BYM ONLINE DESK Blessing English Emagazine Oct 2018 | Page 4

www.bymonline.org | October 2018
either natural or man-made, like the 9/11 attacks. God
allows these as a way of calling people and nations to
repentance.
Abandonment Wrath The wrath exhibited by
God when He turns His back on a person or a society,
allowing self-destruction.
Eschatological Wrath The wrath God will
unleash on all the world during the Great Tribulation.
come in vengeance (Revelation 6:12-17), with eyes
like a flame of fire (Revelation 19:12). He will come
to destroy the enemies of God (Revelation 19:11).
The presidents and kings and prime ministers of the
world will get on their knees and cry out for the rocks
and mountains to fall upon them, so great will be the
terror of the Lord (Revelation 6:15-17). The
unrighteous will stumble about like blind men, and
their blood will be poured out like dust (Zephaniah
1:17).
Eternal Wrath The ultimate punishment God
will inflict upon those who are consigned to Hell.
Abandonment Wrath
God's wrath of abandonment is what our
nation is experiencing today. Again, this type of wrath
can fall on an individual as well as a society. A
Biblical example of it in the life of an individual can
be found in the story of Samson. Although he was
mightily anointed by God to protect Israel from the
Philistines, he persisted in sexual sin to the point that
the Scriptures say that “the Lord departed from him”
(Judges 16:20). As a result, he was captured by the
Philistines and ended up committing suicide. In
Romans chapter one, the Apostle Paul strongly warns
of God's wrath of abandonment concerning nations.
He asserts that “the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness ...”
(Romans 1:18). He then proceeds to tell how God
does this when dealing with a nation that is in
rebellion against Him.
First, God steps back and lowers the hedge of
protection around the nation, allowing evil to
multiply. The result is an outbreak of sexual sin
(Romans 1:24-25). If the nation refuses to repent,
God takes a second step back and lowers the hedge
even further (Romans 1:26-27), producing a plague
of homosexuality. If the nation persists in its
rebellion, God will take a third step back and abandon
the nation to “a depraved mind” (Romans 1:28).
The Coming Wrath
God's eschatological wrath will fall on all the
world when Jesus returns (Jude 1:14-15). The
passage in Revelation which pictures the return of
Jesus says that He will return in righteousness to
“judge and wage war” (Revelation 19:11). The first
time Jesus came, He came in loving compassion with
eyes filled with tears. But when He returns, He will
The Meaning of Wrath
Does this make God a “monster”? No! On the
contrary, it proves His goodness, for how could a
good God ignore the evil of sin and allow it to go
unpunished? His wrath against evil will demonstrate
His righteousness. The prophet Nahum summed it up
best. Writing of the love of God, he said, “The Lord is
good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He
knows those who take refuge in Him” (Nahum 1:7).
But a few verses earlier Nahum had also spoken of the
holiness and wrath of God: A jealous and avenging
God is the Lord; The Lord is avenging and wrathful.
The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, And
He reserves wrath for His enemies. The Lord is slow
to anger and great in power, And the Lord will by no
means leave the guilty unpunished.
God's wrath is never motivated primarily by a
desire to punish. Rather, it is designed to bring people
to repentance so that they might be saved. Even in His
wrath, God remembers mercy. God demonstrates His
mercy in wrath by never pouring out His wrath
without warning. He tried to warn Sodom and
Gomorrah through Abraham. He warned Noah's
world through the preaching of Noah for 120 years.
He sent both Jonah and Nahum to warn the pagan city
of Nineveh. Consider too how He sent prophet after
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