Does God Destroy? - Questions for the Skeptic, Part 4

How is the Wrath of God Manifested?

A basic concept of this view of God's character is the principle that God will leave the sinner when His presence is not desired. They then reap the consequences of all that separation from God includes.

The skeptic should consider the formula presented below and be aware that it is used very many times in God's word to describe "the wrath of God."

1. Because of sin - man sinned in the green garden.
2. God in "wrath" - we speak of red-hot wrath.
3. Leaves the sinner - and goes back to His place in the blue sky.
4. And trouble comes. - the accepted warning color is orange.

Here are some examples of its use:

"Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods" (Deut 31:17-18)

The passage above is interesting because it mentions that the people even recognized that the troubles had come because God was not among them. It seems they recognized this principle better than do most people today.

"For the Lord will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their wooden images provoking the Lord to anger. And He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who made Israel sin." (1 Kings 14:15-16).

"And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight." (2 Kings 17:17-20)

"For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD, and turned their backs. ... Wherefore the wrath of the LORD was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes." (2 Chron 29:6,8)

"For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid and was angry." (Isa 57:17)

"For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart." (Isa 57:17) "They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city." (Jer 33:5)

You can see from the few examples above - there are many others - that, in every case, the formula is followed. God, being a gentleman, never imposes His presence where it is not desired. He just leaves and then, without His protection, the trouble comes.