Revelation 15:6-8
Continuing my mini series on “What is my Purpose”, I must first look at the wrath of God, and in my next months Blog I will look at how this purposes us.
By definition God is love (1 John 4:8), and God loves us, in fact God loves us so much that he sacrificed his only son that we could be with him, again (John 3:16), But what is thing called Love! Is it how I feel about my Fiancée, or is it how I feel about my daughters, or even my dog? Well only in part, the love that we are capable of is nothing compared to the love God has for us, which is so much greater than anything we are capable of we have to give it a special name, “Agape”. So does this mean we can get away with anything! Proverbs 3:12 tells us that God disciplines those he loves.
As we can see, though God is love, God also is a wrathful God, pouring His wrath out on those that stubbornly refused to obey Him, those who wear the “Mark of the Beast” (Revelation 16:2) on their hands and/or foreheads (Revelation 13:16) in fact the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death. (Revelation 21:8).
Then in Noah’s time, The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.’ But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.(Genesis 6:5-8).
Later on, still, in the time Abraham God shows his wrath, because the “Outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah was so great and the their sin so grievous” He wipes these two cities from the face of the Earth.(Genesis 18:16 – 19:29).
These are just three passages demonstrating God’s wrath. So yes Indeed fear the Lord your God, He [does these things] so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God. (Joshua 4:24)
However, the book of Proverbs tempers this with, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” (Proverbs 3:11-12). And also “The death he [Jesus] died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.” (Romans 6:10) Let us explore this next month and see what this means in regard to who I am.