object to God getting angry. We want him to be angry with evil people. We want him to judge them. Here is the problem. We object to him getting angry with us. Why? We don’t think we deserve it. We think we are good. We are proud. Our real objection is not that God gets angry. Our problem is that we don’t think we are evil. We think Hitler deserves anger, but our sins are miniscule and insignificant by comparison. Hitler was bad, but deep down inside we are convinced that we are good. For these reasons we cannot trust God unless he reacts to sin and evil with anger. Can’t harmonize Love and wrathJohn 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” but Rom 1:18 tells us that “the wrath of God is being revealed.” In our thinking wrath and love are polar opposites. But Scripture is clear. God simultaneously feels both intense love and intense anger toward fallen sinners. In other words, He loves those with whom he is angry. D.A. Carson: “The Bible can simultaneously affirm God’s wrath toward people and his love for them, It does not intimate that God’s love and his judicial “hatred” are necessarily mutually exclusive.?” In other words, God’s love saves us from God’s wrath. Another way to say that is that God sent his Son to save us from himself. Rom. 5:9 “Much more shall we be saved by [Christ] from the wrath of God.” God does this because he loves us. In other words, God feels the most intense love for those with whom he is angry. He does not want to feel anger. He wants friendship. So he has sent his Son to remove his anger. Expressions of the Wrath of God. Believers are free from the wrath of God. However, the wrath of God comes to unbelievers in various ways. Unbelievers can experience God’s wrath as spiritual blindness and deafness. (Isaiah 6:9–10, Matt. 13:10-17); through national calamity (Babylon and Jerusalem Ezra 5:12); through sowing and reaping (venereal disease Ephesians 5:6); pre-mature sickness, disease, or death (2 Kings 9:30-10:16); most importantly those who don’t believe the gospel will experience the wrath of God in Hell (Isa. 66:24, Mark 9:44-49). In Rom 1:18-32 Paul suggests that first century Roman society was currently experiencing the wrath of God. Here is how it worked. God was giving them up to the perversions and rebellions that they lusted after. (Romans 1:22–27) "22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Beholding the Wrath of GodMaybe you are a Christian, but you are skeptical about this subject. To you it all seems a bit exaggerated. May I take you to the cross of Christ? The cross puts a profound exclamation mark on all that we have said about the wrath of God. There we behold the wrath of God at work. The cross is an exhibition of the wrath of God brought forward in time. Remember, the cross works by penal substitution. Those two words “penal” and “substitution” are very important. “Substitution” refers to our union with Christ. “Penal” means that, because of this union, Jesus was able to take the penalty, i.e. wrath, that we deserve. The cross is what God’s wrath looks like. The cross is a picture of God’s hatred of evil in action. It is a graphic display of what his anger toward both sin and sinners looks like. God was angry. We deserved crucifixion. But God the Father so loved his children that he crushed his Son in our place. The cross shows us what God’s wrath looks like, and it is not pleasant. There is no way to adequately describe it with human words, and there is no way to clean it up or remove it’s offense. It was infinite suffering, the suffering that only an infinite Being has the capacity to absorb. The cross displays what eternal, personal, conscious torment (hell) must look like. Blood, sweat, agony, shame, and mind-numbing pain are its physical dimensions. Rejoicing in the Wrath of God Let’s return to our thesis. Saving faith always involves some humbling. The more we are humbled, the deeper our relationship with God. The more we are humbled the more likely conversion will take place. The more we are humbled the more fruitful we will be. The wrath of God, a clear understanding of what I deserve, is the first step down into a humbling faith. Although we have covered these many times before, lets pause to remind ourselves of some of the benefits of the wrath of God. The Wrath of God defines the love of GodThe cross is not just the measure of God’s wrath, it is also the measure of his love, and it is an astounding love. That is because the wrath of God defines the love of God. God’s love is love for enemies. God loves those for whom he feels the deepest enmity. At great expense to himself, he acts to remove that enmity, to reconcile us and make us his friends. It is natural for us to love our friends. Even members of the Mafia make sacrifices for family members and friends. Hitler loved his mistress, Eva Braun. However, it is not natural for us to sacrifice and suffer for our enemies. We do just the opposite: We reject them. Here is where God differs. He died for his enemies, and the price paid was infinite. He sent his Son to save those (Eph 2:3) “by nature children of wrath.” D. A. Carson: “Do you want to see the greatest evidence of the love of God? Go to the cross. Do you want to see the greatest evidence of the justice of God? Go to the cross. It is where wrath and mercy meet. Holiness and peace kiss each other. The climax of redemptive history is the cross.” In other words, we must go through the wrath of God to get to the love of God. We must walk through the wrath of God to grasp the divine love in which Paul exults. God hides his love in his wrath. Until we face the wrath of God with all of its disturbing implications, we cannot see, understand, or really appreciate the love of God. Without the wrath of God, his love will just be a common love, love for friends. It will not be the “love that surpasses knowledge” which Paul described in Ephesians 3:19. David Powlison: “The truth is you can’t understand God’s love if you don’t understand His anger.”The wrath of God is the key to assurance. The connection is powerful. If God loved you because you were good, i.e. the wrath of God is a fiction, then his love is conditional. He loves you because you perform. It follows that if you fail to perform he will remove it from you. But, if God loved you by sending his Son to be tortured to death in your place, and if he did this for creatures deserving of his wrath, and if he did this to remove the wrath and make you his friend, then you will never feel insecure about his love. Why? God’s love is not conditional. It is not based upon your performance. Just the opposite. He loved you despite the complete absence of performance. He died for you when he was angry with you. He did this because he wanted to be your friend, because he wanted to propitiate his anger, how can your failures, sins, and inconsistencies ever separate you from his love and affection? The answer is obvious. Romans 5:10. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” The Wrath of God makes Christians Zealous Those who fail to communicate the wrath of God produce lukewarm Christians. The truth about God’s wrath exposes our need, and needy people respond with gratitude. The Laodicean church in Revelation chapter three is famous for its spiritual tepidness. “I know your works: You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15–16). Why were the Laodiceans lukewarm? They do not understand their need. “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). Lukewarmness describe many of us today. In many cases, the Bad News is the cure, and the wrath of God is at the heart of the Bad News. It is where it begins. It exposes our need. If motivates zeal for Christ and his kingdom. The Wrath of God Motivates us to love Those who feel God’s love for themselves begin to exercise it. They grow in kindness, charity, gentleness, and grace. Gratitude is their calling card. They know that they deserve crucifixion, and they are thankful that they are not getting it. Those who accept the wrath of God forgive 70x7 and 24x7. If Jesus forgave me when I was an object of his wrath, how can I cling to bitterness? Those who accept the wrath of God are motivated to forgive and love their enemies. This brings us to an irony. The more we emphasize the love of God in the context of the wrath of God, the more we love God. So, in the end the wrath of God becomes our friend. It defines and expands God’s love. It is a cause of great rejoicing. It is the ground of our assurance. It motivates zeal for Christ and his kingdom. It motivates us to exercise God’s love. ApplicationLet the Wrath of God humble you Resist the urge to be Ashamed of the Wrath of God Counsel the Wrath of God. Evangelize with the Wrath of GodParent with the Wrath of God. ................
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