Anger
“‘Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign LORD. Did you not add lewdness to all your other detestable practices?’”
Today’s Text: Ezekiel 16:35-52 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
In our Come and See Bible study, I teach the students ways to internalize the gospel message, so that, if God gives us an opportunity, we might be able to share the gospel more naturally. One of those ways is to think of the gospel message in terms of four categories: God, humanity, Christ, and response.
And I like to show the students a YouTube video of Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile presenting the gospel using that method. After showing them the video, I ask the students if anything stood out to them about Pastor Anyabwile’s presentation. And I’m often surprised that the students don’t usually mention anything; because in presenting the good news, Anyabwile says that “this holy God, who has made us in His image for fellowship with Him, is actually angry with us.”
And this always stood out to me because of something I witnessed once as I was waiting in line at the DMV. There was an evangelist who was standing right outside of the perimeter of the DMV grounds preaching the gospel. And he was preaching quite powerfully. Many people standing in line were listening to him intently—that is, until the evangelist said that we are all going to hell.
When he said that we are all destined to go to hell, people literally turned their backs on him. And one guys muttered, “I guess God is just angry.”
For the sake of our witness, Christians should be careful about how we talk about the wrath of God.
I think that us Christians would do well to acknowledge that there are things about God that we simply cannot fully understand and adequately explain. God’s love and God’s anger are two such concepts. “Love” and “anger” are words that we use to describe the nature of God, but we can hardly understand those concepts even on a human scale, let alone on God’s scale.
But we use those concepts to describe what motivates an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal God to act either favorably or unfavorably toward humanity in history. How can we really understand such things?
I am not suggesting that we should never talk about God’s wrath. According to God’s sovereign timing, we should. However, what should be more clear to us is that we bring down on our own heads what we have done.
We enter into God’s love through obedience, and we enter into God’s anger through idolatry.
Entering into God’s love doesn’t always feel good. And entering into God’s anger can feel like heaven. But sooner or later, we will reap what we sow. And the word of God is there to remind us of that enduring truth.
Father, Your word is a light for our path and a lamp to our feet. Forgive us for turning a blind eye to Your word because we don’t like what You are saying. Give us wisdom to enter into Your love and not into Your anger. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
