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. 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 1:18-20)
It’s been a while since I’ve heard a sermon on the wrath of God…say fifty years or so. It seems the prospect of sinners being dangled over the pit of hell in the hands of an angry God doesn’t go over well in today’s American consumer church. No, nowadays pastors swing the opposite direction and emphasize the love of God and the forgiveness of God. They nervously whistle past the wrath and hell parts – “Nothing to see here, folks.” They pat us on the head and send us out the door with a false sense of confidence fostered by an ignorance of God’s totality as a person. “Thanks for doing us the favor of coming to our church,” they imply as they shake our hand, say goodbye, and hope we come back. Then they lock up the church and think they had a good morning because no one seemed offended.
Let’s be clear. God did not send his one and only son, Jesus the Christ, to be rejected, tortured and cruelly and shamefully executed simply because he was ticked off at us. No. He did so because he was furious with us – all of us – and sacrificing his son like that was his only possible recourse. It behooves those of us who have been saved from that wrath by placing our faith in God’s son to remember that we have been so only “by the skin of our teeth.”If the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to godless sinners?” (1 Peter 4:8)
What will happen indeed. Especially if godless sinners never hear that God has major issues with them in the first place.
And that brings me to that conglomerate of us corporate sinners we call America. What will happen to us, the “United Sinners of America,” if we don’t know and understand the concept of God’s wrath in the first place? Any Christian with a year of Sunday School under their belt knows that God judges nations and not just individuals. All the bells and whistles that warned of God’s approaching wrath on the nations in the Old Testament are going off in our culture today. And they are getting louder and louder. The cup of God’s wrath is about to be poured out on America very soon, and yet, because we preachers have been shy about preaching on God’s wrath, “there is no fear of God before their eyes.”
I once read somewhere that historians believe that the reason there was no insurgency following the Civil War was because southern preachers preached from their pulpits that the south had lost the war because God had judged them for their institution of slavery. Their preaching changed the course of history.
Once again, we need preachers in American pulpits today bravely, forcefully and prophetically – and yes, also with compassion and love – preaching the coming wrath of God on America. I believe the future of our country rests in your hands, pastors. It’s up to you, by the power of the Spirit, to put the fear of God back in our hearts. Step on a few toes, please. Remember: “Woe to you when all men speak highly of you.” (Luke 6:26)
If you do not instill in us a healthy fear of God, then the day will surely come when you will lock the doors of your church for the last time and America qua America will cease to exist.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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