The other night, my family and I watched transformers 3. Lots of special effects, explosions, screaming, fighting, lots of good stuff with a house full of boys. It's a classic good vs. evil tale where the good guys win and kick the tail of the bad guys. It's really a story that is told over and over again in our culture one way or the other. It's a story we all love to cheer!
We love it when the good guys pour out wrath on the bad guys. We love it because the bad guys deserve it. In most stories, even when the bad guys are given the chance to change their ways, they still remain evil and try to kill the hero when his back is turned. Think about it, superman, die hard, batman, John Wayne....they all beat the stuffing out of the bad guys and we love it.
So if this story is so ingrained in our culture, why do we have such a hard time with a God who will pour out his wrath on evil? Why are books so popular that question the existence of hell? Why do we have such a hard time with God being the hero that pours out his wrath on evil that will never change its ways? Well, I think the answer is because we are the bad guys in the story! We are the subjects of God's wrath; so of course, we don't want the hero to ever beat the bad guys.
God is love. This is so true and so worth shouting from the mountain tops. What I would encourage you to do is to also look up the word wrath in the bible. You will spend the next few hours reading all the verses that have to do with God's wrath. The hero will win, he will put a stop to evil and he will pour out his wrath on the bad guys that have refused to change.
The only difference in God's story is he has taken the wrath for us. Jesus took God's wrath on the cross. What story do you know where the hero has taken death so that the bad guy could live? Make no mistake, the offer has been made, but for those that try to continue to kill the hero.....he will pour out his wrath at some point and put an end to it. We should cheer, just like we do at the movies...that the hero will win the day. We should cheer that the hero took our place, and that we have escaped the wrath that was due us. We should do everything we can to get as many to join us, and join the hero before it's too late.
Romans 5:9 much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath THROUGH him.
Blogs
Calendar