Scripture
He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
~John 3:36, NASB
Quote
“I do not want to believe [in hell], but I dare not disbelieve it.”
~J.I. Packer
I’m about half-way through J.I. Packer’s EVANGELISM AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. My good friend Kevin gave me the book and Dr. Randy Atchley was a witness to the gift. Randy said immediately, “Jack you are going to love this book. It has the best explanation of the soverienty of God and responsibility of man that I’ve ever read.” Randy is right. You will find his explanation is chapter one. This book stirred my mind and I had Noah download Packer’s KNOWING GOD. I was positive that I had the hard copy in my study but never able to locate it. I finished KNOWING GOD yesterday. The early chapters are delightful and I am going {Lord willing} to share some things with you when my hard copy gets in but the last few chapter are hard. Packer gets on the much neglected doctrine of the wrath of God. It is something we don’t like to think about, let alone talk about.
The bible teaches that God has two natures, or at least two manifestation of one nature. He is a God of love and this is stated multiple times. I go back to Exodus 34:6-7 quite often… “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.” Look at all those wonderful attributes: compassionate, gracious, full of loving kindness, truthful or faithful, and forgiving. But please note two things: Moses said, “He is slow to anger” not that He has no anger and the last line, ‘He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.’ God could not love and preserve good without a pure hatred for evil. The wrath of God is not an Old Testament doctrine. The New Testament has a lot to say about the wrath of God. We see more in Romans than any other NT book but it is there. Romans 5:9 for example: Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. Some other references are Luke 3:7, Romans 1:18, 2:5,12:9, Ephesians 2:3,5:6, Col.3:6 and Hebrews 13:11. There are more. If my math is right, there are eleven references to the wrath of God in the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
As Moses said, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” [Deut. 4:24] The NT word for wrath is ‘orge’, to burn with passion, the passion of anger. God does have a temper. We all need a temper. Jesus has a temper. Sometimes we sin because we get angry about the wrong things. Jesus was angry and did not sin because He was angry at sin. No one is their right mind wants to experience God’s wrath. The only way to avoid it is to repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus who suffered God’s wrath for our sin on the cross. If you refuse to bow to Jesus and give your life and allegiance to Him, you will suffer God’s wrath.
I heard this story when I was a kid. A church called two pastors in a row and both preached on hell almost every Sunday. One they fired and the other they loved. Someone asks them why there was such a difference in their affections. Their answer: the first one preached on hell but with sadistic glee. I don’t think he cared if we went to hell or heaven; the second also preached on hell but did it with tears. We knew he cared.
Extra
They had some excitement in Guatemala yesterday but all is well, PTL. My heart grew faint when Joe David called and I was thrilled when he called back and said everything was fine. We have communion this Sunday and Briley is going to report for the team on the mission trip.
Tonight at the POINT, we are in Book 4, chapter 4 GOOD INFECTION [Love of God]
No word on Blake this morning. I have texted Scott and Dana but no response yet.
Hope you have a good day and thanks for reading the blog.