The Patriarchs - Overwhelmingly Terrifying

This is the tenth post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class.

The Genesis Account

Gen. 18:1-8 – Scripture describes Abraham scurrying around in a mad dash to minister to the Lord who had come to visit him.  This is a picture of the mind set we should have when we consider the awesome presence of God.

Gen. 20:11; 26:6-11 – Abraham demonstrated a fear of men that prompted poor decisions on his part.  And apparently he passed this tradition on to his son.  They both placed their concerns in the wrong place.

Gen. 29:31-30:24 – Rachel and Leah treated sex and child bearing like a competition and like resources to trade back and forth.  Where was their fearful reverence for God and the statutes He had instituted?

Supporting Scriptures

Luk. 12:4-5 – The ability of man to inflict harm is as nothing compared to God.

Deut. 4:24 – The Lord is a consuming fire and a jealous God.

Heb. 12:29 – The terrible wrath of God should produce in us an attitude of reverence and penitence.

Isa. 66:15 – To be an enemy of God is to have judgment and slaughter executed upon you by the hand of the Almighty.

Pro. 1:25-26 – Those who ignore the words of God will be laughed at and mocked in the day of their calamity, distress, and ultimate destruction.

Jer. 25:27-38 – The wrath of God is given extended treatment here.  He will force open the jaws of the wicked and pour the cup of His terrible wrath down their throats.  He will roar like a lion and hunt His prey; those who have rejected Him.  God will butcher the nations from one end of the earth to the other.  Their corpses will lie on the ground like dung.

Rev. 14:19-20; 19:15 – Vivid and graphic imagery is given in Revelation of the great day of judgment when God will pour out His wrath upon sin and sinners.  The image of a vast wine press is given, into which are thrown the enemies of God, represented here as grapes.  Then the grapes are trodden in the press and literally an ocean of blood is squeezed out.

Isa. 63:3 – Coupled with the image of the wine press from Revelation, here we see a picture of God Himself actually trampling the people to death who have been cast into the press.  Their life blood spatters and stains His garments.

Rev. 14:9-11 – The worshipers of Satan will be subjected to burning torment forever and ever; the smoke from their charred flesh rising into the heavens.

Questions For Meditation

Why does God spend so much time in the Bible describing His wrath?

This is not a trick question.  The answer should be blindingly obvious.  The only possible reason for God to spend so much time describing His fierce hatred of sin, His inevitable response to sin, and the guaranteed punishment for those who sin and do not come under the protective blood of Christ is because He wants us to understand the ramifications of how we live our lives.  He wants us to fear Him.  We are to be very afraid of God’s great anger. 

My daughter, who is six years old, is a perfect example of how we should respond to Almighty God.  The Lord has blessed her with a very tender spirit.  And she loves her daddy very much.  She loves nothing more than to play with him and snuggle with him and read stories with him, etc.  But when her daddy becomes angry, when his eyes start to flash and his voice begins to rise, her spirit withers and her joy turns to terror in the blink of an eye.  Now to be sure, sometimes when her father gets angry it is for selfish reasons and it is a blight upon his family.  But the point is not the merit or shame of the father’s anger.  Rather, the relevant theme is the response of the child; fear and sorrow.  Not lightly does my daughter esteem the wrath of her earthly father.  And not lightly should the children of God esteem the infinitely greater wrath of their heavenly father.

As an aside to fathers who may be reading this; a wise man once told me that a child’s first glimpse of God should be their father.  Before they even have a reasoned comprehension of who God is a small child should be given a foreshadowing of the perfectly worthy creator they will meet one day in the perfectly unworthy character, speech, choices, temperament, and actions of the man under whose authority they first begin to understand the world around them.  This is an incredibly daunting and terrifying, yet wonderful and awesome responsibility that we as men of God have.  And as it relates to this topic today, how will your children understand the great and terrible reality of the wrath of God if they do not first see it in you?  To be sure, God is perfectly capable of revealing Himself to whomever He wishes without the assistance of any of His creations.  But please understand that it is precisely through those creations that God prefers to reveal Himself.  So by conducting yourself as a wimpy, servile father who has no authority vested in him you are not providing a benefit to your children, as our culture would have you believe.  Rather, you are actually doing them a disservice and depriving them of the great gift of having a window, clouded and smeared though it may be, into the character of their Creator.

And let me state once again, because what I have said is terribly prone to misunderstanding and distortion, I am not condoning abuse, uncontrolled rage, or dictatorial fathers who rule over their subjects with a fist of iron and an uncompromisingly self-centered spirit.  What I am saying is that there is a place and time for love and affection just as there is a place and time for wrath and punishment.  To favor either over the other is a distortion of the character of God that we have already seen in this series on the Patriarchs.  Refer back to week five and six for a look at God’s twin attributes of unconditional love and infinite generosity.

Why do we tend to marginalize the reality of the anger of God?

Tucked into the latter chapters of the book of Romans is an interesting little command from the Apostle Paul.  Romans 12:16a instructs us to “be of the same mind toward one another”.  Some English translations render this phrase as “live in harmony with each other.”  How does this relate to our topic today?  Well, ask yourself the question: why do I sometimes tend to not live in harmony with the members of my family?  Why do I behave toward and speak to them in ways that I would never dream of doing with someone at church, school, or work?  The reason is probably because you tend to take those closest to you for granted.  And I believe this same principle is all too often applied toward The Lord, in that we take Him for granted as well.

We are privileged in the United States to be born in a country with tremendous freedoms of civic expression and religious worship.  As such, for many of us, there is perhaps the perception of a mandate of Christianity at some point in our lives.  If such a perception exists it is rapidly eroding in the face of modern American humanism.  But in certain areas of the country it is still very much alive and well.  This perception dictates that Christianity is the de facto religion of preference.  Especially for children who grow up in a Christian home, there can tend to be an idea of getting around to following Christ “one of these days”.  We know what is right to do, and when we’re finished with our time of youthful pleasures and self-gratification, then perhaps we’ll have time for God.  Certainly this does not describe all people’s experience, but I believe it does describe the thought processes of many.

And in this paradigm of thought what tends to be lost is the awful, debilitating, stomach clenching, throat tightening, numbing terror that should overwhelm our senses when we contemplate what the Bible says about God’s wrath.  Especially nowadays with the over emphasis on God’s love that many Christians and many churches are guilty of, what is often lost is the very real and tangible contemplation of God’s horrible fury over and raging, burning hatred for, sin.  We take God’s anger for granted and in so doing we mutilate our own fully realized and informed understanding of who He is.  We do this to our very great peril.

If we do treat lightly the wrath of God what impact does that have on our contemplation of His other attributes?

As we have looked at in past weeks, the presence of evil, or that which is contrary to God, in the universe actually serves to illuminate the holiness of God.  Just as the blanket of darkness during the night helps us to more fully appreciate the explosion of light during the day, so evil that we see should drive us to a greater appreciation of God’s character.  In the same way, we cannot possibly be properly thankful for God’s saving grace and mercy and love if we do not understand the soul crushing terror that is His rage.  The grace, mercy, and love that He showers us with are not just casually flippant bonuses we get for no reason whatsoever.  They are literally saving us and keeping us from drinking the bitter torment of the cup of God’s wrath that Jeremiah speaks of in the verses above.

If you are a Christian, would you like to butcher your understanding of and gratitude for the regeneration and salvation that God has graciously provided to you?  Then by all means, ignore His anger toward sin.  If you are not a Christian, would you like to continue spurning God’s wonderful offer of saving grace through the blood of Jesus Christ until the day you draw your last breath, perish from this earth, and enter into the courtroom of the Almighty where you will stand condemned to an eternity of suffering with no possibility of a defense?  Then by all means, ignore His anger toward sin.