Why would God's Wrath be Poured out on me?
I'm not a bad person!This is a very sensitive topic for most people, even people who are already Christians. It is very hard to understand why such a loving God would want to hurt us! The fact is, God DOES NOT want ANYONE to be hurt or perish!! He LOVES ALL of us, no matter what. (This is the main reason why I do not agree with people who try to convince you that the second coming already happened OR that the Messiah has not yet come even once. I'll explain this more later.) Someone once said, "The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference." God loves us, so He cannot be indifferent to our sin...He must deal with it. He does not appreciate our indifference toward Him either! He has provided forgiveness and salvation through His son, Jesus Christ. But WE must accept it!
God created us and he loves us, but humans have rejected Him and His commandments. It is this rejection that angers God. WE are the ones who have not kept our part of the bargain! God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to help us live a happy, harmonious life with Him. He did not leave it up for us to guess! In the second book of the Bible, Exodus 20 it explains the laws God gave Moses on Mount Sinai. Remember, this was AFTER God had already delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. To accomplish this, God gave Moses the power to turn the Nile River in to blood! God also sent plagues, insects, boils and sores on people's skin, rain of fire and finally let the Angel of Death kill the first born of every family in Egypt (including the Israelites) who did NOT have lamb's blood marked over their doorways. If this kind of horrific experience would not convince you that there is One mighty, awesome, all powerful God, I don't know what would!
When the pharaoh of Egypt finally let the Hebrew slaves free, he changed his mind when they were already camped at the edge of the Red Sea. Even after seeing all God's miracles that helped them get out of Egypt and out of slavery, the Israelites were afraid when they saw pharaoh's armies bearing down on them and began whining and complaining to Moses, wishing they were back in Egypt, where at least they'd be alive! What lack of faith! But, God still helped them by sending an angel to block the Egyptian armies with a cloud and a pillar of fire so that they could not get to the Hebrews or even see them! Then, God told Moses to raise his rod over the waters of the sea and they parted, leaving a trail of DRY land for the Hebrews to walk across! Talk about awesome miracles! When the Egyptian soldiers rode across the dry sea bed on their chariots to pursue the fleeing Israelites, God caused the waters to return to their normal state and drowned the Egyptians.
Now the Hebrews were safe and sound, without fear of the Egyptians capturing them and returning them to bondage. God continued to provide for them with miracles of food and water from heaven until they finally arrived in the Land of Canaan where there were crops to eat. God provided for their every need, protected them from every danger and then it was time for Him to give them His laws so that they could start a new life and live the way God wanted them to. But, everyone knows the story...Exodus 32 tells us that when Moses did not return right away (he was on Mt. Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights) the Hebrew people went to the second man in charge, Aaron, saying that they needed him to build them a god of gold. They believed, since Moses did not return right away, that something must have happened to him and he was not going to return to them. Aaron built them an idol of gold shaped like a calf. The people began worshiping the golden calf that was made by human hands out of their own gold objects and jewelry, praising it for delivering them out of Egypt and made offerings to it and had a great feast in honor of it!!!
Within only 40 days they refused to obey God and fell back in to their sinful natures. This was AFTER they had already witnessed with their own eyes God's awesome power, miracles, blessings and even heard His voice at Mount Horeb!! God, knowing there was no way humans could always be good and were not capable of earning or deserving His gift of eternal life, gave us the greatest gift of all: His Son. I know this is confusing, but think of God as having three parts: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit. Remember, God is not human nor is He bound by our limitations. He is all powerful, all knowing and can do anything. However, even with this awesome power, He is not a mythical sort of God sitting up in heaven on His throne, just waiting for us to mess up so He can punish us!! I think this is why so many people reject God, because they mistakenly picture Him as some sort of Zeus sitting up in heaven in all his perfection, spying on us lowly humans, delighting when we sin so that he can hurl lightning bolts down to destroy us. I would not believe in a god like that either! But, believe me, this is NOT what God is like at all!
Moses himself told his people of Christ's coming. Moses explained to his people (Deuteronomy 18:15-22) that God did not want us to be afraid like they were at Mount Horeb, because of His awesome power. Instead, He would "raise up a Prophet" who was an Israeli, like Moses, who would act as His spokesperson. God even gave us a way to know if this prophet was from Him or not! The things He prophesies about must actually happen. If those things prophesied about don't happen, "it is not the Lord who has given him the message." God loved us so much so, that even though HE is perfect, He came to earth to live as a human being and experience all the human things that we do. He, as Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life, only doing good and loving others. He performed many, many miracles, including healing the sick, feeding thousands with the loaves and fishes, and even raising people from the dead!
He always keeps His promises! When Jesus was alive as a human, He told his disciples that He would be arrested and eventually crucified. At the time of His crucifixion, many mocked Him, asking Him why, if He was the Son of God, he did not have the angels come and rescue Him from death. He could have done this easily enough, but He kept His promise. Even if we can't quite comprehend it, we need to BELIEVE that He allowed himself to be born of a human mother (Mary), live a human life and then die a human death. He did this for several reasons. I believe that one of them was to experience what we do as humans. I believe another reason was so that we would not fear Him as Moses explained, but the most IMPORTANT reason was to pay the price for OUR sins! Since we could never do enough to earn this forgiveness, He GAVE it to us!
Jesus fulfilled ALL of the prophesies foretold about the Messiah. If you study the scriptures, you will not find one prophecy about the Messiah that did not pertain to Jesus! The Messiah DID come ONCE already. But, we can rest assured that He has NOT come a SECOND time, because of what God told us through Moses: things that He prophesies WILL come true! It does not say when. Jesus told us that He would come again! We will discuss this further in the sections about prophecy and signs of the end times, but I want to point out here that Jesus could NOT have come a second time in 70 A.D. as many would have you believe! Yes, the Jewish temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. as Jesus predicted, but He also promised that we who believe in Him will not have to endure the Tribulation, but will be caught up with Him in heaven BEFORE the end times. Obviously, all the horrible things included in the end times (described in detail in the book of Revelation) have NOT happened YET. There has not been a great disappearance of millions of Christians! Therefore, for that reason alone, He has NOT come a second time yet. We'll talk later about why we believe it will be SOON, but it has not happened yet.
The Bible also promises that He will not come again until ALL peoples of the world have had the chance to hear the good news, in order to decide if they want to accept His gift of salvation. Although God is angered and hurt by those millions of people who have rejected His Son, Jesus Christ, and therefore have rejected His gift of eternal life, He still does NOT want ANYONE to perish! Until recently, we did NOT have the technology to communicate with ALL peoples of the world, nor was the Bible translated in ALL languages. But, once we do hear of the good news of His awesome gift, all we have to do is accept it! It's easy to understand if you think about it. Just like any other gift, it does not belong to you just because someone offers it. It only belongs to you once you accept it. Let's imagine that you worked really hard making something by hand for someone you loved very much. You planned for it, paid for the tools and materials to make it, made it and then when you went to give it to the person, they rejected it! Wouldn't that be a horrible feeling?! If the person you offered this wonderful gift to refused to accept it and it was still in your hands, it would not be theirs, would it? You have to accept a gift to make it yours. Having it offered to you is only half the process. If you refuse to take it, it doesn't belong to you!
God planned this gift, made it possible, and Jesus already paid the price for it through His death on the cross. You don't have to do ANYTHING to earn that! All you need to do is pray: "Lord, thank you for sacrificing Your Son, Jesus, for my sins and forgiving me. I accept your wonderful gift and want Jesus to come in to my heart and help me be the person you want me to be. In Jesus' name, Amen." The gift is now yours! Now, learn all you can through God's Word, the Bible, about how to LIVE. As Jesus said himself in John 5:24, "I say unto you that anyone who listens to my message and BELIEVES in God who sent me, has eternal life, and will NEVER be damned for his sins, but has already passed out of death into life." Don't worry about the end times! By accepting God's gift of salvation, you have already conquered over death! You will NOT have to be punished for your sins! You will NOT suffer the wrath of God! You will NOT be here on earth during the Tribulation because you will be raptured (taken up to heaven) with the rest of God's Church (God's people) of believers.
In Jesus' name, Amen." The gift is now yours! Now, learn all you can through God's Word, the Bible, about how to LIVE. As Jesus said himself in John 5:24, "I say unto you that anyone who listens to my message and BELIEVES in God who sent me, has eternal life, and will NEVER be damned for his sins, but has already passed out of death into life." Don't worry about the end times! By accepting God's gift of salvation, you have already conquered over death! You will NOT have to be punished for your sins! You will NOT suffer the wrath of God! You will NOT be here on earth during the Tribulation because you will be raptured (taken up to heaven) with the rest of God's Church (God's people) of believers. Yes, our God is a just God and He will deal with sin in one of two ways: God's Wrath or God's Grace. But since He does not want any of us to perish, He sent His son, Jesus Christ to pay the price for our sins. The price has been paid in full! If you have accepted His gift of grace and salvation, you have nothing to fear, because your eternal soul can never die! You have accepted God's gift and will enjoy eternal life! This gift can NEVER be taken away from you! Once you have received Christ, He is within you forever. What's even more awesome, is that you don't have to wait to get to heaven to enjoy this gift! Heaven will be amazing, the Bible tells us, with NO TEARS, NO SICKNESS, NO HUNGER, NO HATE, and we Christians look forward to that, of course, but you can enjoy this life NOW as well! With God's help, working through you by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can overcome anything, experience peace and joy NOW. Live without sin as much as you can, learn what God wants from studying his Bible, love others and witness to them so that they can know of and accept the most awesome gift of all time! God Bless You!
If you are now a child of God, you can look forward to Jesus' soon return. If you are still not convinced, I urge you not to delay! Do not let the Lord find you napping when He comes in judgment. For while we cannot know the exact date and time of his return, the bible makes it clear that we who are part of God's Church (Hebrews 10:25) can "...see the day approaching" when God will come in judgment. With the Holy Spirit's help, we can understand the mysteries of God's word, including the season of Jesus' return. God has always provided signs before His wrath. Noah warned people for more than 100 years before the great flood destroyed the world! He wants us to know when He is about to pour out His wrath, so that as many can repent and turn to Him as possible. He wants us to know the season of His return in wrath and judgment, so He gives us signs to look for. If you got through The Messiah page, you learned about the hundreds of prophecies or signs that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ about The Messiah's first coming. It's interesting to note that there are nearly twice as many prophecies described in the Bible about His second coming. The season of His return is upon us. Please click on "The Season" below for more information.
