Dead Men Walking - Part 5

We were objects of God’s wrath, doomed — “And were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (2:3). Could there be anything worse we could say about the condition of lost people? Yes and it’s so horrible everything else we have said fades into the background. “Children of wrath” not only describes people as not only worthy of divine wrath but actually subject to it. People today including most Christians think God is an easy going, good natured, grand fatherly being. The idea of a God of wrath is unthinkable. I can hear people saying "you should speak of God’s love, speak of mercy but never speak of God's wrath because no one wants to hear about it". The worldly mind does not take God’s wrath seriously because it does not take sin seriously. Both the old and new testaments say quite a but about God’s wrath, more than 600 passages deal with it. The scripture indicates that God’s wrath is consistent, controlled and judicial. God’s wrath represents the divine hostility against all that is evil. God is not a hot-head. His wrath is not arbitrary. It is a personal quality without which God could not be fully righteous. God’s wrath is not inconsistent with His love, without righteous wrath love easily degenerates into mere sentimentality. We were by nature “children of wrath”, “by nature” describes that which is innate. Unregenerate people are objects of divine wrath not only because of what they do, but because of what they are. This is Paul’s argument in Romans 5:17-19 "by the trespass of the one man (Adam) death reigned through that one man...through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners". Jesus said, “He who believes in the son has everlasting life and he who does not believe the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him” (John3:36). Paul said in Romans one, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans1:18). Until we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we are under the wrath of God. The teaching on the wrath of God is a part of the whole counsel of God, it is not a theory, it is a statement of fact. We can never understand the love of God until we understand the wrath of God. We can never understand why Christ came into the world unless we understand the wrath and judgment of God. Why did Christ die on the cross, bear our sins, shed his blood and then was buried and rose from the dead? There’s only one answer— the doctrine of the wrath of God. Why don’t people believe in Jesus? Why is it that people are not Christians? Why don’t they think about Jesus? They don’t believe because they have never seen any need of Him. They don’t see any need because they don’t believe they are sinners! They don’t know they are sinners because they don’t know about the holiness of God, the justice and the righteousness of God, they don’t know that God is the eternal judge and is going to pour out his wrath against sin. Every human being starts in the same place— a child of wrath.