The Wrath of God
“Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath
according to the fear of you?” -Psalm 90:11
I recently ran across an R. C. Sproul message on the wrath
of God. I was so impacted by it that I thought I would put a link to the YouTube video on here for everyone to listen to.
Because as Moses asks in the magisterial Psalm 90, “who
considers the power of your anger?” The question is rhetorical, but I will
answer it anyways: no one does! We hate to consider the challenging attributes
of God. We are mystified, even sufficiently so, at the strange and unreasonable
concept of God’s holiness. And because we would prefer God to be a God of love
who only accepts us, we often unconsciously strip him of His wrath, which might
be the most dangerous thing we can do.
For what we prefer
to believe about God can never and will never change the reality of the
immutable nature of who He is. Nor does it change the reality that the wrath of
God is revealed against all ungodliness, both yours and mine. The judgment of
God is coming, and His fury will be hot. Our hearts need to come to grips with
this reality, and we need to make provision through the Lamb.
One of the fascinating things about the Great Awakening in
the 18th Century was the complete and utter brokenness over sin present
throughout the revival. I
encourage you to read some of the accounts of the preaching of Edwards or
Whitefield during that time period and compare it to the times in which we live.
The Holy Spirit was moving in such a way, and the judgment of God was preached with
such clarity that people absolutely lost it. Tears would flow. People would
wail or even collapse on the floor. In fact there was such a physical response
to the Spiritual content of the preaching that anti-revivalists accused it of
being demonic. What was happening was--like the prophet Isaiah--the masses were finding themselves “undone” before the
presence of so Holy a God.
But in 2017 America, such primitive talk of “mourning” and “repentance”
of sin is nothing more than a laughingstock. Even in our churches we are far to
civilized to stoop to such a level. We do not think of sin, even our own, as something
as serious as to merit that full, unmitigated wrath of God. We might struggle
against our sin and even ask God for forgiveness, but do our hearts break over
it? Do we truly grieve it? I think such responses today are far too rare, even
in me.
We all need to pray for a heart of genuine repentance. For a
heart that breaks over sin like King David who prayed in Psalm 51, “My
sacrifice is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not
despise.”
Comments
Post a Comment