The Wrath of God against What & Why

Rom 1:18-2:1

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.(KJV)

Paul has given us here in the latter part of chapter 1 what God hates and what God does about it.

We are going to go through it kind of in outline form. It will take more than one devotional, but this material is worth it.

First off we are going to deal with what is under God’s wrath the why.

1. The Why: the sins God hates:

A. ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse

B. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God

C. Neither were thankful

D. Professing themselves to be wise

E. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

F. they did not like to retain God in their knowledge

G. 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

H. 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.(KJV)

Now we want to get into the consequences brought on by God’s wrath.

2. God’s Wrath Expressed: in this life

A. Verse 24 Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves:(ASV) and

Verse 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile passions: for their women:(ASV)

(1) their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature

(2) the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet-or proper.

(3) God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not not

proper or right (convenient-KJV)

(4) They Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

(5) Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things

are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them

You will notice in this outline that sometimes the causes are also the effects. Where this is the case, the cause of God’s wrath is continued by the person’s continued decision to stay in that mode of sin. And as a result they get stuck in that mode of sin.

Look at

Rom 6:16

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves (as) servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

(ASV)

So once people decide to go the wrong way, they can end up becoming slaves to it. We will get into that even more when we get to chapter 6.

And we know the final end of those people who choose to throw out God and His standards as well as His love-

Rom 6:23

23 For the wages of sin is death; ......(ASV)

Rev 20:11-15

11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (KJV)

Now that we have some type of outline here, let us get into the first part of verse 18. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, ...."

First some explanation of the first part of that sentence: How in the world is the wrath of God revealed from heaven? A lot of people are really stumped by that whole idea. But let us look at a few examples from scripture.

Ps 78:56-64

56 But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes.

57 Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow.

58 They angered him with their high places;(shrines to pagan gods) they aroused his jealousy with their idols.

59 When God heard them, he was very angry; he rejected Israel completely.

60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among men.

61 He sent [the ark of] his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy.

62 He gave his people over to the sword; he was very angry with his inheritance.

63 Fire consumed their young men, and their maidens had no wedding songs;

64 their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep.(NIV)

Jeremiah 7:20

20 "'Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be quenched.(NIV) {This pronouncement is against Jerusalem & Judah}

God did pour out wrath on both places. 1. On Shilo and the people by war and fire and even the Ark of the Covenant being captured by the Philistines. 2. On Jerusalem and Judah-during the reign of Zedekiah. Not only was the territory of Judah taken, but after an 11 year seige, Jerusalem too. In both these cases, the enemies of the people came against them, bringing about death through starvation, thirst, in-fighting, canibalism even, and eventually being engaged in battle and being killed, taken prisoner, burned up, etc. Now God had made decrees long before these two events referred to above. Keep in mind, God never changes, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever-see Psalm 102:27, Malachi 3:6., Heb 13:8, and James 1:17. So God’s ways are still the same. You have to realize, that even though His ways are the same, the change He brought about by the New Covenant was a change in the way of being able to approach God. He has not changed his ways. Under the old covenant, the Law God gave the people at Sinai, the approach to God and the cleansing involved animal sacrifices. And one sacrifice we know was designed as a symbol of the last and final sacrifice. That sacrifice of course was that of the lamb on Passover. Well, God had Jesus be the substitute in the sense that He became the final Passover sacrifice for us. Again-do you see what is in common? Blood is shed for the remission of sins {Heb 9:22}. Now Hebrews explains that animal sacrifices did not take away sin {Heb 10:4} but Jesus’ death did. And if you study the book of Hebrews you learn that the New Testament is based on the Old Testament and the Old Testament is explained by the New Testament. God is the same, His ways are the same, His desires and truths are the same. And since He has not changed, that means He still brings His wrath on people in the same ways He did before Jesus walked the earth.

Now let us apply this truth to today. Do peoples when they go to war with other peoples not only bring about a defeat and an awful lot of killing, economic breakdown, famine, etc.? Yes. Is God connected to this? I personally think so. Why? Because everytime God sent enemies against Israel, it was because of sins against God. An example:

Ezek 36:16-18

16 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

17 Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman.

18 Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it:

(KJV)

How would I apply that to the Kosovo situation for instance? I honestly believe there were so many ungodly people among those groups, that God had to allow and perhaps send these people into war against each other. Yes, God does send people to war against other people. He sent Nebuchenezzar against Jerusalem, Cyrus against the Babylonians, and even the people of Israel against the various groups in Canaan after they had come out of Egypt. By the way, the Arabs were a minority in that territory. They came out of the descendents of Ishmael and Esau. There were only small pockets of Arabs at that time. The majority were Perizzites, Hittites, Canaanites, Hivites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Girgashites-none of these were Arabs. Instead, they were all descendants of Ham. The Arabs are descendants of Shem as are the Israelis.

I think you have enough to chew on for the day. Next week we will get further into verse 18.  God bless your weekend as you chew on these thoughts and the Word of God that brought them.  Your Good News Lady