The Wrath of God (Do I have your attention now?)

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God's wrath . . . it's not a topic that believers talk about much, or even want to  think about.  Depending on which theology you have on the Rapture, you might think that it is not something that you will have to deal with.  Yet our passage of Scripture today forces the idea of God's wrath in front of our eyes, and should cause us to give it some thought today.

"On account of these things the wrath of God is coming."       Colossians 3:6

On account of what things?  In order to correctly dissect this verse, we have to look back at the previous verse, which says, 

"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:  sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry."

Our fleshly and earthly sins are the "these things" spoken of in today's verse. It is because of these sin that the wrath of God is coming.  His wrath will be displayed particularly in the last three and a half years of tribulation, and ultimately after the Millennial Reign of Christ on earth. At this point, the earth as we know it will be destroyed forever, and God will usher in a new heaven and earth for those who have believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ and have experienced the necessary heart conversion.

This heart conversion takes place when the believer in Christ surrenders his whole being to the Lordship of Christ.  When we surrender in this way, Christ is then able to live out His life through us by the power of the Spirit within us.  It is only by the Holy Spirit that we will be able to put to death all that is earthly in us.  It is not something that we can simply "will ourselves" to do.  It is God's work to do within us, completing what He has begun in us.  The work is simply this, to put to death every form of idolatry in us.  Every single place in our heart that elevates something other than God to the throne of our life is an idol. If you depend on it without thinking, rather than on God, it is an idol.  It you have to have it or do it (because that's just the way you are made), its an idol.  If it is repetitive and habitual sin, it is an idol.  If it is an attitude (like self-reliance and dependence, prejudice, worry, etc.), it is a sin.  It 

The Spirit's job is to topple every form of idolatry that we practice.  It matters not if it is a physical idol (like a food addiction), a financial idol (like greed), an emotional idol (like anger), or a mental idol (like worrying and fretting).  It matters not whether the people around you can see it or not; it is an idol.  

Now, back to today's verse.  It is on account of the endless idols that are worshiped on earth, by unbelievers and believers alike, that God's wrath is coming.  How very important it is then for all believers to be about the business of truly surrendering our idols to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Why should we continue in our idolatry when we are to be dead to sin and alive in Christ.  How can we continue in our idolatry knowing that our idolatrous sins are the very same sins of unbelievers.  Will we continue to sin with the same sins that will eventually bring to the earth God's full wrath?  God is clearly calling His church to clean house!

Putting Your Sin To Death --The Short List (Col. 3: 5b)

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In the first 5 verses of Colossians 3 we have learned these 5 principles:

1.  We have been raised with Christ and must now begin to seek what is above. (Col. 3:1)

2.  That means we must stop living for earthly pleasures.  (Col. 3: 2)

3.  All believers are now considered dead to themselves.  (Col. 3: 3)

4.  Christ now has the right to live His life through us.  (Col. 3: 4)

5.  All that is "earthly" in us must be put to death.   (Col. 3: 5a)

My guess is that you believe all of these statements to be true.  God has said it, so it must be true, right?  But we must take it beyond what we know to be true in theory, to the place where it is true in our response to God.  Our actions must align with the truth.  That is why He gave us the second part of Colossians 3: 5.  God gets very specific now with us.  We are to put to death what is earthly in us.  Then He gives us a specific list by which we are to examine our own lives.  Theory should become highly personal in this part of the verse as you read through this short list of sins.

"Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry."

Ouch!!!

I have to say, though, at first blush, it is so easy to read each one slowly and tell yourself that "That is not me."  But if you wait just a moment, the Holy Spirit will likely begin to convict you in one of these areas, if not all of them.  That is where my "ouch" came from. 

You see, you don't have to be sleeping around to be sexually immoral.  A inappropriate sexual thought is all it take to make you guilty of the sin.  And if you have had one of those kinds of thoughts, you are now guilty of impurity as well.

Then if you consider what things you are passionate about, you might discover with the Spirit's help that you are imbalanced in your passion, so it has become sin in your life.  If you have let that passion develop a deep root in you, then you are likely have to crossed a line without even knowing it into desire that is no longer pure, but evil.

Now, maybe you still can't relate, and the Spirit is convicting you of nothing so far.  Praise God for that!  You may be the rare one that is not guilty of the first four.  But don't break your arm patting yourself on the back just yet, for the fifth sin will convict us all.

We don't often think of coveting something as being idolatry.  We tend to think it is only wanting what someone else has, stemming from our own jealousy.  But biblically speaking, covetousness is far more than desiring someone else's stuff.  Covetousness has a much deeper root than that.  It is the act of wanting something instead of what you have.  In this case of sin, it is wanting something more than you want God.  That is why is is referred to as idolatry.  It is the sin of having something that is more important to you than God.  And if you think about it, all of the 5 sins listed could be considered idolatry.

In the course of any ordinary day there are idols in my life that choose above God.  In this, I break the first commandment of God which states I should have no other gods other than God.  I can think of several idols that are currently active in my life.   Maybe you struggle with the same thing.

No matter which of these 5 sins you commit, (and of course this is not the complete list!), Paul is telling you in Colossians 3: 5 that they are earthly, and they are to have no part of you. They are to be put to death.  They are to be mortified.  Your life and mine is hidden in the holiness of Christ, so we must put to death anything that will tarnish His holiness.  It is a command:  "Put to death what is earthly in you."

 

God Will Settle For Nothing Less

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(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 12)

"Everyone's heart is in some form of disrepair.  It is our individual responsibility to do the hard work of the Inner Court experience in order to show that we have our priorities right and that we desire to be obedient to God's call into His presence.  This pleases and glorifies God, just as when the Israeli remnant went to the mountain to gather wood for the rebuilding of the temple after they returned from their exile in Babylon.

Once we have realized our wrong priority of and disobedience in doing everything else but obeying God's command to rebuild and transform our hearts, we can finally begin to seek the Spirit so that we might be informed by Him of the gods, idols, and sins that are still in our hearts.  Ironically, it is these dark places in our hearts that reveal our most predominant affections.  They keep us from having right and godly priorities.  For example, the sin of loving to watch television, and therefore investing too much time sitting in front of it, will often be the very reason that we are not spending much time with God, or that we are not accomplishing the ministry He has given us to do.

God is a patient God.  He did not require us to 'get perfectly clean' before we could be His child.  Jesus' sacrifice was enough for us to join His family as we declared our need of and belief and trust in Him.  However, He is now patiently waiting for us to come before Him with each flesh affection that separates us from intimacy with Him.  What He has graciously and patiently let remain in us may now be the very idol or sin that He requires us to give up for Him today.   Yes, God is a patient God, but He will not be patient forever when it comes to our sin.  God would cease to be God if He continually winked at our unholy sin and love of the other gods that we have place before Him.  His desire is for our sin to be chopped out of us at  the root, leaving nothing left to grow back.  He wants to be the only God that we worship, serve, and bow down to.  He will settle for nothing less."

What are your heart affections that are keeping God in some other seat rather than first?  Have you not already spent enough time bowing at their thrones in your heart?  God is not winking at your sin; He wants these sins to be crucified in your flesh.  He wants to be your ALL IN ALL.  To crucify your flesh is  surrender.  Your sacrifice of gods allows you to walk in obedience to the one true God.  This is walking in the Spirit.  Shall we continue asking God to settle for the idolatry found in our heart and lives?

Who Do You Serve?

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 Have you noticed that I seem to use a lot of pictures of hearts?  It is not because I like them so much.  It is because my message always seems to involve the heart!  And today is no different.

You also often will read in my blog the comparison between our Christian lives today and the lives of the Israelites of the Old Testament.  That is because we are not very different in that area as well.  Today we will look at yet another glimpse of ourselves.


Israel had gone through many kings.  They had all been evil kings who followed in the ways of wickedness.  None of them walked in the commandments that God had given them to follow.  And they led their people astray--from King Rehoboam to King Hoshea.  When God had had enough of their idolatry, He set in motion His plan for Assyria to capture Israel and take them into captivity.  God's list of reasons for allowing Israel to be taken out of their country into bondage is listed in 2 Kings 17: 7-18.  It is a lengthy list, and when read carefully we can see how Israel clearly hurt the heart of God.


But God would not be content to leave His land empty.  He might remove the people, but He would never allow HIMSELF to be removed from the Promised Land.  After the land had been filled with Assyrian people, God caused the king of Assyria to send in one priest to teach them of the "god" of that land--yes, the One True God!  So one priest was allowed to move back to Bethel to teach the people now living in the land.


But here was the problem, and it is our problem today.  The people, while they had learned to fear God, also made gods of their own!  And there were many different gods represented! (2 Kings 17: 29-31)


Verse 29 says, "But every nation still made gods of its own," and verse 32 says, "They also feared the LORD."  Now what is wrong with this picture?  Their hearts were DIVIDED!

And that is precisely our problem today.  While we have believed in Jesus, been baptized, serve in our churches, bring our tithes, pray, and read our Bibles, we still follow after the other gods of our hearts.  Our hearts are just as DIVIDED!  We look to, bow down before, serve unashamedly, and make sacrifices to those things that have a greater priority in our lives.  

God is asking for your whole heart, undivided and unable to be divided from here after.  He jealously seeks it all!  When He looks into your heart today, what will He see?  Will it be your humble submission to Him in all things, or just those areas that you are willing to surrender to Him?  Will you listen and follow God to an undivided heart or will you continue to close your ears and live as you wish?  Verse 41 says, "So while these nations feared the LORD, they also served their idols; their children likewise and their grandchildren, as their fathers did, so they do to this day."


We fear the LORD, but who do we serve?

Your Divided Heart

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Solomon was not like his father David.  God looked down at David's heart and saw a man who was seeking after His heart.  While Solomon started well, in that at the beginning of his reign he humbled himself before the Lord and asked the Him to bless him with wisdom to rule over Israel, he began to walk in disobedience to the commands of God.

Solomon's sin is easily seen by comparing Deuteronomy 17: 14-20 (God's commandments for the ruling king) and I Kings 11: 1-13.  In the passage of Deuteronomy God precisely states 4 principles that His kings should follow:  Do not multiply horses (trusting in military power), do not multiply wives (looking to them instead of God), and do not greatly increase you silver and gold (trusting therefore in  their material blessing).  

Then God spoke of the desired spiritual walk of the King of Israel.  He was to write himself a copy of the entire Law (so that he might trust in the Lord and His word, hiding it in his heart).  He was to keep God's word with him, read it every day, learn to fear God from it, carefully obeying its commands.  By doing these things the king would keep his heart humble, and therefore not turn away from God and the power of His words.  (Hmmm. . .sounds like what the Spirit suggests to us as well.  But we don't have to write our copy of His word; we just have to pick up one of the many copies laying around our house!)

Solomon knew the commands of God, yet he chose to marry a foreign woman, and then marry 699 more!  Solomon chose the sin of having the love of many women over obedience to the God of his fathers.  And the result had drastic consequences on Solomon's spiritual walk.  They turned his heart away, to follow after their gods.  The heart that once sought the Lord in everything so that he could walk in the ways of God now was torn in two, divided between his wives' gods and the One True God.  Because of his sin Israel would now become a picture of Solomon's heart--it too would be divided.  God's precious land would be divided between the north and the south.  The commands of God were given; Solomon turned away from them; he lived a life of overlooking the sin in his heart; he and all of Israel suffered the consequences of his sin.  Solomon surely did not have the heart of his father.

But it is so easy to read this account and think to ourselves, "How could he have been so wickedly disobedient to God?"  The answer lies in our own divided hearts.  We, too, claim to love God, and yet our lives reveal our other "lovers."  We are just as guilty of idolatry as Solomon was.  But the gods we worship are not called Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, or Molech.  Our gods have the names of Adultery and Other Sexual Sin, Materialism, Cheating and Lying, Money, Prestige, Popularity, Gossiping, Self-sufficiency, Self-absorption, and the list is endless.  We like to believe that ours are not nearly as bad as theirs, so we continue to justify our attitudes and behaviors, our words and our thoughts, even though we know that God's commands to us in the Bible are against all of them.  

God is looking for men and women who are seeking His heart, through surrender to Him and obedience to His word.  He is looking for those whose hearts are not torn between this world and the next world.  He still desires for His children to be wholly devoted to Him as David was, not just partially devoted to Him as Solomon was.  Our hearts are in need of mending.  Our hearts are desperate for spiritual healing.  Are you willing to assess your own heart and see the gods that sit on its mantle?  Are you willing to surrender them to the Lord in a repentance that turns away from them, never to return to them?  Are you willing to follow His commands by the power of the Spirit within you?  If you are, and you take action, you are truly saying this:

"Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; UNITE MY HEART to fear Your name."  (Psalm 86:11)

 

Saying Is Not Doing

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Great acts of courage can elevate a man. Gideon humbly assumed the role of "judge" and fought for Israel's freedom. Israel wanted him to rule over them, and with great sincerity he refused, saying no man would be their ruler, only the Lord. But immediately he began acting like a king. Out of his spoils of war (that he required from each man), Gideon made an ephod for Israel to worship, and it became a snare to them.

There are many quotable quotes from Gone With the Wind, but there is one that applies here.  While this may be a more "formal" use of the language, the quote is perfect for today's blog.  Saying simply is NOT doing.

Gideon had chased an army, far larger than his own, 150 miles and defeated them, killed their kings, and secured peace, both militarily and domestically, for his nation.  When he returned to his people, they cried out for him to be their ruler.  With what appeared to be a sincerely humble heart, Gideon declared that neither he or his bloodline would be their ruler because the Lord was the only ruler that they needed.

When you read that passage in the Bible your first though, like mine, was that this is a man of great integrity.  It would be pretty difficult to turn down such a request, with all of its power, prestige, and financial blessing! My own heart was challenged as I question what my true response would have been. Yet Gideon declines.  I trusted in the true and humble integrity of a man who had been born into a family considered to be the "least in Manasseh."   And in his own family Gideon was also the "youngest in his father's house."  He seemed to know his place while at the same time knowing God's.

But something wasn't right in Gideon's heart.  His actions did not match his words!  While he refused to be become Israel's ruler, he had no problem asking each of his soldiers to give him part of their spoils.  Though they might have offered it to him because he had led them well, to ask for what was theirs revealed a heart that elevated itself above others.  What he received from them was more than 50 pounds of gold, making his "take" far greater than theirs. 

Not only did he require what was not his, adding it to his own portion, Gideon also took the exquisite ornaments and purple robes of the two Midianite kings and the neck bands of the camels of the Midianite army.  Then Gideon made an ephod out of the metals and set it up in his city.  The people were so enamored with it that they came and worshiped before it.  Gideon, the great judge of Israel, introduced another form of idolatry to God's people.  Gideon had led the army well in defeat of their physical enemies, but he led his people astray to worship the enemy of their heart!

Gideon's success as a leader brought out the "god" of his heart.  Success corrupted him to the level that he was able to convince Israel by his words of his sincerity of heart, when all along his heart was stained with pride, self-interest, self-elevation, and idolatry.

Integrity is heart- defining.  It can't be faked for very long.  What you say must be followed up with actions that are in line with your words.  Saying is not doing.  Integrity is the character trait of aligning your words with your actions. Do your actions match the words that you speak?  Can you be described by your actions as "full of integrity?"  Are you winning the spiritual battle in your heart?  Or are you just saying that you are?  Remember. . . saying is not doing!