ANNOUNCER: A question about God’s wrath. How should we perceive it or discern it today? Should we expect it to be direct or is it sometimes indirect? Thanks for listening. We’ll talk about it today on Grace in Focus. Grace in Focus is a radio and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We live in North Texas and our website is faithalone.org. There you can find out more about our online free seminary where you can earn an MDiv degree. We will be opening an application and registration window soon so you can be considering that. Get all the information you need from our website faithalone.org. Also don’t forget, coming soon, our national annual conference at Camp Copass in Denton, Texas. A great and beautiful venue and we’ll be teaching many subtopics on free grace theology. We have VBS for the kids, a great place, a great time, great teaching, great food. Come and join us, get registered at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right Bob, we’ve got a question from James on Romans. Let’s see, he says, I struggle in understanding God’s wrath on believers in this life. I know that an early death is an example, and he cites, Acts 5, 1 Corinthians 11:30, but this is hard for me to discern today. How else can we see God’s wrath on Christians today? 

BOB: Okay, so Romans 1:18-32 deals with God’s wrath and Paul says that God’s wrath is poured out on all who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, which certainly predominantly is unbelievers, but it doesn’t exclude believers. Later on in Romans chapter 13, Paul actually says that the government of every country is God’s instrument to exercise judgment and wrath upon people. Could you read some of those verses? What is it, 13:1-5? 

SAM: Yeah, it says, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” 

BOB: So notice wrath is mentioned twice there and the government is God’s minister to execute wrath. If you get caught by the police doing something that’s contrary to the law, which also would be contrary to God’s law, then you are suffering for what you’ve done and you are experiencing God’s wrath. And the same would be true, it seems to me, for things that don’t involve, let’s say, the police. Sometimes not just the police, but our military might be used by God to exercise His wrath, but also there can be direct judgment. 

For example, if a person is involved in immorality, they might get a sexually transmitted disease. You always have the question, well, how do you know that was a direct result from God or just coincidence that they happened to get a sexually transmitted disease when they were involved in immorality? Well, I would say either way, that’s part of God’s wrath. 

But here’s where it gets tricky, because you can have financial reversals, you can lose jobs, you can have accidents, you can get cancer, all kinds of things. And the question is, and I think this is one of the things that’s an outgrowth of James’s question. How do you know that if you have an accident, that’s because God is judging you and you’re experiencing His wrath, or that just means He’s allowing some trial in your life? What would you say Sam? Do you have some way of discerning whether this is because of some rebellion in your life or whether this is something God just allows? 

SAM: Well, my stock answers are to pray and read the Bible. So if those don’t solve it for you, I think there’s a danger in trying to attribute too many things to God that don’t need to be attributed to God. But on the other hand, you don’t want to miss if God is disciplining you and you’re just writing it all off as, I’m suffering for the Lord because that’s not a good place to be either. If God’s beating you over the head with a brick and you’re like, man, I’m just suffering for the Lord, I can’t wait for the kingdom, then I don’t know what to tell you. 

BOB: So hey, here’s I agree with you. I like your “pray.” I like your “read your Bible.” And part of the reading the Bible is, let’s say you’re reading the Bible and you didn’t realize it, but you discover that having sexual relations with a woman other than your wife is sin. And you’ve been having all kinds of turmoil at home and you’ve been having financial reversals and you’ve gotten in a car accident, everything else. I think it would be wise to say, you know what, now that I realize that’s sin and that’s something that’s displeasing to God, this may not be kawinky-dinky. I think I need to repent and hopefully these things will stop. 

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BOB: So if you’re in rebellion and something bad happens, like the prodigal son in Luke 15, he loses all his money, he’s hungry, nobody’s giving him anything. There’s a famine in the land and he concludes, I think this is because I broke fellowship with my father. I’m going to go home. That was smart approach, right? 

SAM: Yeah, the danger is being too liberal with that mindset. You have to really pray, really discern, based on Scripture, based on your prayer, maybe even advice from other believers, because the danger is you say, okay, I’ve been living in rebellion against God. I’m going to repent. I’m going to enter fellowship with Him again and then bad things keep happening to you. And then you reach a point where, some people struggle with assurance and they say, okay, I was doing something wrong. I repented, I stopped doing it, bad things are still happening to me. I must not be a Christian. I never really believed. That’s one danger. I don’t want to get there.

BOB: That’s a huge one.

SAM: Another is saying, okay, I’ve repented, but I’m still experiencing these bad things. Did I not repent enough and I’m not sorry enough for my sin? It’s dangerous because you have to remember we live in a fallen world. We live in an imperfect world with death and consequences in it. Even if you repent and ask for forgiveness and Christ gives it to you because He’s never going to withhold forgiveness from you. You still might suffer consequences for your sin even if you’re walking in fellowship with God. 

I know some good examples. We actually talked about this in a recent podcast, but I love Moses, who committed one sin against God. I mean, he’s probably sinned all throughout his life, but that one sin against God kept him from seeing the Promised Land. And it didn’t matter that he realized he was wrong, repented, asked for forgiveness. God said, no, you’re not going to see the Promised Land, you’ve sinned against Me. 

And so we have to remember within this life, there is consequence for sin that sometimes is not wiped away and we’re not spared from, but we should be looking forward to the life we’re going to live with Christ forever where there won’t be any consequence for sin anymore, because there won’t be any sin and there won’t be any death. 

BOB: Yeah, that’s a great point. Here’s an example. Let’s say someone’s in prison. They’ve got a three year prison sentence. Let’s say it’s armed robbery and they get three years or five years or whatever it is in the prison sentence. Let’s say even before they go to prison, they have confessed it. They love the Lord, everything, they’re back in fellowship with God. Well, does that mean the judge then goes, okay, Bob, no prison time for you because you’ve repented? No, the judge is going to go, I’m sorry, but there’s a mandatory minimum for this crime and the mandatory minimum is three years and you’re going to serve those three years or at least in most, if it’s state level, you’ll serve at least a third of that three years. If it’s federal, you’ll serve pretty much all of that. And it doesn’t go away because you confess or whatever. 

And the same thing might be true of, you know, let’s say you get some disease as a result of being involved in immorality. Well, there may be lifelong consequences to that disease. I’m watching on TV and there’s all these commercials for this, you know, like if you’ve got HIV, you take this drug, if you’ve got AIDS, you take this drug. And you know, it looks like those are lifelong drugs. In other words, it’s not like you get to the point where you don’t need to take them anymore. 

So certain sins are going to result in lifelong consequences, but either way, that’s all part of the wrath of God. But the wrath doesn’t keep going. In other words, the consequences may, but once we’re back in fellowship with God, He’s not angry with us. It’s just there may be some continuing consequence. 

SAM: Yeah. And it, for lifelong things like that, cancer, you know, diseases, God has the miraculous power to cure any disease, cure any cancer, but that doesn’t mean He will. And the fact that he doesn’t for certain people doesn’t mean that He loves them less. It means it’s part of His plan for their life. And so if you acknowledge your sin, you repent, you confess it. He forgives you, you’re cleansed of all unrighteousness, and you start walking with the Lord, then now you’re a believer with a disease or cancer who’s walking with the Lord. And now you’re suffering for the Lord because you know, I paid the consequence for the sin. I’m still paying it, but God loves me and He’s still going to use me. He hasn’t forsaken me. 

BOB: Two extremes to avoid. One extreme is to say any difficulty that comes in my life cannot be from God because God never judges believers. God never pours His wrath on believers. The other extreme is to say any time I stub my toe or have a, you know, a hangnail or something or any time I get a disease or I get sick, that means God is angry with me, that I’m experiencing His judgment. That’s a wrong view too. 

The correct answer is oftentimes we don’t know and then we pray about it. We search the Scriptures. And if we conclude, no, I’m walking in fellowship with God, then we just go forward. But either way, our goal is to hear the Lord Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And we will hear that if we persevere in walking in the light of God’s Word, we’re part of an ongoing fellowship that’s worshipping God and teaching God’s Word. And our aim is to continue to walk in fellowship with Him. 

Well, I hope that helps. In the meantime, let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: does God speak to us with impressions? Please join us. And in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.