Living With an Angry God

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Jonathan, thank you very much for that reading.

It's not very cheerful, is it?

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at the front here and some pens. Anybody want one? If you haven't got one, you can stick

up your hand and Kirstie will pass one to you. And if there are any questions about

this morning's talk or indeed any of our talks through Romans, then I'd be delighted if you

would come and chat about it afterwards. This is a very difficult section in this book.

So, one I'd like to be able to say, well, let's just jump to something else, but we continue

through with it and we'll see what God has to say. So we're going to pray and we're going

to ask for his help as we look at this together. Our Father God, we do thank you for your word.

We thank you for all that it contains. But we do recognise that when we read through your

word, there are some parts that are really quite difficult. It's hard to take in. And

therefore we ask for your help to understand it and how this applies to our life and to

society today. May we first allow it to challenge us and shape us before we begin to think of

applying it to other people. So we pray for us all as we look at your word in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, what I am about to say to you, you may find very shocking. And it's this. God is angry.

In fact, God is very angry. And if we are observant enough, there are signs of his anger all around

us, even in our own lives. What do you say? You can't say that. What kind of Bible are you

reading? The God that I know is a God of love. He's a kind and he's a compassionate God.

He doesn't get mad and he doesn't get annoyed. He's a caring and gentle God. How on earth could

you say that God is angry? Well, look at verse 18. The wrath, that's the anger, the anger of

God is being revealed. In other words, God's anger is present among us. When we were away

on holiday, we went to visit Dachau. It was the first concentration camp built during the

Second World War. In fact, it became the prototype, the model for every other concentration camp that

the Nazis built. And as I stood there in this huge open courtyard, I tried to imagine what

had happened. And as I thought, I felt sad and I was very upset. But I also felt very angry.

I was angry at those who had committed such awful crimes, many of whom had escaped prosecution.

I was angry at those who had lived in the surrounding neighbourhood and had done nothing to prevent it.

Listen to this letter sent home by a Lieutenant Bill Cowling, an American soldier who was part of the

liberation task force of the camp towards the end of the war. This is what he wrote home to his family.

As we approached the camp, the first thing we came to was a railroad track leading out of the camp with a lot of

open box cars on it. As we crossed the tracks, we looked back into the cars and the most horrible sight I

have ever seen met my eyes. The cars were loaded with dead bodies. Most of them were naked. All of them were skin and bones.

Many of them had bullet holes in the back of their heads. It made us sick in our stomachs. And so mad we could do nothing but clench our fists.

You see, sometimes it is right to be angry. Anger can be a right response. In fact, to be unmoved at such

terrible atrocities such as Dachau would be cold and hard-hearted. Anger is a sign that you do care. And that you are loving. And that you don't want these things to happen again.

Now the problem with my anger, and I suggest the problem with your anger too, is that it's uncontrolled. Our anger is temper-like. It can be an outburst that can be as terrible as the act to which you are angry at. In other words, your anger makes you as guilty as the person who committed the crime.

But when we look at God's anger, it is uncontrolled. It is fair. And it is his just response to sin. God is not hot-headed. He never loses it. He doesn't throw a hissy fit.

Rather, it is his personal hostility to evil and his act of involvement to punish sin. That's the definition of God's anger. His personal hostility to evil and his act of involvement to punish sin.

So we need to ask the question, what is God angry at? Why is God angry? Well, look at verse 18 again. It says that the anger of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.

God is angry at the atrocities that are being revealed from heaven against all the gods. God is angry at the murder and assault of that 12-year-old girl, Michaela Davis, in Dublin last week.

And he's also very angry at the atrocities that are being revealed from heaven against all the gods.

God is angry at the atrocities that are being revealed from heaven against all the gods.

God is angry at the atrocities that are being revealed from heaven against all the gods.

He's also angry at the atrocities that are being revealed from heaven against all the gods.

God is not just angry with Hitler. He's also angry with me. With all of us. But there's a deeper reason behind all this wickedness as to why God is angry.

And it's unpacked for us in these following verses. First of all, we've all rejected God. Look at verse 18, the end of verse 18. It says there that we have suppressed the truth by our wickedness.

Since what may be said. Since what may be known about God is plain to us. Because God has made it plain to us.

You see, we've all been given knowledge about God. We may never have read our Bible or been given a Bible. We may never have been to church.

But the fact of God's existence surrounds us, everybody, every day. Look at verse 20.

He says,

That God exists.

I am here. In fact, when we look at the universe and see the way in which it holds together in such an orderly and harmonious way, reminds us that there is a creator.

Somebody is controlling this planet. And we're all dependent on our creator gods.

There is too much.

There is too much order for it just to be chanted.

But what have we done with this knowledge?

Well, we're told in verse 18, the end of verse 18, we have suppressed.

We have pushed down the truth about God.

We have rejected God.

We have ignored his advertising campaign and we pretend that he's not there.

Verse 21.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.

Now, I'm sure a few of you of children like us were always reminding our children to say thank you.

Say thank you.

Did you get something? Say thank you.

And not to say thank you is not just rude.

It's ignoring the person who has given you something.

It's blocking them out, isn't it, if you don't say thank you.

It's treating them as if they don't even exist.

And that's what we've done with God.

By not giving thanks to him continually for all that we have, we're rejecting him.

We're saying, I don't need you, God.

I'm quite self-sufficient.

I can live life all on my own.

We're blocking them out.

So we have rejected God.

But it's not just rejection.

The second thing is we have replaced God.

Look at verse 22.

For although we claim to be wise, we've become fools.

And exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

You see, it's not just rejecting God.

There's a second step in the process.

It's replacing God with something else altogether.

It's our way of getting rid of God.

For example, you know that I'm married to Kirsty.

Well, I hope you do.

And that we belong to each other.

Now imagine if I lived my life as if Kirsty wasn't there.

Every day I was at home.

Just ignored her.

She probably thinks that anyway.

Which isn't true.

Pretends.

That I never referred to her.

Never talked to her.

It would be awful.

It would be a terrible relationship.

It would be a complete rejection of who she is.

But imagine if I went and lived with somebody else.

It's more than rejection, isn't it?

It's a completely removing and replacing Kirsty with somebody else.

It's awful.

And that's what we've done with God.

We've taken God out of the equation.

We've not just ignored him.

We've substituted him with something else.

Verse 25.

It says there that we've exchanged the truth of God for a lie.

And we have worshipped and served created things rather than our creator.

Who is forever praised.

Amen.

Now in other cultures, images and idols can be very common.

And the people to whom Paul was writing within that culture, there was lots of temples with idols and images all around them.

And if we were to go to somewhere like Thailand today, you would find all kinds of images there and statues.

Now just because we mightn't have a little carved out wooden idol in our house or some kind of shrine in our back garden where we have incense going and we put our vegetables at it and all this sort of thing, it doesn't mean to say that we don't have idols.

An idol, the Bible says, is anything that replaces God.

Listen to this from Os Guinness.

Os Guinness comes from the great dynasty of that family who created the black pint.

Some of them were brewers, others were missionaries and bankers.

He came from the line of the missionaries.

And this is what he says.

When we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing.

We worship anything.

We do not just eliminate God.

We erect God's substitutes in his place.

The biblical writers call these counterfeits idols.

An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God.

I'll read that again.

I think it's on the screen.

An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God.

All sorts of things are potential idols.

An idol can be a physical object.

It could be a property like your house.

A person.

An activity.

A role.

An institution.

A hope.

An image.

An idea.

A pleasure.

A hero.

Anything that can substitute for God.

Now can you see how we have all taken something within God's good creation and we've inflated it to function as a substitute for God.

In other words, it becomes the very centre of our lives.

And that's the only thing that we want.

And if we haven't got it, our life falls apart.

So we've not only rejected God, we have replaced God altogether.

Now the consequences of doing this are disastrous.

And that's why God is angry.

God's not just angry because he's treated as second best and he's sitting there in a bit of a huff thinking,

oh they don't love me the same as other things.

That is part of it.

But he's angry because when he is treated as second best, we destroy ourselves and each other and the world in which we live.

Now I'm not a scientist, but I know that the sun is at the centre of the universe.

All the other planets, including Earth, they all are around the sun.

Now if one of those planets decided, hmm, I'd like to be at the centre of the universe and push the sun out,

then the whole universe would collapse, it would break down.

We would either melt or we would freeze to death.

And that's exactly what happens when we replace God and put someone or something else in his place.

The whole moral order of the world breaks down.

Instead of order, we have disorder.

Instead of beauty, we find brokenness.

And because we no longer have one God at the very centre,

who we all must worship and obey,

we've all got many gods, many idols,

that we are pushing into the centre

and they're all fighting for centre stage

and the world falls apart.

Look at the downward spiral we have in these verses.

It starts off by saying that although we knew God,

verse 18, we suppress the truth.

And from there, at the end of verse 21,

it says our thinking becomes futile.

In other words, we have no category for deciding what is right or wrong any longer.

What's right for you might be right for me.

And our hearts become darkened.

That means we become desensitised to what's wrong.

We become de-human.

We don't behave the way we are meant to behave.

And if we remove God out of the scene altogether,

well then we are the ones who are left to make up all the rules about how life should be.

And we decide what is right or wrong.

And we become the moral standard.

And everybody has to do what we say.

Frederick Nietzsche

is a very famous atheist and philosopher.

And he wrote what was one of his most famous well-known works.

It was called God is Dead.

The main obstacle in life, he claimed,

was that the person

was the person who believed in God.

Those kind of people shouldn't be.

Do you know who his most famous admirer was?

A man called Adolf Hitler.

From the philosophy of Nietzsche who said

God is dead,

came the living hell of places like Dachan.

Because if God is dead,

if you replace God,

you can do whatever you like.

And so it is in our lives.

Without God,

we are accountable to no one.

We can live and do as we like

because we have all made up our own gods.

And our own gods

are never ever going to get angry with us.

They are only going to approve of what we do

and tap us on the back and say,

well done, good boy, good girl.

Do whatever you like.

Verse 32.

For 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.

God is angry

because we've pushed them out.

And when we push God out,

the whole moral order

breaks down.

Then society turns in on itself.

So how,

the next question,

how is God's anger

actually expressed?

Well, remember what we said at the beginning.

God's anger is not temper-like.

He doesn't lose his cool.

It is his controlled,

personal hostility to evil

and his active involvement

to punish sin.

Now, three times in this passage

we're told how we have behaved

and three times we are told

how God responds.

So what have we done?

Verse 23.

We're told that we have exchanged

the glory of the immortal God

for images.

We've put something else in place of God.

How does God respond?

Verse 24.

Therefore,

God gave them over

in the sinful hearts

of their,

gave them over

in their sinful desires

of their hearts.

What have we done?

Verse 25.

We've exchanged the truth of God

for a lie.

And we serve other things

instead of God.

How does God respond?

Verse 26.

Because of this,

God gave them over

to shameful lusts.

lusts.

Third,

what have we done?

Verse 28.

Furthermore,

since we did not think

it worthwhile

to retain the knowledge

of God,

how does he respond?

He gave them over

to a depraved mind

to do what they ought

not to do.

Now,

this act

of giving over,

it's repeated

three times

in those verses,

is God's act

of judgment

against our sin.

You see,

in a perfect world,

God is at the very

centre.

And God,

and our desire

is for God

and we want to

worship God

and obey God.

But when we

replace God,

we have desires

for other things

and other people

and we worship

and we serve

something else.

So when we

reject God,

he gives us

over

to those desires.

He lets

those desires

control us

and consume us.

He takes away

his hand of restraint

and he purposefully

allows those desires

to destroy us

and to break us.

It's as if God

is saying,

if this is how

you want to live,

if you want to live

in a world

where you don't have me

and you want to be

your own boss,

I'm not just going

to let you do it.

I'm going to give

you over to it.

I'm going to push

you into that

kind of lifestyle.

It's not just

cause and effect

whereby we do

something wrong

and this happens.

It's an act of

involvement on God's

part.

He says,

I give you over

to it.

And we see this

being worked out

in three ways.

Now I had great

difficulty working

through this

because it's very

hard.

But I want you

just to stay

with me on this

and to follow

right to the end

of this section

to see how it

all fits together.

There's three ways

in which God

gives us over

to these over

desires in our

lives that cause

all kinds of

problems.

Firstly,

sexual impurity.

Verse 24.

It says there,

therefore God

gave them over

in their sinful

hearts,

sinful desires

of their hearts,

to sexual impurity

for the degrading

of their bodies

with one another.

Now for whatever

people may say,

a string of

one-night stands

and affairs,

indulging in

pornography,

demanding sex

from your wife,

is not a sign

of sexual freedom,

it's a sign

of God's anger.

Doing what you

want with who

you want,

well it might

bring pleasure

for a moment,

but it ultimately

destroys us

and breaks us.

It's hurtful.

It kills trust

between people

and it degrades

people.

It's God's

act of judgment

against us.

It's not freedom.

It's a judgment.

Second,

we see it

expressed in

shameful lusts.

That's the phrase

in verse 26.

Let's read that.

Because of this,

God gave them

over to shameful

lusts.

Even their women

exchanged natural

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

indecent acts

with other men.

Now,

same-sex

relationships,

and we hear a lot

about this in the

news and in the

media,

are not a sign

that we have

finally grown up

and matured

as a nation.

It is a sign

of God's anger.

The practice

of lesbianism,

of homosexuality,

it's not natural.

It is a denial

of what we were

created to be

and what is

actually best

for us.

It breaks

God's good order

and his design

for us.

The family unit

was to be a man

and a woman

together with

children if God

should bless

them with

children.

So living

outside of

that is not

a sign of

maturity.

It's not a

sign that we've

grown up.

It's actually a

sign of God's

judgment against

us.

That's really

hard, isn't

it?

But there's

another section.

It talks about

being given over

to a depraved

mind.

judgment.

Now before we

jump to wrong

conclusions and

think that sexual

sin is the only

way that God

displays his

judgment, look

at verse 28.

Furthermore, since

they did not think

it worthwhile to

retain the

knowledge of God,

he gave them

over to a

depraved mind to

do what not

ought to be

done.

You see, some

of us reading

through this

passage here might

be taking the

moral high

ground.

We can be

sitting here

thinking ourselves

a little bit

kind of superior

and better than

other people.

And we're kind

of thinking to

ourselves, well,

you know what,

I'm not sexually

impure.

I've never had

an affair.

I don't indulge

in pornography.

I'm not a

homosexual.

Therefore, God's

not angry with

me.

God's only angry

with those kind

of people.

You know, that

kind of lifestyle.

He's only angry

but with me.

Not me.

But look at

verse 29.

He doesn't let

anybody off the

hook.

It says,

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, boastful.

They invent

ways of doing

evil.

They disobey

their parents.

They are senseless,

faceless,

heartless,

ruthless.

Has anybody

here ever

disobeyed

their parents?

Has anybody

here ever

gossiped?

Has anybody

ever suffered

from envy?

Do you see

what he does

through this

passage?

He places

sexual impurity

alongside

gossiping.

God never

grades one

sin as more

serious than

other sins

and neither

should we.

God is angry

with us all

because whether

it's been

sexual impurity

or gossiping,

whether it's

been disobeying

our parents

or homosexuality,

he puts it

all in the

same camp.

Every kind

of moral

disorder,

every hint

of brokenness

in our lives,

it's not just

a sin.

but it's

God in his

just anger

giving us

over to

destructive

behaviour

because we

have pushed

him out.

now if we

stopped here

it would

leave us

all feeling

very down

and quite

depressed.

But as we

were reminded

last week,

this is all

about the

gospel.

And the

gospel means

good news.

Well,

where's the

good news

in all of

this?

It doesn't

sound very

good news,

it's pretty

awful stuff.

But the

good news

is that

God has

come to

rescue us

from his

anger.

This big

issue that

we've been

looking at,

this is why

the gospel

has come,

to rescue

us from

his anger,

to deliver

us from

it.

Look back

at verse

17 of

chapter 1.

It says

therefore,

in the

gospel,

in the

good news,

a righteousness

from God

is revealed.

Why?

Because,

verse 18,

and what you

should write

in there

before,

the,

is the

word for

or because.

That's the

right translation.

So read

verse 17,

for in the

gospel,

a righteousness

from God

is revealed

because,

verse 18,

the wrath

of God

is being

revealed.

The gospel

has come

to us

to rescue

us because

we are

all under

God's

anger.

And God

in his

love has

come to

do something

about us.

It's telling

us that

God has

provided a

way for

us who

have replaced

him to

be right

with him.

He comes

to deal

with the

problem of

living under

his anger.

And how

does he do

that?

Well,

let's have a

little sneak

preview.

We will get

to it in

time,

but chapter

5,

verse 8.

Chapter 5,

verse 8.

But God

demonstrates

his own

love for

us in

this.

While we

were still

sinners,

Christ

died for

us.

You see,

it's only

when we

look back

to the

cross where

Jesus died.

We have

substituted

God.

But Jesus

became the

ultimate

substitute for

us.

He replaced

us.

He took

all our

ungodliness.

He took

all our

wickedness

on himself.

So when

Jesus suffered,

when he died

on the cross,

he suffered

the full

blow of

God's

anger for

us.

On the

cross,

Jesus was

crushed beneath

the weight of

God's wrath.

And when we

look to Jesus

and we see

what happened

there,

we see God's

personal hostility

to evil and

his active

involvement to

punish sin

poured out

on Jesus.

When Jesus

died on the

cross,

he absorbed

God's

anger for

us.

And that's

the good

news.

That if we

put our

faith in

Jesus,

if we

entrust our

lives to

him,

we are

given over

into his

family.

We are

released from

his anger.

We are

treasured and

cared for as

his children.

We are

given his

spirit to

live a new

and a

different way.

We are

filled with

joy and

peace and

we are

satisfied and

fulfilled

and contented

because we

have everything

in life

from Christ.

We don't

need to go

searching for

other things

or to

replace God

because in

Christ we

have everything.

And as we

will go on

to see,

he transforms

our lives so

much that he

gives us a

new way to

live.

Where we

don't want to

live as a

depraved

person or

sexually impure.

sinful lusts or

shameful lusts.

He will

forgive it all

and he will

change our

lives around so

that we can

live a brand

new way under

his design and

under his

order.

The way he

intended life

to be.

God loves us

so much that

while we were

still sinners,

Christ died for

us.

He came to

rescue us from

his anger.

anger.

And the

truth that we

all need to

take home this

morning before

we start applying

it to anybody

else is we

all need the

gospel every

single day

because without

it we are

left open to

the awful

prospect of

God's anger.

Let's pray

together.

our father we

have been

working through

something that

has been really

hard.

It's been

difficult for us

to take in and

to try and get

our heads around

this.

And so we

keep praying that

you will help us

to work it into

our lives.

Help us to see

the seriousness of

rejecting you and

replacing you.

Help us to see

the ways in which

each day we can

replace God with

someone or

something.

Please help us to

put Christ back

at the very

centre of our

lives.

That we would

worship and

serve and obey

him and put

everything else in

its place.

And help us to

always be so

thankful for your

amazing love for

the Lord Jesus,

for his death and

dealing with God's

anger for us so

that we don't have

to face it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, we're going

to sing our

final song together.

Oh, see the dawn.

if you could turn to the chorus for me Rob

thank you very much

this is

what we've been summing up this morning

this is the power of the cross

that Christ became

sin for us

he took the blade

he bore the