The Wrath of God

The greatest deception of our day is the idea that because God is a loving God, He will not punish.

The Bible tells us this is not true:

Ephesians 5:6-7 (CSB) Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things. 7 Therefore, do not become their partners.

The lie we’re being sold on today says that people can live both spirit-filled and wicked lives; that they can have intimate fellowship with God and sin.

The beloved disciple John tells us something important:

1st John 1:5-6 (CSB) This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6 If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.

If you are walking in darkness and telling yourself that you have fellowship with God,  you are lying – not just to everyone else, but also to yourself – and you do not live in the truth of Jesus Christ.

The greatest tragedy of our day is that we have forgotten that God is a holy God – perfect and righteous – and that there is no shadow of turning in all His ways.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

Leviticus 10:3 (NASB) By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.

The Enemy of our souls wants us to forget that God is holy, but we must not forget; all our worship and all our prayers are empty if we are without Christ becaue God is holy!

1st Corinthians 1:30-31 (CSB) It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

This is the glorious truth of the gospel, that Jesus Christ became for us our “righteousness, sanctification, and redemption”, so that we might possess every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), that we might also be holy and without blame before God in love (1:4), being predestined to adoption (1:5), having received redemption and forgiveness of sins (1:7), and that we might receive an eternal inheritance (1:11) being sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (1:13) in the Beloved One – Jesus Christ our God and Savior.

Unfortunately, the lie infiltrates this gospel by saying that all these glorious blessings in Christ are intangible, ineffectual, and without substance; it’s the idea that you can be “righteous in Christ” without being “righteous in life” (etc).

But the word of God tells us the truth:

Titus 3:4-7 (CSB) But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6 He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.

1st Thessalonians 5:23-24 (CSB) Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will do it.

1st John 2:6 (CSB) The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.

The good news is that through faith in Christ’s finished work, the Holy Spirit washes us new and gives us new life by the mighty power of the resurrection; to those disciples who take up their daily cross (Luke 9:23), the God with whom we now have peace through the cross of Christ works to thoroughly sanctify our spirit, soul, and body so that we will be fit to receive Christ when He returns.

The full force of God’s mercy and grace accomplishes this miracle in those who walk by faith after Jesus in the way of truth.