Wrath | Daily Devotional

The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; 

the Lord is avenging and wrathful; 

the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries 

and keeps wrath for his enemies.

Nahum 1:2 

The God of the universe is wrathful. He is filled with fury and indignation. He burns with white hot anger, and a day has been appointed that He will release every bit of that anger on humanity. 

Wrath in Recent Days 

Such language sounds ridiculous if not offensive to our modern ears. A god of wrath and anger is the god of less civilized societies, the god of former barbaric eras where the anger and violence of humans was projected onto a creator of their own making.

As a result, modern professing Christians have done much to eradicate the wrath of God from our consciousness. From Presbyterian songwriters modifying “In Christ Alone” lyrics from reading, “the wrath of God was satisfied,” to a more pleasant sounding, “the love of God was magnified.” But it's not just liberal denominations who have moved in this direction. I consider myself a conservative Bible-believing pastor. But as I evaluate my own ministry, I’m struck with the fact that I rarely address this subject and how even preparing a blog on it makes me somewhat hesitant. 

Simply put: Modern people don't like the idea of God’s wrath. 

Wrath and the Real World 

This resistance to God’s wrath does not come from a more enlightened and progressive frame of mind. It comes out of an exceptionally sheltered and privileged life. Previous generations were not more accepting of God’s wrath because they were barbaric. They worshiped God in light of His wrath because their eyes had seen true evil. When your life has been torn apart at the hand of wicked men or that which is precious to you has been robbed and destroyed, it is not God’s wrath that is hard to understand, it's His grace. 

Perhaps recent cell phone videos can aid us in this regard and wake us up to reality. 

Would you seriously consider this…

Is a god who is unmoved by a suffocating George Floyd while a police officer drives his knee into the back of his neck worthy of your worship? 

Is a god who is apathetic about Ahmaud Arbery as he was gunned down while unarmed in the middle of the street, deserving of your praise? 

God’s wrath is His holy hatred of all that is evil. In order for God to be good, He must abhor what is wicked. And when our eyes are opened up to the real world, a world laden with idolatry, injustice, racism, murder, exploitation, and all manner of other evil, God’s wrath is not only something we will welcome, but something we worship Him for. 

The Christian’s Perplexing Perspective on Wrath 

What I am suggesting is that our resistance to wrath is a problem of perspective. If I could give you a special pair of glasses that allowed your eyes to see all of the evil in the world and if those glasses could also open your eyes to the perfect justice of God, you would no longer have a problem with God's wrath, you would have a problem with his patience and kindness. 

What in the world is taking so long!? Why won’t you punish all this evil!? Send forth your wrath! 

But if you stepped in front of a mirror while wearing those glasses you would have an entirely new and even more troubling problem on your hands. You would realize all that evil you see in the world is also all over you. The same heart that hates God, murders, rapes, and steals, is identical with your own. The same sinful condition that deserves nothing short of God’s unrelenting wrath is the condition that best describes you. As Ephesians 2:3 says, we are all “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” 

If I could give you a new set of glasses that allowed you to peer in on the only good man who ever lived, hanging on a cross, experiencing the full and unrelenting wrath of God in your stead, you would have a whole new perspective on God’s wrath. 

How can it be that my wrath fell on Him? How can it be that God loves so deeply that He would hang on a cross for my wretched sin? 

Now that I’ve received such mercy while deserving such wrath, my perspective on the evil in the world begins to shift, as well. I grieve and lament the injustices that happen around me, but I also plead that the culprits might receive mercy like me. While wickedness continues to run rampant, I place my trust in a just judge who will deal rightly with every sin ever committed, either on the cross of Jesus Christ or at the final judgment where God’s wrath against ungodliness will finally be revealed.