The Wrath Of God # 2

 The Wrath Of God # 2

First, that our hearts may be duly impressed by God's detestation of sin. We are ever prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to make excuses for it. But the more we study and ponder God's abhorrence of sin and His frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely are we to realize its heinousness.

Secondly, to beget a true fear of God in our souls. "Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29). We cannot serve him "acceptably" unless there is due "reverence" for His solemn Majesty and "godly fear" of His righteous anger; and these are best promoted by frequently calling to mind that "our God is a consuming fire."

Thirdly, to draw out our souls in fervent praise for our having been delivered from "the wrath to come." (1 Thess. 1:10).

Our readiness or our reluctance to meditate upon the wrath of God becomes a sure test of our hearts true attitude toward Him. If we do not truly rejoice in God, for what He is in Himself, and that because of all the perfections which are eternally resident in Him, then how does the love of God dwell in us?

Each of us needs to be most prayerfully on his guard against devising an image of God in our thoughts which is patterned after our own evil inclinations. Of old the Lord complained, "You thought that I was just like you" (Psalm 50:21). If we rejoice not at the remembrance of His holiness, if we rejoice not to know that in a soon coming Day, God will make a most glorious display of His wrath by taking vengeance upon all who now oppose Him - then it is proof positive that our hearts are not in subjection to Him, that we are yet in our sins, and that we are on the way to the everlasting burnings!

"Rejoice, O nations, over His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants. He will take vengeance on His adversaries; He will purify His land and His people" (Deuteronomy 32:43). And again we read, "After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in Heaven shouting: Hallehujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of His servants. And again they shouted: Halleluhjah! The smoke of her goes up forever and ever." (Revelation 19:1-3).

Great will be the rejoicing of the saints in that day when the Lord shall vindicate His majesty, exercise His solemn dominion, magnify His justice, and overthrow the proud rebels who have dared to defy Him!

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 3)

The Gifts Of God # 1

 The Gifts Of God # 1

A GIVING GOD! What a concept! To our regret, our familiarity with it often dulls our sense of wonderment at it. There is nothing that resembles such a concept in the religions of heathendom. Very much to the contrary; their deities are portrayed as monsters of cruelty and greed, always exacting painful sacrifices from deluded devotes. But the God of Scripture is portrayed as the Father of mercies, "who gives us richly all things to enjoy" (1 Timothy 6:17). It is true that He has His own rights - the rights of His holiness and proprietorship. Nor does He rescind them, but rather enforces them. But what we would contemplate here is something which transcends reason and had never entered our minds to conceive. The Divine Claimer is at once the Divine Meeter. He required satisfaction of His broken Law, and Himself supplied it. His just claims are met by His own grace. He who asks for sacrifices from us - made the supreme sacrifice for us! God is both the Demander and the Donor, the Requirer and the Provider.

1. The gift of His Son. Of old the language of prophecy announced: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given" (Isaiah 9:6). Accordingly, the angels announced to the shepherds at the time of His advent: "Unto you is born this day... a Saviour" (Luke 2:11). That gift was the supreme exemplification of the divine benignity. "God showed how much He loved us by sending His only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins" (1 John 4:9-10).

That was the guaranty of all other blessings. As the apostle argued from the great to the less, assuring us that Christ is at once the pledge and channel of every other mercy: "He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). God did not withhold His choicest treasure, the darling of His bosom, but freely yielded Him up; and the love which did not spare Him, will not begrudge anything that is for the good of His people.

2. The gift of the SPIRIT. The Son is God's all-inclusive gift. As Manton said, "Christ comes not to us empty handed. His person and His benefits are not divided. He came to purchase all manner of blessings for us." The greatest of these is the Holy Spirit, who applies and communicates what the Lord Jesus obtained for His people. God pardoned and justified His elect in Old Testament times on the ground of the atonement, which His Son would make at the appointed time.  On the same basis He communicated to them the Spirit (Numbers 9:25); Nehemiah 9:20, otherwise none would have been regenerated, fitted for communion with God, or enabled to bring forth spiritual fruit.

But He then wrought more secretly, rather than "in demonstration and in power"; came as the dew, rather than was poured out copiously; was restricted to Israel, rather than communicated to Gentiles also. The Spirit in His fullness was God's ascension gift to Christ (Acts 2:33) and Christ's coronation gift to His church (John 16:7). The gift of the Spirit was purchased for His people by Christ (Galatians 3:13-14 and note carefully the second "that" in verse 14.) Every blessing we receive is through the merits and mediation of Christ.

3. The gift of ETERNAL LIFE. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23). There is a double antithesis between those two things.

First, the justice of God will render unto the wicked what is due them for their sins; but His mercy bestows upon His people what they do not deserve.

Second, eternal death follows as a natural and inevitable consequence from what is in and done by its objects.

Not so eternal life, for it is bestowed without any consideration of something in or from its subjects. It is communicated and sustained gratuitously. Eternal life is a free bounty, not only unmerited but also unsolicited by us, for in every instance God has reason to say, "I am found by those who sought Me not" (Isaiah 65:1). The recipient is wholly passive in regeneration. He does not act, but is acted upon when he is brought from death to life. Eternal life - a spiritual life now, a life of glory hereafter - is sovereignly and freely bestowed by God. yet it is a blessing communicated by Him unto His elect because the Lord Jesus Christ paid the price of redemption. Yes, it is actually dispensed by Christ. "I give unto them (not merely offer) eternal life" (John 10:28).

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 2)

The Wrath Of God # 1

 The Wrath Of God # 1

It is sad indeed to find so many professing Christians who appear to regard the wrath of God as something for which they need to make an apology, or who at least wish there were no such thing. While some who would not go so far as to openly admit that they consider it a blemish on the divine character - yet they are far from regarding it with delight; they do not like to think about it, and they rarely hear it mentioned without a secret resentment rising up in their hearts against it. Even with those who are more sober in their judgment, not a few seem to imagine that there is a severity about the divine wrath that makes it harbor the delusion that God's wrath is not consistent with His goodness, and so seek to banish it from their thoughts.

Yes, many there are who turn away from a vision of God's wrath as though they were  called to look upon some blotch in the divine character or some blot upon the divine government. But what says the Scriptures? As we turn to them, we find that God has made no attempt to conceal the facts concerning His wrath. He is not ashamed to make it known that vengeance and fury belong unto Him. His own challenge is: "See now that I myself am He! There is no God besides Me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of My hand. I lift my hand to Heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen My flashing sword and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me" (Deuteronomy 32:39-41).

A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God -than there are to His love and tenderness. Because God is holy, He hates all sin; and because He hates all sin, His anger burns against the sinner. "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11).

The wrath of God is as much a divine perfection as is His faithfulness, power, or mercy. It must be so, for there is no blemish whatever, not the slightest defect in the character of God; yet there would be if "wrath" were absent from Him! Indifference to sin is a moral blemish, and he who does not hate it is a moral leper. How could He who is infinitely holy, disregard sin, and refuse to manifest His "severity" (Romans 11:22) toward it? How could He who delights only in that which is pure and lovely, not loathe and hate that which is impure and vile? The very nature of God makes hell as real a necessity, as imperatively and eternally requisite, as Heaven is. Not only is there no imperfection in God, but there is no perfection in Him that is less perfect than another.

The wrath of God is His eternal detestation of all unrighteousness. It is the displeasure and indignation of divine equity against evil. It is the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin. It is the moving cause of that just sentence which He passes upon evildoers. God is angry against sin because it is a rebelling against His authority - a wrong done to His inviolable sovereignty. Insurrectionists against God's government shall be made to know that God is the Lord They shall be made to feel how great that Majesty is which they despise, and how dreadful is that threatened wrath which they so little regarded.

Not that God's anger is a malignant and malicious retaliation, inflicting injury for the sake of it, or in return for injury received. No, though God will vindicate His dominion as the Governor of the universe, He will not be vindictive.

That divine wrath is one of the perfections of God, is not only evident from the considerations presented above, but is also clearly established by the express declarations of His own Word. "For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven" (Romans 1:18).

Robert Haldane comments on this verse as follows: "It was revealed when the sentence of death was first pronounced, the earth cursed, and man driven out of the earthly paradise; and afterwardes by such examples of punishment as those of the Deluge, and the destruction of the Cities of the Plain by fire from Heaven; but especially by the reign of death throughout the world. It was proclaimed in the curse of the law on every transgression, and was intimated in the institution of sacrifice, and in all the services of the Mosaic dispensation. In the eighth chapter of this epistle, the Apostle calls the attention of believers to the fact that the whole creation has become subject to vanity, and groans and travails together in pain. The same creation which declares that there is a God, and publishes His glory - also proves that He is the Enemy of sin and the Avenger of the crimes of men. But above all, the wrath of God was revealed from Heaven when the Son of God came down to manifest the divine character, and when that wrath was displayed in His sufferings and death, in a manner more awful than by all the tokens God had before given of His displeasure against sin. Besides this, the future and eternal punishment of the wicked is now declared in terms more solemn and explicit than formerly. Under the new dispensation, there are two revelations given from Heaven - one of wrath, the other of grace."

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 2)

The Immutability Of God # 2

 The Immutability Of God # 2

"Change and decay in all around we see,

May He who changes not abide with thee."

God's purpose never alters. One of two things causes a man to change his mind and reverse his plans: lack of foresight to anticipate everything, or lack of power to execute them.

But as God is both omniscient and omnipotent there is never any need for Him to revise His decrees. No, "the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations" (Psalm 33:11). Therefore do we read of "His unchangeable purpose" (Hebrews 6:17).

Herein we may perceive the infinite distance which separates the highest creature from the Creator. Creaturehood and mutability are correlative terms. If the creature was not mutable by nature it would not be a creature; it would be God. By nature we tend toward nothingness, since we came from nothing. Nothing stops our annihilation but the will and sustaining power of God. None can sustain himself a single moment. We are entirely dependent on the Creator for every breath we draw. We gladly own with the Psalmist, You "hold our soul in life" (Psalm 66:9). The realization of this ought to make us lie down under a sense of our own nothingness in the presence of Him in Whom "we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

As fallen creatures we are not only mutable, but everything in us is opposed to God. As such we are "wandering stars" (Jude 13), out of our proper orbit. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest" (Isaiah 57:20). Fallen man is inconstant. The words of Jacob concerning Reuben apply with full force to all of Adam's descendants: "unstable as water" (Genesis 49:4). Thus it is not only a mark of piety, but also the part of wisdom to heed that injunction, "cease from man" (Isaiah 2:22). No human being is to be depended on. "Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save" (Psalm 146:3). If I disobey God, then I deserve to be deceived and disappointed by my fellows. People who like you today, may hate you tomorrow. The multitude who cried, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" speedily changed to "Away with Him! Crucify Him!"

Herein is solid comfort. Human nature cannot be relied upon; but God can! However unstable I may be, however fickle my friends may prove, God changes not. If He varied as we do; if He willed one thing today and another tomorrow; if He were controlled by caprice - who could confide in Him? But, all praise to His glorious name, He is ever the same. His purpose is fixed; His will is stable; His Word is sure.

Here then is a Rock on which we may fix our feet, while the mighty torrent is sweeping away everything around us. The permanence of God's character guarantees the fulfillment of His promises: "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you" (Isaiah 54:10).

Herein is encouragement to prayer. "What comfort would it be to pray to a God that, like the chameleon, changed color every moment? Who would put up a petition to an earthly prince that was so mutable as to grant a petition one day, and deny it another?" 

Should someone ask, But what is the use of praying to One whose will is already fixed? We answer, Because He so requires it. What blessings has God promised without our seeking them?" "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us" (1 John 5:14), and He has willed everything that is for His child's good. To ask anything contrary to His will is not prayer, but rank rebellion.

Herein is terror for the wicked. Those who defy Him, who break His laws, who have no concern for His glory, but who live their lives as though He existed not, must not suppose that, when at the last they shall cry to Him for mercy, He will alter His will, revoke His Word, and rescind His solemn threatenings. God will not deny Himself to gratify their lusts. God is holy, unchangingly so. Therefore God hates sin, eternally hates it. Hence the eternality of the punishment of all who die in their sins.

"The divine immutability, like the cloud which interposed between the Israelites and the Egyptian army, has a dark as well as a light side. It insures the execution of His threatenings, as well as the performance of His promises; and destroys the hope which the guilty fondly cherish, that He will be all lenity to His frail and erring creatures, and that they will be much more lightly dealt with than the declarations of His own Word would lead us to expect. We oppose to these deceitful and presumptuous speculations the solemn truth - that God is unchanging in veracity and purpose, in faithfulness and justice.

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)