Is God Angry?

Many Christians tend to view God, and many people do, even we do sometimes, in two extremes. He is the God of anger, the God who wants to bring wrath upon the world, and wants to punish the world. And sometimes people can live their whole lives in fear because they just believe God is just waiting to punish them. And yet there's the other extreme, the view is God is so loving that what we do doesn't matter. And there are people who actually believe that. That what we do doesn't matter as long as Jesus loves us, and that God loves us through Jesus, everything's okay.

Well, the Bible does reveal that God is a being of love. It also reveals Him as a being of anger, of wrath, even to the point of violence. How do we reconcile that? And that's a lot of what this day is about. How do we reconcile the fact that we have the Messiah who said, bring the little children to me, that they can sit on my lap, that I can hold them, and the Messiah who says this in Revelation 19. Let's go to Revelation 19. Revelation 19 verse 11.

John writing about the time when Christ returns at the time of the seventh trumpet. The very day that we're picturing here that we're celebrating the time in the future when the seven trumpets blast sound and the day of the Lord happens on the earth and Jesus Christ returns. And here's what happens when He returns.

Verse 11, John says, This is Jesus, the Christ, who called to the little children, who looked down on Jerusalem and cried and said, I just wish I could gather you to Me. And He comes to make war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. And He has a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God. And we know from John that the Word of God is the name of Jesus Christ. He is the Word. So here He is coming, and He's coming to make war. And the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations, and He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

How do we reconcile that? How do we reconcile the statement that says God is love? That God cares for every human being with the fact that Jesus Christ comes back to pour out on mankind the fierceness, the fierceness, wrath of God. Is God angry? Yes, but we have to understand why. And this day tells us why the wrath of God is going to be poured out on this world. We must understand the love of God, or it's a hopeless life. But we must understand the wrath of God if we're going to truly understand who God is, and why He is angry. And why He is angry, and why this day pictures not only the coming of Jesus Christ, because to resurrect the saints as we heard in the sermon end, but it also is the time when God punishes the earth. One thing is wonderful, the other is terrible. And then as we begin to understand who God really is, He is love and He is judgment. The best way to look at this, I think, is to look at a time in history when God loved a people and punished them.

Isaiah is an interesting prophet because he was sent to Israel and Judah, mainly to Judah, but he also spoke not only to Israel but to all the nations around. And he told those nations, God is going to judge you. God wants you to turn to Him, or He is going to punish you. During his ministry, Israel was destroyed. They were the people of God. He loved them. It says He chose them. And even in Isaiah, there was this message of the coming wrath of God. As we will see, there is this reaching out constantly by God.

During his lifetime, Israel was destroyed and then he spent the rest of his life telling Judah, if you don't repent, this is going to happen to you.

It didn't happen to Judah during his lifetime, but it did happen. Eventually, God had them punished.

So if we look at this day of the Lord, the day of the Lord has more than one fulfillment. The day of the Lord is the judgment of God. And we even see in the New Testament the day of the Lord used in two different contexts, one with the return of Jesus Christ and one with the great white throne judgment. The day of the Lord came upon those people, not the completeness of it. And there's whole passages in Isaiah that haven't been fulfilled, but there were parts of it that were fulfilled in the lives of the people who got the message. So let's look at that day of the Lord through the eyes of Isaiah and the message he gave.

And we'll be able to understand the wrath of God and we'll begin to understand the day of the Lord that is going to happen when Christ returns. Let's go to Isaiah 1. Isaiah 1. Isaiah 1 is a remarkable passage in Scripture. When you really analyze it, I mean, we could spend a whole sermon just in this passage. But I just want to look at it as an overview and look at some other passages in Isaiah. And then we'll look at some passages in the New Testament to talk about the future day of the Lord at the coming of Jesus Christ.

Let's start in verse 2. Here was the message that Isaiah was told to give. Here, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children. This remarkable statement of endearment. These are my children, and I've raised them, and I care for them. And they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, the donkey its master's crib. But Israel does not know, my people do not consider.

Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupted. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backward. God's anger is not malicious. He isn't an angry being. If you look at the fruits of His Spirit, love, joy, and peace are the first three. If you were before the throne of God, you would experience love, joy, and peace, along with all the other fruits of the Spirit.

That's who He is. That's His Spirit. But here He says, I'm being driven to anger by a people who have rebelled against me. He goes on and describes that they are spiritually sick. And the description is horrifying. He says they look like somebody who has been all beat up, but they're also covered from head to foot and putrefying sores.

It's a horrible description. He says, when I look at these people, this is what it's like to me. I'm looking at someone who is so rotted out that even their skin is rotting off of them. And they're just running sores because of the way they are. Our actions can anger God. And when we go through Isaiah, we will see what in that society angered Him. And what's real important here is for you and I to understand that these issues we go through are the exact same issues in our society today.

And you and I have to be real careful, or we will simply, like they did. The mass majority of Israel and Judah just sort of slid into it. They took the values of society around them and thought they were smart and they were good and they were better than what God was offering them. And they slid into those values. They slid into those ways. They slid into that way of thinking.

And God destroyed them as a nation. This country no longer has the protection of God. And this country is going to slide that way. And as the people of God, we're going to have to be careful because the great day of the Lord has a very positive meaning and a very negative meaning.

And you and I want to be part of the positive meaning. We don't want to have to fear the day of the Lord. If we go on to verse 10, it says, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. He calls the people of Judah and Israel. You're just as bad as Sodom. I mean, this is the greatest insult that God could give them. And what did God do with the people of Sodom?

He destroyed their entire society. Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord? No. He's going to explain to them, you are very religious people. Oh, they were very religious. They did the religious stuff. They showed up at Sabbath services. They sang the hymns. But there was something it didn't that relationship or that coming to Sabbath services, the doing the rituals, the doing the sacrifices, going to the temple did not change their daily lives.

Their daily lives were just like the pagans. He says, I have enough of bird offerings. This is the last part of verse 11. The offerings of rams, the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or the lambs of goats. Now he wasn't saying, I think the whole sacrificial system is stupid. God gave the sacrificial system. It's not the sacrificial system that's evil here. It's their attitude as they do it.

They are very religious and inside their response, their relationship with God, their obedience to God didn't make any real difference. Here we are keeping a holy day. But have we absorbed so much of the world's ideas and viewpoints and actions?

How does God look at our holy day? Look at it. He looked at theirs. Verse 12, When you come to appear before Me, who is required this from your hand to trample my courts, bring no more futile sacrifices, incense is an abomination to Me, the new moons, the sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity in the sacred meeting. He says, I can't even stand it when you keep the Sabbath. Wow, that's a scary statement, isn't it?

This is why God is angry. It's not because He's an angry being. He goes around with anger all the time. He says, I called you people. You were my people. I took care of you. I raised you. I gave you blessings. I destroyed whole nations for you. And now I can't even stand it when you keep the Sabbath. We have to be very careful sometimes. While we keep the Sabbath and holy days, that makes us really superior to everybody else. Well, no, God commanded us to do this. To keep the Sabbath and holy days is our duty. It's what this is supposed to do in our lives every day. That's the difference. He goes on and He says, your new moon's in your appointed feast. My soul hates. They are a trouble to me. I am weary of bearing with them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. He won't even hear their prayers. So we can have lots of prayers. But is that really what God wants? Well, yes, He wants us to pray, but He won't listen to our prayers when we are living in rebellion against Him.

But verse 16 is God's response. Now, you see, oh, He's angry. They have no chance. That's not true. God's love is always there, even in His anger.

His love is greater than His anger, so to speak. Because look what He says to them. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Notice the emotion behind this. I just want you to change these stuff. What you're doing makes me sick. It makes me angry, God says. This is what He says. And then He says, but just change. Just turn around. Come to Me. And this next statement is one of the most incredible statements in the entire Scripture. Come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord. Let's sit down and talk.

This is the sovereign of the universe. And these are people in rebellion. And He says to them, let's just sit down and talk. Now, by the way, if God ever says that to you, let me give you a second. Don't start the conversation. Just sit and wait. Let Him start the conversation. You're going to be a whole lot better off. But let us reason together. Listen to what I have to say. Ask me some questions. Though your sins are like scarlet, in other words, a die that you can't, it's a bright red shirt, and you can't get that out of there. That scarlet, you can't change it. It's permanently died. He says, even though it appears that way, they shall be as white as snow. And though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If, if, there's always this reaching out, crying out to them, if you're willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Here we see, capitalized, his anger, which is because of the evil of humanity, and his constant love, which says, I will forgive you if you'll just turn to me. It's the whole message of Isaiah. You know what's amazing about the book of Isaiah? It's how many times it's quoted in the New Testament. You can take all of the elements of the gospel in the New Testament, and it's all in Isaiah. Every part of the gospel, including the work of Jesus Christ, is all predicted in Isaiah. It's an amazing book.

And we see this, this tension between God's anger because of people and his love that says, I just want you to change. But if you do not, eventually I will react.

He gives them a little later here in Isaiah 5, he gives them reasons why.

Six woes. He says, this is the problem with your society.

It's remarkable how these problems in their society are exactly like the ones in our society. Excuse me. We have to ask ourselves on this Feast of Trumpets, the coming day of the Lord, we're looking forward to the resurrection. We're looking forward to the return of Jesus Christ. We're looking forward to be changed. But we also have to remember this is the time of wrath on the world, and we have to make sure we're not like the world. So Isaiah's message to ancient Israel and ancient Judah is a message to the church today also.

Don't be like this, because we know where the world's going. There's no use spreading and being upset over the direction our country is going in. The whole world is headed towards a point where if Christ doesn't come back, literally no human being will survive. And you and I can't stop that. And neither can Mrs. Clinton and neither can Mr. Trump. They can only add to the problem.

That's where we are. You and I can't stop that. That's for human nature. That's where Satan's going to take this world. But you and I can make sure we don't go there with them.

That we don't follow along. Let's look at the woes that he gives to them. If you think about it, if God did not express anger over evil, now controlled anger, that's what's amazing. It's a controlled anger. It's not out of control. Like evil anger is an out of control maliciousness. God's anger is always controlled. And it's always with this, well, my anger would go away if you just repent.

Evil anger is totally different. But if he didn't get angry with evil, evil would win. I mean, if God was always like, oh, I know, but how? I don't want to, you know, I don't want to make you feel bad. So I don't want to punish you. You know, sometimes we do that with our children. I don't want them to feel bad. So I know they did wrong, but I don't want to punish them. Then we don't love our children. Our message to our children is, repent. So I don't have to punish you. It's the same message that God gives. Repent because this is bad. It's evil.

Let's start in verse 8 of Isaiah 5.

Woe to those... Now we're going through six woes. Woe to those who join house to house and add field to field, so there's no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land.

He actually goes on in the next couple of verses and says, because of this your land won't produce anything.

I'm going to read this from the Jewish Publication Society's translation of this verse. Those who add house to house and join field to field, till there's no room for none but you to dwell in the land. Notice what he's dealing with here is people who just keep buying up everybody else's land and said there's no room for anybody but them.

There's no room left. Now, one of the reasons this is so important in ancient Israel is part of God's covenant with them was every Israelite owned land.

What they did with the land was up to them, but everybody owned land. It says, woe to those who just gobble up everybody's land and build house upon house. And basically you shove everybody in the cities. So there's no place left for anybody to go because you own everything.

Woe to that!

One of the reasons they built the Colosseum in ancient Rome is because Rome became a great city because it was surrounded by farmland. And there were just thousands and thousands of small farmers that fed this city. I mean, Rome had a population of a million people at one time, which was by far the largest in the world. That's one reason Rome was able to rule the world for 500 years. And they had this large population of young men to fill out this army.

But one of the problems was they figured out what we do if we take all the farms and we incorporate them into just a couple large farms, then we'll be able to produce the food easier and send it into the city easier, which is exactly what happened. But they put tens of thousands of farmers out of work. The tens of thousands of farmers moved into Rome. There were no jobs in Rome because even middle-class families owned slaves because slaves were so cheap. Every place that the Roman army went and conquered, they would just take a grab of a bunch of the people and send them back as slaves. So you could buy Spanish slaves or Carthian slaves or French slaves or German slaves. Everybody! Just wherever they conquered, they'd just grab a bunch of people and send them back and sold them. So everybody had slaves. So all these farmers, they sell their land. They move in. Now they live in little, just small apartments in these hovels. And there's no work for them. So you build the Colosseum to keep them busy. One of the things they did at the Colosseum, when you went in, you got a loaf of bread. So you got to watch bloody combat while eating bread.

They created a poor class by gobbling up their land. It seems to make sense at the time. I'm making a lot of money selling my farm, but what do I do the rest of my life because I don't have a job? So it's sort of common in the world for this to happen, but this was happening here. He said, well, to you, who just push everybody until there's no room left for anybody.

Maybe a little bit like our society at times. Verse 11. Now this gets more and more at the heart of what we see in our lives. It gets more and more at the heart of what we see in our society. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may follow intoxicating drink, who continue until night to wine and flames them. The harp and the strings, the tamparene and the flute, and the wine are in their feast, but they do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of His hands.

Here we have people who have no self-control at all. None whatsoever all they have are people who are absolutely absorbed with their music, and they're partying, and they're having fun, and have no regard for God in His way. Now that is a lot of our society today. No purpose except a party. No purpose except a party. And that's what we see in our lives. We see it in our lives. We see it in our lives. We see it in our lives. No purpose except a party.

Have we absorbed that? What does God say in verse 13? Therefore, my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.

Verse 18. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as if it were a cart rope. It's like they're roping sin and pulling it along. Pulling it towards them.

They say, here's what they say about God, let Him make speed and hasten His work that we may see it. And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel know near and come that we may know it. Oh yeah, yeah. Okay, you talk about God. Why doesn't God come talk to us? You know, we read His Word. That doesn't make a lot of sense. I just, I am appalled every time I talk to someone who is taking a philosophy class or sociology class at any major university.

So much of what is taught is directly anti-God. Anti-God. In fact, in so much of our higher education today, it's down into the grade schools.

If you have basic Christian values, you're uneducated. Education is defined as being anti-Christian.

That's what education is. It's being anti-Christian. It's anti-Bible. So the problem is we're just uneducated. We're just poor fools that aren't educated.

Of course, you know, and of course, young people just accept if they go to, I mean, these people are smart. They're educated. They all have doctors before their name. What they tell me must be true.

I remember my daughter, Kelly, saying when she was going to the University of Wisconsin, something came up about evolution. And she was the only person that stood up to the professor and said, no, I don't believe that. And here's why. And so discussion started, and pretty soon, other people were questioning. They hadn't questioned. He was told it. They believed it. It's factual. He wouldn't say it.

It must be factual. The professor said it.

You know, it used to be you went to school to be trained to question.

When I went to Penn State University, I can remember the whole class being chewed out by our history professor because she said, you don't question anything anymore. You come here, and we just pour this information into you, and you just accept it and walk out.

Where's the questions?

I can't imagine that happening at most universities today.

Education has changed, and they're like this.

They party, and then they pull the sin, and they say, come on, where's God?

You got to be joking.

We look at the God of the Bible. He's cruel. He's mean. He is. He's angry. He's no different than Zeus.

Verse 20, Woe to those who call good, evil, I'm sorry, evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. You know, I was in my wife, I call it shopping purgatory. You know, she took me shopping yesterday. Get some new shoes. I said, why? I've had a relationship with these shoes since 2008. What do I need new shoes for? Well, Gary, you know, the bottoms have worn out. Pretty soon your toes are going to pop through. And you know, yeah, but I know these shoes. I went and bought new shoes yesterday. And I'm standing in the bathroom. And I'm trying to get the blower to work to dry my hands. And there's another guy over there, he's staring away and he's just pulling paper towels out. I'm thinking, that's sort of weird. You know, he just, and he looked at me and said something. And he had a really heavy Spanish accent. And he said something to me and I said, no, this doesn't work. And he goes, no. He was just flabbergating. He says, a lady.

I said, what? And he said, isn't a woman just walked in here and she's going to the bathroom over there?

I admit, I thought, huh? Of course, the door was fortunately closed on the stall. And I looked at him. We both looked at each other. We just started to laugh. It's just like, I said, well, I guess, I, her makes her happy. And he just shook his head and we just walked out, you know.

She's making a point. This is good. This is good. Either that or she was just lost. I've done that before. I walked in the woman's bedroom because I just was lost.

I can't imagine that because she had to walk by a bunch of us to go in there. Okay. She had to look at all these men to get in there. She's making a point. This is good.

And if you say anything to me, you're bad. He says, woe to that. Woe to it.

Woe to those who say killing unborn babies is good. It's a woman's right. Woe to them. Woe to those who say homosexual marriage is a good thing. And you're homophobic. You have a mental illness, if you don't agree with that. Woe to them.

And if we're not careful, we will be pulled into that.

Their society was going through the same problems.

And God said, I'm angry because of this.

Look at verse 21. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and pruded in their own sight. In other words, I'm wise. This is wisdom. It is wisdom to believe this. The old secular humanist argument. If we could just get all the most educated people in the room, we could fix any problem.

Believing that knowledge is what it's all about. When according to Scripture, it's godly knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

And our society is almost bereft of godly knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. It's just not there. It's because our educational system is based on a Greek model. You simply give education. Well, it's not even that. Because in the Greek model, you had to question everything. You can't question anything today. If you do, you get kicked out of a class or fired from a university.

Wise in their own eyes. There's an incredible self-righteousness in the world. There's an incredible self-righteousness to be educated today. Now, I'm not going to get an education. All three of my kids have a college degree. I think all young people should go to college. I'm just saying you need to know that college has an agenda. University has an agenda that is anti-god. No, not everybody there is anti-god. But there's an agenda in the system that is anti-god. And you need to understand that. Or you will be tainted by that.

Verse 22, Woe to men mighty at drinking wine. Woe to men valiant for mixing a toxicating drink. Who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away justice from the righteous man.

Here that they are told, you know, just the perversion of justice. Of course, everybody's partying. Everybody's taking a bribe. Everybody's out for themselves. And we're going to find in this country, justice is going to become less and less of a reality. And everything's going to become some kind of benefit for the judge or the political party or whoever's making the decision.

Real justice is not going to be the issue. That's going to become more and more common. What's really right is not going to be the issue. Woe, because that's what happened to Israel and Judah.

He says he's going to punish them for this. And then it's very interesting. At the end of verse 28, he says, for all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. And this is almost like a violent thing. Like he's reaching out to them to harm them. In fact, there's four other places in the book of Isaiah where it says that his anger is still there and his hand is stretched out.

He's taking action. He's going to do something to these people.

And Isaiah spent years saying, the anger of God is here and his hand is stretched out, and he watched Israel be destroyed by the Assyrians. And he walked through Jerusalem saying, it's going to happen here. The anger of God is against you and his hand is stretched out. Why did God have Isaiah do that all that time?

Because the love of God, he wanted them to repent.

When you look at all the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all the minor prophets, extended over decades, over hundreds of years, God is angry with you, but he wants you to turn around. And that generation would die saying, well, see, God didn't punish us.

And sometimes he would bring a minor punishment.

I mean, the Jews were invaded three times by the Babylonians before they were finally destroyed. You think the first time when he said the Babylonians are coming, repent, they would have repented. But they didn't. The Babylonians went home and he said, oh, see, well, we're okay. And finally, the third time God said, now I'm not having them go home this time. There'll be nothing left of you. And he destroyed the land.

It's important to understand that God's anger isn't always based, or is never based in His selfishness.

It's not His motivation.

It is based in His goodness. God can't bear evil. Every time somebody murders somebody, I don't care where it is on the face of the earth. I don't care. Indonesia, China, Argentina, Nashville. Wherever it happens, God is affected by that. Every time a baby is aborted, God is affected by that. Every time someone steals, every time someone commits adultery, I mean, well, yeah, in the church, no. Every place He's affected by that. Every sin affects Him because He's ultimate goodness. What I find so amazing is He's not an angry man.

He's angry at things and He's angry at people, but He's happy, but He gets angry at evil. And we have to understand, we participate in evil with no repentance.

Then we end up with God's anger towards us. But always attached to that is another message. Let's go to Isaiah 65 because in Isaiah 65, now this is toward the end of Isaiah's ministry. His ministry actually lasted a long time, many years. And here, towards the end, now think about spending decades telling people, repent, the hand of God is stretched out against you. Don't do this. Telling them where they're wrong, calling them thieves and murderers and telling them that their worship means nothing to God. They're idolaters and adulterers. He's spending his whole life in this negative shouting out to people. But always there was another message. God's hand is stretched out to punish you. But I want to look at Isaiah 65 here. And we'll start in verse 1.

God says, I was sought by those who did not ask for me. I was found by those who did not seek me. I said, here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name. In other words, he tells them, and of course, Israel is gone by this time, he tells Judah, where did you come from? How did you come from? How did you become my people? Because you found me? That's because I called you.

He didn't gather together one day and say, you know, we need to become the people of God.

Let's find out how to contact him and say, here we are. He said, I called you. And then he says in verse 2, I have stretched out my hand all day long to rebellious people who walk it away that is not good, according to their own thoughts. What's interesting here in Hebrew, it's a totally different structure and word that's used when he says, I've stretched out my hand against you.

It's stretching out your hands like you want to embrace somebody.

See, the message, there's always the two sides of the message. I'm angry and my hand's stretched out against you in this violent sort of way. And then he says, but really, I'm like this.

I just want to bring you to me. I want to bring you back.

I find when you take Isaiah 5, and all these years later, after giving this message, Isaiah 65, you still have, my anger is this and my love is this. And it's the same message. You're the ones who determine. Because I just want you to come back.

Notice verse 3, A people who provoke me to anger continually to my face, who sacrifice in gardens, who burn incense on altars, a brick, who sit among the graves and spend the night in the tombs. This all has to do with weird religious things that they did. Who eat swine's flesh and the broth of abominable things in their vessels. Who say, keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you. These are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.

So here we have, once again, I am angry, but it's preceded with, I'm standing here like this.

So whenever we look at the coming day of the Lord, we have to remember that both of these messages are part of it. Just like it was to Isaiah's message to Israel and Judah. And Isaiah's message still applies today to the people of this country and to us as the church.

We cannot follow this slide. We cannot become complacent with it, accept its values.

And you and I also can't become angry all the time over it, and distraught over the time over it, all the time. It is God's wrath that will be poured out, not Gary Petty's wrath that will be poured out. Understand it.

He really doesn't care about my wrath except I need to give it up.

His wrath will be poured out, not ours. Now sometimes we can be so angry with the world. I can't wait till Christ comes back. I want to be there to horse with him, you know, with a sword, just slaying people left and right. I can't wait till people's heads explode and their eyes pop out. It'll be great. I probably shouldn't have been that graphic, but anyways.

It is his wrath that's poured out. Now let's look at a couple of New Testament passages there that talk about God's wrath, and then we'll look at one that specifically talks about this time. Let's go to Romans 1.

Romans 1.

We could spend a lot of time on this passage because now Paul is looking at the Roman world of his day. And what does he see? And he's telling the church, if you read Romans 1, 2, and 3, he's telling the church, you're becoming like this. Don't do this. Don't slide into this Roman world. It's so easy to do that because Rome was so powerful. There are benefits to being a Roman citizen. There are benefits to living under Rome. There's lots of free trade.

Goods from all over the world were just all over the place.

There was a chance to be wealthy beyond what you could normally do. There was also this oppression by a government that said, yeah, but you do it our way. But still, I mean, the Roman government did not interfere with the average person as long as the average person just sort of did what they said, obeyed the rules. You could make money, live the life you wanted to, have whatever religion you wanted to. There wasn't much of a sense of morality. Homosexuality in the Roman world was quite common. Sexual immorality, that wasn't a big issue. Just obey the rules and do whatever religion, worship whatever God you want. It doesn't matter. The reason they were upset with the Jews and the Christians, because they were telling everybody else, you can't worship whatever God you want. And their message was, look, if you're a Jewish Christian, you can just worship your God and leave the rest of us alone to be okay. And they said, well, your God doesn't exist. Well, okay, we'll have to kill you. That's sort of how the argument went.

Verse 18, for the wrath of God, New Testament now. No, this isn't Isaiah. This isn't one of the Old Testament prophets. This is the New Testament, Apostle Paul. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, people suppressing the truth. Our society suppresses the truth, and it will do so more and more. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power in Godhead that they are without excuse. God says, if you study creation, you have to know there's a creator. To deny it is to suppress the truth. It is an attempt to suppress the truth, to deny creation.

Evolution, the teaching of evolution makes him angry because it's rebellion against him. It's not just a scientific discussion. It's a moral issue. Of course, I can imagine if you walked into a store and nobody would serve you, went to a restaurant, everybody ignored you, nobody would seat you, nobody would talk to you, and you ask somebody why, and they'd say, well, we've all proven you don't exist. I think you'd get a lot angry too, wouldn't you? But you could see me. Eh, now you don't exist.

Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, became futile in their thoughts, their foolishness hearts, their foolish hearts were darkened. Their thoughts are futile. Understand the power of what is being said here. It applied to the realm of world, it applies to the world you and I live in. Their very thoughts are meaningless to God, and they're foolish. But we look on them as, oh, no, they're the educated. They're the smart ones, and they are smart, but there's a difference between being wise and smart. Those are two different things. You can have all the knowledge in the world. If you have no wisdom, you can be absolutely foolish with all that knowledge.

Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Now he's dealing with idolatry. Therefore God has given them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. He goes on and talks directly about homosexuality. People say homosexuality is not dealt with in the New Testament. It is in this chapter very strongly. Now, homosexuality is like any other sin.

God's saying this, I'm waiting here.

I don't want to be angry with you. I want you to change. I want you to be forgiven. I mean, every one of us in this room has sins that we hope no one else ever finds out about, right? So we have to realize that when God talks about idolaters, you know, it's like Paul says, there are idolaters and covetous and thieves and just like some of you were. Well, the truth is, just like all of us were at one level, we've all broken God's law. We were all sinners. So we can't use this wrath of God as an excuse for us to not accept people God calls. Because they're going to get up through that door just like we did. Pretty well, their lives messed up. They're going to come in and they're going to be alcoholics and they're going to be drug addicts and they're going to be people who have been married five times and they're going to be people who were homosexuals. They're going to be people who were in jail. People who God has been looking at and saying, my hand has stretched out in anger against you and they repented. And he said, no, no, I'm like this. I now stretched out like this. That is what we have to be.

Because we're looking at what God is doing, not our own personal feelings. What is God doing? Verse 28 says, That's where our society is headed. It's not completely there yet, but it's going there. And these elements are already there. And it's going to become increasingly a violent society, a lawless society. But verse 32 is very interesting. Who knowing the righteous judgment of God and those who practice such things are deserving of death. Oh, that's a little harsh. I mean, that's not really a New Testament sort of Jesus message, is it? Yes, it is. I am stretched out, God says. My anger is against you and my hand is stretched out. But always remember, at the end of the prophecies, but I'm waiting like this.

God wants to change this to this. But the rebellion continues until He says, I will not, at some point I will react, God says. At some point I will punish you.

And if Christ doesn't come back at the sound of the seventh trumpet, the day of the Lord would leave the world lifeless. But He's not going to do that.

Because Christ comes back doing both of those things, stretching out, bringing the anger of God and punishment against those who rebel and with His arms open to those who don't. That's who He's going to be when He comes back. But there's a part of this verse that bothers me, and it's the last part of verse 32, because He says, those who do these things, deserve death, not only do the same, but approve of those who practice them.

Well, we just have to accept and approve of what other people do. God does not accept and approve of what other people do. Well, then you have your prejudice against those people. If you don't believe in gay marriage, your prejudice.

If we approve it, God says we deserve death also. Or if we approve abortion, or if we approve idolatry. So we have to watch what we approve of. This verse has bothered me sometimes when I'm watching television, and I'm watching something, and I think, I don't know, am I approving of this by watching it? You know, that thought sort of enters in there and it gets a little bit uncomfortable. Especially in comedies, because you laugh at it, right? We laugh at sin. It's sort of funny.

Christ is coming back, and when he does, he is going to carry out this wrath against God. How should this motivate us? They always tell the men that if they're going to go long, they need to let me know. So I've given myself permission to go 10 extra minutes. Let's go to 1 Thessalonians 5. Oh, being the pastor, there's such power. 1 Thessalonians 5.

We'll still end before 1230. We still end. Verse 1 of 1 Thessalonians 5. Paul says, "...but concerning the times and the seasons, brother, and you have no need that I should write to you..." Oh, I wish you would have written to us. He was writing to the Thessalonians. He didn't know we would be wanting to know what he was talking about, right? Well, he says, you know what I'm talking about. Well, they did.

"...he says, for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. So when they say, peace and safety, then suddenly destruction comes upon them as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. But you, brother, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night, you are of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober." Watch and be careful that we are not sliding into this. That we're just somehow being accepting more and more and more that is not God's way.

He goes on, he says, "...but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and a helmet, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God..." This is a very encouraging thing here. "...God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should be together with Him." He says, now, remember, you haven't been appointed to that wrath. You've been called out to escape that wrath. To actually be with Christ when He returns, not be confronting Him as those armies will. Then verse 11, "...therefore comfort each other and edify one another just your down-doing." We need to be comforting each other. We need to be building each other up. We need to be encouraging each other to come out of the world, to be together as God's people. So that when Christ comes back, we're not appointed to wrath. That's not why you're called. That's not why you're here today. We're here today to be reminded we are called to miss that, if you will, to be changed. And here we are celebrating the Feast of Trumpets. Yes, it's sobering time, and it's a little bit of frightening. But at the same time, we were called to escape it. We were called to know that it's coming. Just like Isaiah. You know when you read Isaiah, you read Jeremiah, those prophets were so frustrated because they would go to God and say, well, God, I told them and nobody's listening.

It doesn't seem to change anything. And guess what? We'll go back and tell them again. And they would tell them for years and years and years. And except for a few people, there are always a few, neither Israel nor Judah responded for any extended period of time. Judah did because they had a couple of kings that came along and responded, and God would give them an extra 40 years because of those kings. And they would draw everybody back to God. Then another king would come along and off they'd go again. And they'd end up with the exact same problem. They kept creating the exact same society. That was amazing. They just kept creating the exact same society. But that shows what human nature is. Towards the end of his life, the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, and this will be our last scripture, about this time. But what I find interesting is this is Paul's personal feelings. Now you think about Paul. You know, if we read his early writings, he thought Christ was coming back in his lifetime. And then he found out he wasn't. You know, the prophecies are a lot more expansive than this. So now he's looking towards the end of his life and he's saying, huh, I'm not going to be here when Christ returns as far as being alive. I'll have to be resurrected. Yeah, well, boy, that was pretty discouraging for him, but it wasn't. Look what he tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4. 2 Timothy 4. 2 Timothy 4.

Verse 6.

Paul says, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. My life is just being spent. It's just pouring out of me as I live it every day. And he says, I won't live. You know, I'm not going to live forever here. Even if he was to live a few more years, it's just, you know, it's being spent here. It's being poured out. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. He failed sometimes. God picked him up. God forgave him. God was angry with him when he persecuted his people. Avoided, he hit him hard.

Right? Jesus appears to him and makes him blind. And it's hitting him pretty hard. My hand is stretched out. And I repent. And it's stretched out in a different way. And Paul repented. And God did a work through Paul that's unlike any other person in history, except of course for Jesus Christ. He says, I've done it. Verse 8, finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, the day of the Lord, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing. In the midst of what motivates us and what drives us, has to be a love for the appearing of Jesus Christ, not a love of the society we live in.

A love for his kingdom, not a love for the world we live in.

And that has to supersede everything else. That's our motivation and set our priorities for life.

So that at that day of the Lord, we're not in fear, but we're experiencing the joy as we receive from the judge, a judgment of, come, come and let me present you to the Father. On this day, of course, the shofar was blown. It was blown for a number of reasons. I talked about that last year. I blew it for a number of different ways, a number of different reasons to show how it's blown. But it's shown to announce the judgment of God, the wrath of God, but also Christ bringing righteousness to the world and bringing a crown of glory to those who love His coming. So I want to end with just a blast from the shofar.

I don't know if I can do as well as it was done before here this morning.