God's Wrath
Scripture Reading — Romans 1:18-25
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
—Romans 1:18
In the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon included vivid illustrations of hell and declared that only the mercy of God—a God furious about our sin—keeps any of us sinners out of hell. People who heard that message were so gripped by it that they sat on the edge of their seat; they held the bench in front of them so tightly that their knuckles turned white. Even before the sermon was finished, people were moaning and crying out, “What shall I do to be saved?”
Many churches today avoid teaching about the wrath of God and punishment for sin. God is too often portrayed as easygoing and tolerant of our offenses. But that is not the God of the Bible.
As in Edwards’ day, we too need a reawakening to recover a right understanding of the wrath of God. Edwards stated that if we are outside of the new life in Christ, a dreadful storm with the thunder of God’s wrath hangs over our heads. Unsaved sinners are holding on by just a thread over the great furnace of hell’s punishment. If we have no interest in a Mediator, we can do nothing to save ourselves. Our only hope is to believe in the Lord Jesus for salvation.
Do you have that hope? Do you love the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
Father, awaken us from our deadly sleep. We reach out to you, Jesus, to deliver and save us. Amen.
About the author — John Kuperus
Since he was young, John Kuperus has had a passion that everyone would know Jesus. Spreading the good news that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) is very important to him. To be better equipped for missions, John attended Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He applied these skills with marketplace evangelism in a business he started in Sussex, New Jersey. This calling continued to follow him, so John attended seminary and became a minister in the Christian Reformed Church, serving a church in Ontario for eight years. Currently he serves as a missionary for Youth with a Mission (YWAM). He witnesses Jesus changing lives as people walk out of the darkness into the light. John is married to Helen, and they have seven children.
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