'But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” ' Romans 2:5-6
'That day will be a day of wrath— a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness— ' Zephaniah 1:15
When you read this verses there is something “God’s Wrath” or “Day of Wrath”.
What is this Wrath ? Its defined as “the emotional response to perceived wrong and injustice,” often translated as “anger,” “indignation,” “vexation,” or “irritation.” Both humans and God express wrath. But there is vast difference between the wrath of God and the wrath of man. God’s wrath is holy and is always justified whereas man’s is never holy and rarely justified.
When you read further on Romans 1:18, God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against the human race, and the human race deserves the wrath of God.
'The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ' Romans 1:18-19
We sometimes object to the idea of the wrath of God because we equate it with human anger, which is motivated by selfish personal reasons or by a desire for revenge. We must not forget that the wrath of God is completely righteous in character.
When you meditate Romans 1 :18-32, you will understand what triggers the wrath of God and what stages in which God’s wrath is triggered, all these stages are not actions that come one after another
But the root to remember “The Wrath of God is a result of godlessness or ungodliness “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness”, this godlessness comes in different stages to man
Stage 1 : - No Glorification or Thanksgiving
God created heaven and earth, he made man in his own image, all he created was for man to enjoy / glorify God for all what he has offered to him.
'Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” ' Genesis 1:26-28
Every good thing we receive in our lives is from God, but we never give any credit to God. For example you study in college and clear your semester, we never say that by God’s wisdom and knowledge we earned the degree. When we receive a blessing of new Job or flourish in Business, we say its our hard work that we have earned a business success or he got his job based on his experience. Yea all of what we say may be true, but the actual fact is God’s invisible qualities ,Gods grace has been in action for us to get this. Paul records it well in Romans 1
'For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ' Romans 1:20
We knowingly suppress that fact to edify God on all these, this happens many times in our lives, just think for a moment. Paul explains this well in Verse 21 “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him,”
'For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 'Romans 1:21
Do we keep God first or do we edify God in everything. We are made to feel we have outsmarted God by Satan, it can be paraphrased as think of you getting a favour from someone and telling others that all of what you have is only from you and discrediting the other person. when we dont give God the glory or thanksgiving this type of action makes our thoughts look like useless and the result of this is ,our hearts are hardened towards God.
hardened heart leads to Godlessness or ungodly behavior which invites the wrath of God.
Actions we can take to avoid God’s wrath :
Check to see if you give thanks to God in every thing you do ?
Are you keeping God first in all things you do. When you get your salary whom do you give first ? do you honour God first or to your worldly needs first ?
Do you thank God only in your blessings or do you thank God in your troubled times ?
Stage 2 : - “Sinful desires of Heart”
The moment we fail to recognise God or give God his due Glory, the heart is darkened. From this darkened heart we get new desires many of them are Sinful in nature. Which is not right in front of God. Paul explains that well in Romans 1:24-25
'Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 'Romans 1:24-25
Example: In Business, many times we face situation of integrity to do the business right, some times if you do it right you may not grow, so the heart desires to tell a lie or do un-rightly things and justify that its ok to do that way as its only a business. So one sin gives way to another mistake and it multiples to “n” fold.
Similarly in personal life, we keep many idols in us - money, fame, material ,wealth etc. We justify all of this as absolutely must for us to live the world and continue to Sin. There is nothing wrong in getting money or fame, but when we keep our lives centered around money / fame and keep God as secondary this makes us build idols that’s ungodly. Once you have the idols of money, fame, material wealth we start comparing our neighours / friends / family people to see how we can be ahead of them, this invites Jealously / Pride and other ungodly characters in us.
Some of us covet things inside our heart which gives to Sexual impure thoughts / for some these thoughts may lead to sexual actions of adultery. Paul wrote Romans 1:24 from the city of Corinth, where every sort of sexual immorality and ritualistic prostitution was practiced freely. Today’s world is no different than what we had back in Corinth, We have many Soap operas / movies which tend to justify many of these, men cheating on wives and vice versa.They are portrayed to be normal and many start following on these as cool to follow attitude , leading to many sexual sins which results in ungodly action to God inviting the wrath of God.
Actions we can take to avoid God’s wrath :
Check to see how your private life is ? does it reflect the same way as you live public ? do you live two lives ?
Are you living a life for others, are you comparing other’s life to lead your life ?
Do you covet and desire things of others ?
Stage 3 :- “Shameful Lusts”
'Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. ' Romans 1:26-27
Paul wrote this verses when he was in Corinth, at that time the Roman Empire specifically taxed approved homosexual prostitution and gave boy prostitutes a legal holiday. Legal marriage between same gender couples was recognised, and even some of the emperors married other men. At the very time Paul wrote, Nero was emperor. He took a boy named Sporus and had him castrated, then married him (with a full ceremony), brought him to the palace with a great procession, and made the boy his “wife.” Later, Nero lived with another man, and Nero was the “wife.”
We have the same things happening now in many parts of the world as it happened back during Roman Empire. We start this as freedom case to argue against legal marriage of man with woman marriage vs Homosexual marriages, its a result of “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie”
These actions of unclean shameful lusts invite ungodly behaviour leading to God’s wrath
Actions we can take to avoid God’s wrath :
Check to see what kind of lustful desires that prevail in your heart ?
what kind of lust that comes out when you see a beautiful man or woman?
Stage 4 :- “Depraved Mind”
'Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.' Romans 1:28-32
Once we don't glorify God in our lives or give thanks to God, our hearts get hardened and slowly back slides to become a depraved mind, you may call this as corrupt mind or perverted mind fillied with filthy things which is disgusting in the sight of God. Paul explains this well, once we have the depraved mind, the actions follow are “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy”
Example : Once you have the greed for money, some go to great lengths to indulge in malice work, you also talk bad about others to ensure you get over greed. These actions result in ungodliness and invite the wrath of God.
Only the Spirit of God has the power to protect us from this kind of corrupt mind to show us the wrong things of mind as it gets conceived in heart
'because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ' Romans 8:2,5
Actions we can take to avoid God’s wrath :
Check to see what type of desires that come from your heart ?
Do you live by what God directs you or do you live by Spirit of mind ?
Summary
The begining for us to invite God’s wrath is - not honouring God. not giving the Glory to God or Giving thanks to God, that hardens our heart. Thats the first stage we begin to back slide from God to make our heart corrupt to Sinful desires.
Remember when we get to the wrath of God we get to a stage of infinite loop where no one can save you.
'And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.' Revelation 20:12,15
The only way for us to save us from wrath of God (does not matter which stage you are in, only God and you know which stage you are in) is to repent of the sinful ways and turn to God. Jesus is the only person who can save us from this wrath. He still is merciful to us and has given us grace to save us from Sin
Gospel is the good news of salvation through the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, to rescue us from the wrath of God.
'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ' Romans 3:23-24
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