Back in the mid-1990s, a popular radio talk show host on an Oklahoma City secular station interviewed me live on the air via telephone. He had seen an article I had written about the financial accountability of Christian ministries, and he had liked it.
He began the interview by graciously giving me the opportunity to talk non-stop for about ten minutes about the way God had transformed my life and called me into the ministry. We then moved on to a discussion of the scandals that had recently rocked the Christian community nationwide.
The Unmentionable Word
Everything went well until the host asked me to summarize the fundamental message of my ministry. I responded by saying that God had called me to proclaim “the soon return of Jesus in wrath.”
Before I could proceed with my explanation, the announcer cut me short. “What do you mean, ‘wrath’?” he asked.
“I mean that Jesus is going to return very soon to pour out the wrath of God upon those who have rejected God’s love and grace and mercy.”
“Your God is a monster God!” he snapped. He then added, “I happen to be a Christian, and I can tell you that my God wouldn’t hurt a flea!”
That was the end of the interview. He hung up on me. I was not given an opportunity to respond to his misrepresentation of our Creator.
Satan’s Grand Deception
The radio host’s vehement response to the wrath of God did not surprise me. It is characteristic of both Christians and non-Christians, and I have encountered it many times.
Satan has sold the world a bill of goods concerning the nature of God. Most people, both Christian and non-Christian, tend to view God as being a sort of cosmic teddy bear.
They see Him as big and warm and soft, full of infinite love and forgiveness. He couldn’t hurt a fly, and He certainly wouldn’t be so cruel as to condemn or harm any beings created in His own image. On the Day of Judgment, God will simply give everyone a big hug and wink at their sins.
The only problem with this wonderfully comforting image is that it is a lie straight from the pit of Hell.
The True God
Yes, the Bible teaches that God is loving, patient, caring, and forgiving (Psalms 86:15 and John 3:16). As the apostle John put it, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
Two of my favorite passages in the Bible emphasize the personal loving nature of God. One was penned by the apostle Peter. In 1 Peter 5:6-7 he says that we are to cast all our anxieties upon God “because He cares for you.” That is a very comforting thought.
The other passage that I love to read over and over consists of words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:22-24: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.”
But the Bible also clearly teaches that there is another aspect of God’s character that is equally important. It is the aspect that Satan wants us to ignore, and he has been very successful in prompting ministers to overlook it. After all, it doesn’t produce popular sermons! I’m speaking, of course, of the holiness of God (Leviticus 11:44; Isaiah 6:3; 1 Peter 1:16).
Grace or Wrath?
The Bible teaches that God is perfectly holy. Because of this attribute of His character, He cannot tolerate sin (Numbers 14:18). The Bible says God must deal with sin, and He does so in one of two ways—either grace or wrath.
All of us seem to know John 3:16—a very comforting verse about God’s love for us. But few of us seem to be aware of the words recorded a few verses later in John 3:36—words taken from a sermon by John the Baptist: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
The apostle Paul emphasized this point in his preaching and teaching. In Ephesians 5 he warns against immorality, covetousness, and idolatry, and then he adds this observation: “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).
We come under God’s grace by placing our faith in Jesus and appropriating His atoning sacrifice for our lives (1 John 1:7). There is no salvation apart from Jesus (Acts 4:10-12). Those who have rejected God’s free gift of grace in Jesus are under God’s wrath (John 3:36), and they have no one to blame but themselves.
The Unchangeable God
Despite the Bible’s clear teaching that our Creator is a God of both love and wrath, I never cease to be amazed at the number of pastors I run across who argue that the God of wrath is the Old Testament God and not the God of the New Testament. In the process they ignore another clear teaching of the Bible that is found in Malachi 3:6 where God, speaking of Himself, says, “I, the LORD do not change…”
The New Testament confirms this important point in Hebrews 13:8 where it says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.”
Nonetheless, Jesus seems always to be presented in sermons as the meek and gentle Savior who is full of grace and forgiveness. That statement is true, but it is not the full picture. Jesus castigated the Pharisees, calling them “hypocrites,” “serpents,” and a “brood of vipers.”
Likewise, in His letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, Jesus condemned the church at Thyatira for tolerating a false prophetess. He called upon the church to repent, and then He warned that if they refused to repent of their immorality, He would cast the offenders “upon a bed of sickness,” killing them with pestilence (Revelation 2:22-23).
Types of Wrath
The Bible reveals several different aspects of the wrath of God:
Consequential Wrath – This is what might be called “sowing and reaping wrath.” It is the wrath we bring upon ourselves when we reap what we sow through sinful living.
Cataclysmic Wrath – As evidenced in disasters, either natural or man-made, like the 9/11 attacks. God allows these as a way of calling people and nations to repentance.
Abandonment Wrath – The wrath exhibited by God when He turns His back on a person or a society, allowing self-destruction.
Eschatological Wrath – The wrath God will unleash on all the world during the Great Tribulation.
Eternal Wrath – The ultimate punishment God will inflict upon those who are consigned to Hell.
Abandonment Wrath
God’s wrath of abandonment is what our nation is experiencing today. Again, this type of wrath can fall on an individual as well as a society.
A biblical example of it in the life of an individual can be found in the story of Samson. Although he was mightily anointed by God to protect Israel from the Philistines, he persisted in sexual sin to the point that the Scriptures say that “the Lord departed from him” (Judges 16:20). As a result, he was captured by the Philistines and ended up committing suicide.
In Romans chapter one, the Apostle Paul strongly warns of God’s wrath of abandonment concerning nations. He asserts that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” (Romans 1:18). He then proceeds to tell how God does this when dealing with a nation that is in rebellion against Him.
First, God steps back and lowers the hedge of protection around the nation, allowing evil to multiply. The result is an outbreak of sexual sin (Romans 1:24-25), which is what happened in the nation in the 1960s.
If the nation refuses to repent, God takes a second step back and lowers the hedge even further (Romans 1:26-27), producing a plague of homosexuality. Again, this nation has experienced this second phase ever since the 1990s, but it gained momentum in 2003 when our Supreme Court struck down all sodomy laws.
If the nation persists in its rebellion, God will take a third step back and abandon the nation to “a depraved mind” (Romans 1:28). This depravity was manifested in this nation when our Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage in June of 2015 and since President Obama celebrated the decision by having the White House lit up in the rainbow colors of the Sexual Perversion Movement.
The Coming Wrath
God’s eschatological wrath will fall on all the world when Jesus returns (Jude 1:14-15). The passage in Revelation which pictures the return of Jesus says that He will return in righteousness to “judge and wage war” (Revelation 19:11).
The first time Jesus came, He came in loving compassion with eyes filled with tears. But when He returns, He will come in vengeance (Revelation 6:12-17), with eyes like a flame of fire (Revelation 19:12). He will come to destroy the enemies of God (Revelation 19: 11).
The presidents and kings and prime ministers of the world will get on their knees and cry out for the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, so great will be the terror of the Lord (Revelation 6:15-17). The unrighteous will stumble about like blind men, and their blood will be poured out like dust (Zephaniah 1:17).
The Meaning of Wrath
Does this make God a “monster”? No! On the contrary, it proves His goodness, for how could a good God ignore the evil of sin and allow it to go unpunished? His wrath against evil will demonstrate His righteousness.
The prophet Nahum summed it up best. Writing of the love of God, he said, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him” (Nahum 1:7). But a few verses earlier Nahum had also spoken of the holiness and wrath of God: “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”
God’s wrath is never motivated primarily by a desire to punish. Rather, it is designed to bring people to repentance so that they might be saved. Even in His wrath, God remembers mercy.
God demonstrates His mercy in wrath by never pouring out His wrath without warning. He tried to warn Sodom and Gomorrah through Abraham. He warned Noah’s world through the preaching of Noah for 120 years. He sent both Jonah and Nahum to warn the pagan city of Nineveh.
Consider too how He sent prophet after prophet to call the nations of Israel and Judah to repentance (2 Chronicles 36:15-16): “And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.”
God’s mercy in wrath is also manifested in the fact that He always leads up to His final outpouring of wrath through a series of progressive judgments. These judgments are outlined in detail in Deuteronomy 28:15-57.
This characteristic of God’s wrath is demonstrated in the prophecies concerning the Tribulation. Rather than simply pouring out His wrath on the rebellious nations of the world, destroying them in one instant of overwhelming catastrophe, He subjects the world to a series of judgments that sequentially increase in scope and intensity (Revelation 6,8-9,16).
Although most people refuse to repent in response to these judgments (Revelation 9:20-21), there is “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues” who do repent and respond to Jesus in faith (Revelation 7:9).
These radically different responses to the wrath of God illustrate the point that is often made by Billy Graham: “The same sun that melts the butter also hardens the clay.” The wrath of God melts some hearts in repentance, but it has the effect of hardening the hearts of many others.
Wrath and the Redeemed
Many Christians respond negatively to Bible prophecy. It’s not at all unusual to hear a Christian say something like this: “I don’t want to hear anything about prophecy because it’s too full of gloom and doom.”
Well, there is a lot of gloom and doom for those who refuse to respond to God’s gift of love in Jesus. But there is only good news for the Redeemed!
The Old Testament ends with a passage that presents both the gloom and the joy of end time prophecy. Malachi says that when the Lord returns, the day will be “like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff” (Malachi 4:1). That’s the bad news.
But consider the good news: “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall” (Malachi 4:2).
There is no reason for any child of God to fear the wrath of God. Paul wrote that since we have been justified by the blood of Christ, “we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Romans 5:9). And in a most comforting verse, Paul told the Thessalonians that Jesus will “deliver” the Redeemed “from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). The reason, Paul explained, is that “God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
A Plea
Are you under grace or wrath? The choice is yours. Jesus is coming soon. When He appears, will He be your Blessed Hope or your Holy Terror? Will you cry for the mountains to fall upon you? Or, will you go forth leaping with joy like a calf released from a stall?
God loves you and He wants you to accept His Son as your Savior so that you will come under grace and can participate in an event that will occur when Jesus returns (Isaiah 35:10): “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
I never thought of the categorical divisions of wrath but only of the end time wrath in Revelation. I knew about the warnings in the OT but did not have a concentrated awareness of truly this long suffering and goodness off God. I have experienced His love and know He must punish sin. Repentance is key to everything. I appreciate this article. His Love is not above my head to grasp but the dynamics of it leaves me breathless when I really think about His love. May the Christian that interviewed Dr. Reagan come to a better understanding. Super Thanks ! We have a Loving, uncompromising, just God; who must punish sin. This article should be archived as one of the best. Thumbs Up.
Poppycock! Jesus death on the cross covered all of our sins, past, present and future! If we believe Jesus is God and He died for our sins and rose from the dead we are saved. Period the end. If we continue to sin then in order to keep our line of communication with God in good standing we need to confess our sin and ask God to forgive us. No one here is perfect not even you I wish you people would stop telling us who still sin because we are still in our human bodies, that we’re not saved and are going to hell when we die!! Seriously ? Just stop with the condemnation, I’m sick to death of all this confusion in the understanding of the Christian bible. You think you’re so smart that you’re got it all figured out! You don’t! I’m done here. Good bye!
Linda, it sounds like you read something into the article that isn’t there. Please reread the article.
Nathan: Revelation 22:18. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19. and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. Even Moses warned against adding or subtracting from the Lord’s commands. Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32.
I struggled with Isa 53:10 that it was the Father’s ‘ good plan to Crush him (Jesus) and Cause him Grief (NLT)’ then it dawn on me, His wrath was also His Love for mankind. He gave His only begotten Son so we do not have to be eternally separated from His Goodness. At the foot of the Cross, tears of gratitude is ever my intrinsic response.
Excellent point, Joshua! One day the wrath of God will be satisfied and the redeemed will return to that perfect personal relationship with our Creator like Adam and Eve had in the Garden.
Nathan, I am thankful that God has explained the past, present, and future, so that we may be able to stand the times, and LIVE in faithfulness to him, and live as we should for HIM. He is our Wonderful and Mighty Counselor.
dr reagan you are a great teacher and communicator.i believe the problem with most people they expect the pastor to do their bible reading for them.
this is why there are so many christian illiterates out there.some act as though they have never cracked open the good book and read for themselves.i have always believed we were all made uniquely different so our fellowship would be multidimensional so to speak and definitely not boring.at the tower of babel due to evil our languages were confused to keep us separated and a one world government was not in GODS AGENDA
Thank you for this article. I completely agree with it, but need to ask, how can David Reagan speak so clearly and firmly and correctly about the need for and justification for God’s wrath upon unrepented, unbelieving sinners, and then continue to hold the belief that sinners are not punished in Hell for eternity? Would you please explain this and clear up my confusion. I believe that the Scriptures teach that unbelieving sinners go to Hell for eternity and forgiven believers live with God, New Heaven New Earth, for eternity.
How long one spends in the Lake of Fire has been debated by Traditionalists versus Conditionalists. Our ministry’s founder, Dr. David Reagan, takes a Conditionalist view whereby those sentenced to Hell will suffer for a period of time in proportion to their sins, after which they will “perish” (John 3:16) or be “destroyed” (2 Thess. 1:9). That the Antichrist and False Prophet are found there in Hell a thousand years later has been a strong argument for the Traditionalist view.
Dr. Reagan stated this in his article on the reality of Hell: “Which viewpoint is right — the traditional one or the conditionalist concept? I have cast my vote for the conditionalist understanding. You may decide that the evidence points in the other direction. That’s okay. The important thing to keep in mind is that Hell is a reality, and regardless of its specific nature, it is a terrible destiny.”
As Dr. Reagan concluded, “And because it is a horrible reality, it needs to be preached. People need to know the consequence of rejecting God’s love, grace, and mercy.” May all Christians not neglect to teach about the awful fate that awaits those who continue to reject Christ and His salvation so as to lead many to salvation.
Dr. Reagan’s article and arguments for and against the Conditionalist View of Hell are posted at https://christinprophecy.org/articles/the-nature-of-hell/ and https://christinprophecy.org/programs/the-reality-of-hell/.
Thanks for your article. I agree with the premise and most of the content. However, you should make at least one correction…. You said “ God’s wrath is never motivated primarily by a desire to punish. Rather, it is designed to bring people to repentance so that they might be saved.“
However, our Bible clearly says in Romans 2:4
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”
So, it is God’s goodness and kindness that leads us to repentance, not his wrath.
Thanks again for your article!
THANK YOU FOR THESE SCRIPTURES. WE KNOW THE LORD DOES NOT CHANGE. HIS WORDS ARE DEPENDABLE AND TRUE.
ROMANS 1:28 TELLS US. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore “God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
It’s obvious why God’s wrath is inevitable. The truth is what God gives us so we can lead an honorable, loving and full life, but man chooses to LIVE HIS OWN WAY, and that’s not what God intended. ( God’s righteousness in His wrath is against sinners.)
Genesis 6:5 tells us what was going on in the days of Noah. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” As we look at our world today, we see the parallel. Genesis 6:11 “the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
There are so many polluters corrupting our values, and people’s minds. Isaiah 5:20 The Prophet Isaiah said “Woe to them who call evil good, and good evil.
Revelation 8:13. The angel proclaims “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! A day of reckoning is coming. (So be intent on how we should be living!) Titus 2:12-13.
This is serious for all mankind……….it’s about doing what’s right in God’s eyes, and where we shall spend eternity.
Linda,
Please read this and hear me out. Why would you leave this wonderful blog? You have the right to say what you want and your comments are welcomed otherwise there wouldn’t be a reply option. But remember the comments section is a discussion. So others can read and reply which results in further discussion which results in thinking and research and learning. Why leave such an opportunity?
I have been a follower of this blog since it was created. I have posted an enormous amount of comments, mostly prior to the L&L Facebook Group, in some discussions that went on for dozens and dozens of replies by many people. The discussions were deep in thought and also funny at times. They were joyful and also sad. They were at time somewhat heated but also respectful. Agreements and disagreements. But we were all joined together in love as brothers and sisters as believers in Christ. So don’t leave your fellow Christians here because we may not all agree. Keep commenting so we can all learn from each other whether we keep our original positions, or alter them or change them which can and has happened.
You said “If we believe Jesus is God and He died for our sins and rose from the dead we are saved. Period the end.” and “No one here is perfect not even you…”
The Word of God says:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
You also said “…I wish you people would stop telling us who still sin because we are still in our human bodies, that we’re not saved and are going to hell when we die!!”
The Word of God says this to Christians about still sinning after being saved:
““What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!”
And the Word of God also says:
“But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”
So you are correct that we are all sinners and our sins are forgiven by our Lord Jesus Christ and we shall have eternal life if we believe in Him. However, there is also nothing wrong with anyone reminding us that as believers in Christ we should not live willingly in sin. Remember Jesus told the woman whom He saved from being stoned “From now on sin no more”. Yes, we are still in the flesh and have a sinful nature and still sin but we should never use our salvation as an excuse or a free pass to sin as we please. Jesus himself said ““And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” So you can see it is not His will that we live in sin but rather as slaves to righteousness and keep His commandments. This should be our goal as Christians. Yes, we aren’t perfect and will fail but it is what is expected of us.
There is nothing wrong with telling this to our fellow Christian, though we are sinners too, because if we don’t point it out and remind ourselves of this who will? As long as our words to each other are Biblically sound and true and spoken from a motivation of love then we should be here for each other with encouragement. We need to help lift each other up however we can as we live in a world surrounded by the evil ones who have rejected Christ and have become powerful in these end times and wallow in their wickedness.
Bible quotations from version NASB 1977)