We are in the midst of a study of the Bk of Genesis & for the last few weeks have been in Genesis 3 studying the temptation of Eve. Eve, even though deceived by the serpent, makes a horrible decision & then she influences her husband, Adam, to follow her. And so in Genesis 3:6 we read 1 of the most tragic verses in all the Bible & in human history – “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”
With those 2 decisions, sin entered the human race & it was devastating in every sense & imagination of the word. We see some of the immediate results with Adam & Eve’s responses when confronted by God. We see more through the different curses God pronounced. It’s obvious self-love & “passing the buck” mentality has already kicked in. The next chapter, chapter 4, is even more shocking for the 1st 2 people born on earth – 2 brothers has as the story unfolds 1 brother murdering the other & not b/c that brother had done anything against him. You would think it would have taken longer for sin to cause things to denigrate to that level but it was like as soon as sin entered the human heart the accelerator was slammed to the floor & sin took off.
But something else happened that fateful day when Adam/Eve disobeyed that is even more unpleasant to think about. Yes, they became sinners; yes, death became part of their lives – physical & spiritual – but something else horrifying happened. And how much they understood about this I do not know b/c we are not told.
But now being sinners meant they would face the wrath of this God they had previously only known as a God of love & enjoyment & creativity & awe. So they went from a relationship of love & welcoming & delight to the certain future of facing wrath & judgment. Again, I don’t know how much they understood about all that or the promise in Genesis 3:15 of the seed of woman who would bruise the head of the serpent & what that meant in terms of escaping God’s wrath - but nevertheless, their relationship was radically changed & altered on that fateful day from what it once was b/c of sin. Also we don’t know if they ever encountered God again after He expelled them from the garden. What a lost that was.
But the same terrifying, horrifying fate now awaits every person born for in those verses in Romans you know so well we read:
• Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
• Romans 5:18a – So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men…
We’re sinners just like Adam & Eve & therefore face the same fate.
Now let me stop & reset things - I know this is Christmas Sunday & here I am talking about wrath. And you may be thinking: “Boy, sure glad I came today. Thanks Pastor for such a joyful message. Merry Christmas to you too.” I get it! But you can’t truly & fully appreciate the joyous part unless you under-stand why we are & should be joyous. I don’t want you to be joyous b/c I or anyone else have manipulated your emotions which can easily be done at Christmas time. I want your joy to have substance to it, to be a joy based on & out of truth.
So the truth I want to put before you this morning that provides the basis for our joy & celebrating is found in 1 Thessalonians 1. I know this is not the passage that comes to mind when thinking of Christmas, & if I had ask you to name the different “Christmas” passages in the Bible, I’m pretty confident 1 Thessalonians would not have been named, but to borrow from the words of announcement the angel heralded to the shepherds, this passage really does bring us “good news of great joy.”
1 Thessalonians 1:2-10: We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.
What??? Rescued from wrath??? Yes, rescued from wrath! Yes, Christmas is about the incarnation – God becoming man. What a miracle. We wrestle to try to understand the whole concept as we stand in awe of it. We also love the whole story of Jesus’ birth. But don’t get lost in a baby in a manger or even the miracle of God becoming man. Stop to ask why it happened? Why was it necessary? And the answer is - it was necessary b/c you & I were facing wrath.
You see, part the problem is we have been lured in by all the beauty of Christmas & thus have forgotten or at least have had dimmed in our understanding the necessity of Christmas. We were in grave danger. Wrath was coming on sinners but God the Father sent Jesus – who after being born as a man was crucified & then God raised Him from the dead, “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” That’s not a theme we hear much about at Christmas. Christmas in our society centers around beauty – pretty lights, decorations, picturesque snowy scenes, celebrations, dramas & plays, kids dressed up as angels, festive clothing, special delectables made in the kitchen that smell so good & taste even better, buying & receiving gifts that please. Happy songs: I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas; Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. Christmas is about beauty.
A week ago Monday after the group finished at Operation Christmas Child, our family met Michael, Kyle & Nikki in Gastonia for dinner to celebrate Jonathan & Nikki’s birthdays & our anniversary. We had some time before meeting them so we drove through McAdenville b/c they decorate the whole town & we’ve never been able to hit it right. And it was beautiful & classy. If you’ve never seen, you ought to go – it’s beautiful.
And Christmas is not just about beauty but also about giving – and not just presents to family but in much broader ways. Giving time, money, giving of one’s self to minister to someone or a family in need. And that’s good, nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things I name, but they can skew the full or deeper meaning of Christmas.
But 1 Thessalonians 1:10 calls us back to reality to remind us that Christmas is about the delivering of us “from the wrath to come” - that is the central reason for Christmas, the central reason for the incarnation from God’s perspective, not all these other things. Wrath, a holy & just wrath, was coming. And it could not be stopped or headed off. It could only be diverted – and diverted only in the sense of diverting it from 1 person to another person. But the problem was - there wasn’t a qualifying person in the entire universe to divert it to. There was no one who could pay for even their own sin much less anyone & everyone else’s. Thus God, who was the judge who was going to execute the judgment, stepped forward to receive the wrath of His own judgment.
I realize wrath is not a popular subject, although there have been some powerful sermons preached on the subject that God has used in mighty ways. But no one wants to hear about it & especially at Christmas. The subject of wrath has never been in any Christmas play I’ve ever seen.
And as we’ve noted the last 2 weeks, in the serpent’s temptation, the very 1st doctrine Satan tried to discredit was divine judgment. And it worked with Eve & thus he has continued to try to discredit the whole subject & doctrine which is why our society has such a loathing of anything associated with judgment, wrath, or hell. But the Bible speaks clearly & frequently on the subject. Let me show you some – and I don’t want to overwhelm you with a bunch of verses but at the same time I do want to overwhelm you so you get a sense of how frequently the subject is addressed.
Now I’m just going to use NT verses in speaking about God’s wrath b/c everybody knows the God of the OT was just some angry type of God but by the time Jesus came on the scene He had evolved into a much more loving, merciful & kinder God & put that whole wrath thing all behind Him. Right? But just so you see & therefore will be able to share let me show you how this is most certainly a NT theme. And I start off with 1 of the most powerful verses on the subject which interestingly is found in the same chapter as John 3:16 which emphasizes God’s love.
• John 3:36 - He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
I don’t know what those who only want to talk about Jesus & love do with verses like this! God's wrath is not some momentary whimsical emotion, it is a holy hatred, it is an act of His pure & holy will against that which is evil & unacceptable & He will destroy it. The Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, of a mighty God, of a judging wrathful God.
• Romans 1:18 - For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
• Romans 2:5 - But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
• Romans 5:9 - Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
• Romans 12:19 - Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.
• Ephesians 2:3 - Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
• Ephesians 5:6 - Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
• Revelation 6:16-17 - And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
• Revelation 14:19 - So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.
• Revelation 16:1 - Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God."
We could also look up the word “judgment” for the NT has much to say about that too:
• Matthew 10:15 - "Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” Jesus uses the same phrase twice more in the next chapter (11:22,24)
• Matthew 12:36 - "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
• John 5:24 - "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. [So what is the opposite of this? The one who does not believe in Christ does not have eternal life & comes into judgment.]
• John 5:28-29 – Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will heart His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
• 1 Corinthians 11:29 - For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
• Hebrews 10:26-27 – For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.
• 2 Peter 2:9 - then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.
• 2 Peter 3:7 - But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
There are other words on the same theme you could do a search of, but I hope you sense the force of this truth in the NT. As Leon Morris has correctly said: “The consistent Bible view is that the sin of man has incurred the wrath of God.” It is a prominent theme in the Bible as it should be b/c w/o giving our lives to Christ & trusting in Him & His sacrifice for us, we will face this wrath of God. Thus we need to be remind-ed & reminded of it as well as how we can escape it.
So in light of all these verses on wrath & judgment, should not 1 Thessalonians 1:10 be 1 of the most joy producing passages in all the Bible?
Is there any joy quite like the joy one feels when they have been genuinely rescued from great danger or death? Do you comprehend the great danger you have been rescued from if you have put your faith in Christ?
So why do we celebrate? Why are we joyous? B/c we have been rescued from the just wrath of a holy God who out of infinite love gave His Son to receive the wrath our sin demanded so that we can once again receive & experience His abounding love like He originally designed it with Adam & Eve.
So to properly & fully think about & celebrate Christmas we must keep in focus WHY this baby was born; WHY we have the events of Luke 2 & Matthew 1-2; WHY we have this story we love to tell each year. And yes, it is about love, God’s amazing love for us – but it was a costly love b/c in extending that love required a sacrifice & not just the sacrifice of an animal or even of a human, as awful as that is, but of God, the God-man. But it had to be done if the objects of God’s love were to escape wrath; if God was determined to have us in a relationship with Him.
So should you be asked what are to thankful or joyful about this Christmas, why not stun the questioner by answering, “I am so thankful & joyful b/c Jesus Christ came to save me from the wrath to come.” It just might open up an interesting conversation where God can use you to share this “good news of great joy.”
