The Wrath Upon The Sinner
We are in a dire place. We’ve left the bad news that makes the good news of the Gospel out of the gospel. We’ve stopped preaching the truth about God’s wrath upon sin, and started coddling sin. Man now lives as if he is good apart from God and as if God would be lucky to have him. We’ve not taught that the responsibility for ones sin is upon themselves, so everyone has become a victim. No one takes responsibility for their own sin, but shifts the blame to someone else and ultimately God. So now evil people believe that they are good and that everything evil about them is the fault of someone or something else and God. “You put me in this situation.”
“You made me like this.”
“God knew I’d be like this when He made me.”
“God has to accept me because He made me like this.”
“It’s not my fault! My parents were abusive so now I do bad things.”
“It’s not my fault!”
This is what we’ve coddled. Intentionally? Maybe not, but it is what we have coddled. It happened when we stopped preaching on sin and just how terrible it is. It happened when all of our music stopped being about how Holy and Righteous God is and became mostly about how He sees us as good, and in Christ He does, but apart from Him we are disgusting in His eyes. We see in the book of Isaiah chapter 64:6 “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”
Even the most righteous deeds we have to offer, the things that make men say “Wow that is a noble person.” Are sin stained filthy rags. They just don’t hold up.
We often see illustrations in todays culture from pulpits using a formula in a glass that tends to be blue. The person giving the sermon gives a part of the gospel and tells us about how Jesus washes our sins away. He then pours something into that glass and the blue turns clear, and everyone is wowed. The problem here is that even when we are in the blue, we see ourselves as pretty. It’s a pretty color. To be more correct with this illustration, the one giving the sermon would need to fill a brute with crap, and then make that dung disappear. Do you see where I’m going with this?
We aren’t pretty apart from Christ, we are more comparable to a large garbage can full of feces than pretty pitcher of pretty blue liquid. We’ve stopped talking about how in need of saving we are. We’ve diminished sin and in doing so we have diminished Mercy and Grace. We have said “It’s okay, we know you have had it rough in life and that’s why you are this way.” And in doing so we have given off the impression that God is okay with it, but such is not the case. God tells the sinner that they will die not due to the sins of others but their own sin, in the book of Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul that sinners, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon in, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”
There is no inheritance of wickedness or righteousness. One must choose which one they will be regardless of where they have been, where they are, or where they are going. God does not play the victim game, He does not diminish sin. He sees us as we truly are, whether righteous or wicked, and there is no hiding behind the coddling and claims of victimhood.
Christians we must not diminish sin, for in doing so we will diminish grace. Why is grace so amazing? Have you ever asked yourself that? Have you ever stopped to think about how the only thing that is stopping the sinner from being crushed this instant by the wrath of God is the mercy of God? It is not the claims of victimhood and it is not the coddling of sin that saves the sinner. It is when the sinner comes face to face with his state of sin and acknowledges that he is in desperate need of a Savior. When the sinner stops shifting the blame and looks into himself and says “I am no good!”
When the sinner repents from his sin and is brought to the Savior, Jesus Christ. This isn’t about asking God into our hearts, as if He’d be lucky to have the invitation, it is about asking Him to SAVE US FROM OUR SIN!
When we diminish sin, we diminish the Gospel. Without recognizing that we are actually in need of saving, we can never be saved. We can show up every Sunday morning for the rest of our lives and still miss it because we don’t understand that we need a Savior. We can preach many uplifting sermons and have churches filled to the thousands, and still miss it because no one ever told us that we are wicked. Friends apart from Christ we are wicked and under wrath, and it is a crushing wrath, and the only thing stopping us this very moment from being destroyed and entering into eternal death... is mercy.
Do not be deceived.
The Gospel is such good news because apart from Christ
We are disgusting and headed for judgement
We need saving
The good news is that in that state of being under His wrath and scripture even says that we, apart from Christ, are at enmity with Him, yes Warring with the King of the universe. The one that could crush us! Destroy us! In that state of being, He still came to rescue us.
Romans 10:9-10
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord.” And believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
And remember.. if Jesus is Lord, and Jesus is the word become flesh that means that your Lord agrees with the entirety of the scriptures, Him being the embodiment of them, and this also means that you are no longer in charge. Lord doesn’t mean buddy, it means you now serve Him. He is a good master, better than any of us could ever be to ourselves. Us living for Him is not His privilege it is ours. So let us live and die to honor Him.
