Coming Wrath
Meditation for the week of January 4, 2009
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,
Revelation 6:17 "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
The Bible is a book of contrasts. There is light and dark. There is the saved and the lost. There is good and evil. There are believers and unbelievers. There is heaven and there is eternal conscious punishment in hell and the lake of fire. There is grace and there is wrath.
We live in the day of grace but we are seeing the world in chaos. This last year we had devastating tornadoes and floods. We had hurricanes. We have had an economic meltdown. We have terrorism and wars all over the whole world. And Just now, at the end of this year, the Israelites and the Palestinians are at war once again. Is this the “great day of God’s wrath?†Has it come?
I personally believe we are seeing things like the the things that will happen when the great day of God’s wrath is come, but I don’t think we are quite there yet. But if the present conditions are so frightful, what will it be like when God does pour out His wrath on those that have rejected Him?
We would like to believe that God always acts in a gracious manner. We know that grace has been evident in his dealings with mankind since he created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden. He was gracious to the nation of Israel in leading them out of Egypt and into the promised land. He was gracious to David when he sinned with Bathsheba. But His real grace was shown when He sent His Son into the world to die on an old rugged cross. That grace is known throughout much of the whole world. God’s desire is to save and not to destroy. He says that He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:18).
However, wrath is coming. No one likes to be around people who are filled with wrath. Many people lose control when they get angry, but God does not. However, His wrath will be terrible just the same. Even John the Baptist said, "His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:12." So another contrast has to do with wheat and chaff. The chaff which represents that which is of no value to God is burned up in a fire that is not quenched.
The Bible says that we should fear God, and normally we think of that fear as reverence. But certainly when we realize that God destroyed the earth with a flood and promises one day to destroy that which He created with fire, there is reason to fear God in the sense of fear and trembling. While the great day of God’s wrath is not here, yet; it is certainly coming.
I find it interesting that the two nations that seem to be mentioned most in the Bible are now being constantly mentioned in the news. Those two nations are Iraq or Babylon and Israel. It is also interesting that when the Lord comes, every eye shall see Him (Revelation 1:7). At one time that would have taken a miracle, but today we have the electronic means for that to happen without any great unusual miracle occurring. We used to wonder how anyone could give us a mark that would be used to buy or sell as we read in Revelation 13:17. Now we know that the technology is there to use electronic chips and to place them in the hand or forehead. They could be read at the cash register in much the same way that our current credit cards are read. We now have the means to destroy people in war in some of the ways that are described in the book of the Revelation. Certainly the stage has been set for the great day of God’s wrath to be ushered in.
God’s grace is beautiful. It has appeared in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord wants us to enjoy salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus. In contrast, God’s wrath is terrible. I am glad that we can be delivered from it (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
Bruce Collins