“Because there is wrath, beware lest He take you away with one blow! For a great ransom would not help you avoid it.” Job 36:18
This is one of the danger-signals which God has placed across the sinner’s pathway to Hell. At every turn of the Broad Road there are warning signs of the destruction which lies ahead. The Sunday School teacher, the prayers of godly parents, the sermons of faithful preachers, the little Gospel tract, the warnings of conscience, the innate fear of death, the declarations of Holy Writ, are so many obstacles which God places in the way of the sinner — so many barriers to the Lake of Fire.
One chief reason why God wrote the Bible was to warn the sinner of the awful consequences of sin, and to bid him to flee from the wrath to come. Our text is one of these warnings. There are many such scattered throughout the Bible. “Be sure your sin will find you out!” (Numbers 32:23) and “Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:5).
Our opening text naturally divides itself under three heads: a terrible fact, a solemn warning, and an utter impossibility.
The terrible fact is the existence of the wrath of God.
Men try to forget that there is such a thing as Divine wrath. The realization of it makes them uneasy, so they endeavor to banish all thought of it. At times they are terrified at the bare mention of God’s wrath — hence their anxiety to dismiss the subject from their minds.
Others try to believe there is no such thing as God’s wrath. They argue that God is loving and merciful, and therefore God’s anger is merely a bogeyman with which to frighten naughty children.
But how do we know that God is loving and merciful? We know because His Word says so. And the same Bible which tells of God’s mercy also speaks of His wrath. “He who believes on the Son has everlasting life; but he who believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him!” (John 3:36). “For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men!” (Romans 1:18). “Because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience!” (Ephesians 5:6). The fact is not implied. It is affirmed.
Nor is wrath a defect in God. Wrath is one of His perfections. If God did not punish evildoers, He would be a party to evil-doing. He would compromise with wickedness. He would condone sin. Even in human life we recognize this. He who loves purity yet has no anger toward corruption is morally diseased. He who pities the defenseless yet has no wrath toward the oppressor is not merciful but monstrous.
Divine wrath is divine holiness in activity. Because God is holy he hates sin, and because He hates sin His anger burns against the sinner. As it is written, “You hate all workers of iniquity!” (Psalm 5:5).
God’s wrath is not an abstract quality. It is not inactive. In Scripture it is displayed in judgment: the Flood; Sodom and Gomorrah; Egypt’s plagues and the Red Sea; Israel’s chastening and captivity. And God’s wrath against sin was publicly manifested at the Cross, when all His billows and waves passed over the head of the blessed Sin-Bearer. “Your wrath has swept over me; Your terrors have destroyed me!” (Psalm 88:15–17).
If human wrath can be awful, what shall be said of the wrath of Almighty God? Scripture speaks of God’s wrath “waxing hot” (Exodus 22:24). It declares, “Great is the wrath of the Lord” (2 Kings 22:13). It makes mention of “the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (Revelation 19:15). It refers to wrath coming upon sinners “to the uttermost” (1 Thessalonians 2:16).
Everything about God is infinite. And like all His other perfections, God’s wrath is incomparable and infinite. What power of resistance will frail creatures of the dust have for enduring the full weight of it? None. It will overwhelm. It will crush. It will be intolerable.
That is why Job’s warning matters. God’s wrath is not a rumor. It is a reality. And God’s warning is not given to satisfy curiosity, but to drive us to refuge.
Arthur W. Pink, born in Nottingham, England, in 1886, pastored churches in Colorado, California, Kentucky and South Carolina. His works are now in the public domain.
