Tag: kindled

Refused to obey Him and thrust Him aside

Exodus 17:1   All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Psalms 95:8     do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

Hebrews 3:8-9     do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,  where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.

Exodus 34:9    And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Deuteronomy 31:17    Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’

Acts 7:37-39    This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’  This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.  Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt,

“Is the Lord among us or not?” “Our fathers refused to obey Him, but thrust Him aside, and in their hearts, they turned to Egypt.”  The grumbling and doubting seem to be a pattern.  I don’t think it is any different now than it was back then.  Desiring, seeking, relying on, clinging to, and trusting in God is rejected at the heart, mind, and soul level.  We are not immune to this type of thinking, however, we can take these thoughts captive and cast them out as soon as they pop into our head.  We can choose not to thrust Him aside.  We can choose not to live like He does not exist.

How are we to do this?  We need to keep God’s word in our heart and mind.  We need to intentionally change our ways according to His word and how the Holy Spirit leads us.  We need to change our way of thinking about self first and desire to do whatever it is He has planned for us.  We need to change from the way we live for self and change to living for God, seeking Him, wanting to honor and obey Him.

Commit to reading His word each day.  Listen to what His word says to your heart and mind.  Talk to God often. Walk in faith, trusting Him and His precious promises.

You provoked the LORD to wrath

  Exodus 4:14  Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses

2 Samuel 6:7    And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error,

1 Kings 11:9     And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD,

1 Chronicles 21:7    But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel

Numbers 12:9     And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them

Deuteronomy 3:26     But the LORD was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the LORD said to me, ‘Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again

Deuteronomy 9:8     Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.

Psalms 78:58-60   For they provoked him to anger with their high places; they moved him to jealousy with their idols.  When God heard, he was full of wrath, and he utterly rejected Israel.

Philippians 2:21    For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

2 Timothy 4:10    For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

Proverbs 4:23    Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Anger of God.  Wrath of God.  We hear much preaching and devotionals of God’s grace, mercy, and love but do not hear that much about His anger. 

“Colin Smith” wrote an interesting devotional about this and after I read it I deleted what I wrote and shared his with you.

As peace is a truth widely loved, wrath is a truth widely loathed. Many in the history of the church has been embarrassed by God’s wrath and have wanted to revise this biblical truth.Yet, this theme of the wrath (or anger) of God toward sin and sinners is clearly and widely taught in the Bible. This truth is so interwoven with the hope of our peace with one another and with God that if we lose our grasp on the one, we lose our hope of the other.   

1. The anger of God is not like our anger.

When we speak about the wrath of God, remember that it is the wrath of God.  So everything we know about God—he is just, he is love, and he is good—needs to be poured into our understanding of his wrath.

The words “anger” and “wrath” make us think about our experience. You may have suffered because of someone who is habitually angry, loses his temper, or flies into a rage. Our anger can often be unpredictable, petty, and disproportionate.

Although these things are often true of human anger, none of them are true of the anger of God. God’s wrath is the just and measured response of his holiness toward evil.

2. God’s wrath is provoked.

The anger of God is not something that resides in him by nature; it is a response to evil. It is provoked.

The Bible says, “God is love.” That is his nature. God’s love is not provoked. He does not love us because he sees some wisdom, beauty, or goodness in us. He loves you because he loves you, and you can never get beyond that (Deuteronomy 7:7).

But God’s wrath is different, his holy response to the intrusion of evil into his world. If there was no sin in the world, there would be no wrath in God. So the Bible’s teaching about the wrath of God is different from ancient mythologies, gods who run around frustrated and fuming. God’s anger is his settled resolve that evil will not stand.

3. God is slow to anger.

Why does God allow evil to continue in the world? Why does he not wipe it out?

God holds out the offer of grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:9). People are coming to him in faith and repentance every day, and God patiently holds open the door of grace. The day of God’s wrath will come, but God is not in a hurry to bring it because then the door of grace will be closed.

4. God’s wrath is revealed now.

How does God reveal his wrath when sinners suppress the truth about him, exchange the truth for a lie, and worship created things rather than the Creator? God gives them up (Romans 1):

  • Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity (1:24).
  • For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions (1:26).
  • God gave them up to a debased mind (1:28).

One writer states, “Paul is not teaching that one day God will punish Roman civilization for its vice and decadence. On the contrary, the vice and decadence are themselves God’s punishment…Their punishment was their greed, envy, strife, deceit, violence and faithlessness.” [2] When we see the moral fabric of our culture being torn, then as Christian believers we should cry to God for mercy.

5. God’s wrath is stored up.

The whole Bible story leads to a day when God will deal with all evil fully, finally, and forever. This will be the day of wrath, when God will recompense every evil and bring to judgment every sin.

God will do this in perfect justice. The punishment for every sin will match the crime. When the judgment is done, every mouth will be stopped because everyone will know that God judged in righteousness and justice. Then God will usher in a new heaven and a new earth, which will be the home of righteousness.

6. God’s wrath is on sinners.

In John 3:36, he does not say, “The wrath of God will come on [the disobedient].” He says, “Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remainson him.” It is already there. Why is it already there? By nature, we are children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). It is the state in which we were born.

What, at the end of the day, is the greatest human problem? It is not that we are lost and need to find our way on a spiritual journey. It is not that we are wounded and need to be healed. At the core of the human problem is that we are sinners under the judgment of God, and the divine wrath hangs over us unless and until it is taken away.

How God’s Wrath Is Removed

The Bible speaks about God’s wrath being poured out at the cross: “I will soon pour out my wrath upon you, and spend my anger against you” (Ezekiel 7:8). This takes us to the heart of what happened there: The divine wrath toward sin was poured out on Jesus. He became the “propitiation” for our sins (Romans 3:25), which means that the payment for our sins was poured out on Jesus at Calvary.

Don’t ever get the idea that God loves you because Christ died for you. No, it’s the other way round. Christ died for you because God loved you! He loved you even when you were the object of his wrath! God so loved the objects of his wrath that he spent the wrath on himself at the cross.

The outpouring of God’s wrath was the greatest act of love this world has ever seen.

[Tweet “The hope for sinners is that between us and the wrath of God stands the cross of Jesus.”]

The hope for sinners is that between us and the wrath of God stands the cross of Jesus. Sin was laid on Jesus and the Divine wrath toward it was poured out, spent, and exhausted in the darkness of Calvary. And when it was done, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “It is finished!” The wrath of God that will one day be poured out on all sin was spent at the cross with regard to all who are in him.

Then Christ rose from the dead, and he stands before you today, a living Savior! He offers to you the priceless gift of peace with God. He is ready to forgive your sins and fill you with his Spirit. He is able to save you from the wrath and reconcile you to the Father. He has opened the door of heaven, and he is able to bring you in.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Denying pending judgement of God, denying the anger and day of wrath of God, and living as though there is no consequence to being complacent and neglectful to God, does not make it untrue or go away.  It just means your heart is of stone, your eyes are blind, and your ears are deaf to the holiness and righteousness of God and the ability to know of His grace, mercy and love.  Seek Him while He may be found.  Desire to have Him soften your heart, open your eyes and ears to knowledge and understanding of Him.

Don’t end up cut off from God

“ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

“But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.”

“Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’”

“Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”

Zechariah 1:6  But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, ‘As the LORD of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us.’”

Numbers 23:19   God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Ezekiel 12:25  For I am the LORD; I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed. It will no longer be delayed, but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and perform it, declares the Lord GOD.”  And the word of the LORD came to me:  “Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off.’  Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: None of my words will be delayed any longer, but the word that I speak will be performed, declares the Lord GOD.”

Daniel 9:11   All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him.  He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.

Lamentations 1:18   “The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and see my suffering; my young women and my young men have gone into captivity.

Lamentations 4:11  The LORD gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations.  The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world

Deuteronomy 28:20     “The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.

I wonder if we believe all of God’s word is truth and that what is spoken will come to pass.  We tend to lean on His grace, mercy and love but do not listen to words of warning, anger, and wrath.  God will not be mocked “what a man sows so shall he reap” False belief is no excuse.  Neglect of His word is not excuse.  Being to busy is no excuse. Romans says man is without excuse because God has made very clear to them through what He has created and what He has written on their hearts and minds.  We need to take living for Him very serious with our whole heart, mind, and soul.