This is taken from my article "The Anger of the Lord" found at: https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=category&cid=304PREACHING AGAINST SIN AND THE SINNERTowards who is Gods anger directed? It is a common misconception that God is angry with sin but He is not angry sinners. However God is angry with sin and also with sinners themselves. A man does not merely get angry with deadly poison; he gets angry with the snake from which it comes. Romans 1:18 tells us that God is against sin. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” Then Romans 2:2 tells us that God is against the sinners themselves also. “But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.” So the Lord is against sin and sinners. Zeph. 4-6 says “I will stretch out My hand against…those who have turned back from following the Lord”. The prophets would say things like “The word of the Lord is against you.” Young Jeremiah said “"The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city”. Jer 26:12. Ezekiel said “thus says the Lord God: 'Indeed I, even I, am against you” Eze 5:8. God would often send people to preach against a certain place or to preach against a certain people. Some examples: Isa 21:13, 22:1, 23:1, Jer 1:18, 22:7, 21:13, 23:2, 26:12, 36:2, 44:11, 50:31, 51:25, 51:62, Eze 4:3, 4:7, 5:8, 5:16, 5:17, 6:3, 7:3, 13:8, 13:9, 13:20, 14:8, 15:7,16:27, 21:3, 21:31, 23:22, 23:25, 25:7, 26:3, 28:22, 29:3, 29:10, 35:3, 38:3, 39:1, Am 3:1, 5:1, 6:14, Mic 1:2, 2:3, Na 2:13, 3:5, Hab 2:16, Zep 2:5, Mal 3:5, Ho 4:1. Because sinners are for ungodliness, God is against the ungodly. He is against all those who are against Him. Malachi 3:5 says “And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien because they do not fear me. Says the Lord of hosts.” God is not only against sorceries, God is against sorcerers. God is not only against adulteries, God is against adulterers. God is not only against perjury, God is against perjurers. That applies to all sin. God is not only against drunkenness, God is against drunkards. God is not only against homosexuality, God is against homosexuals. Even Peter wrote “But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." 1 Peter 3:12. Notice Peter doesn’t say “The face of the Lord is against evil” as true as that statement would be. Rather Peter wrote “The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Jesus Christ not only preached against sin, but our Master preached against sinners. Jesus did not say “Woe to hypocrisy” but He said “Woe to you… hypocrites” Matt 23:13. “And they sought to lay hands on Him, but feared the multitude, for they knew He had spoken the parable against them.” Mark 12:12. Christ also preached against cities just like the prophets of old by pronouncing their woes. “Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent” Matt 11:20. Jesus also commanded His disciples to speak against people and places. “And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them." Luke 9:5. Stephen in the book of acts not only preached against sin but also against sinners, and that is what got him killed. He said “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did our fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. Who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” Acts 7:51-53. It was 1845 when E. W. Hengstenberg wrote regarding Psalms 7:11. He wrote “The prophet takes a lesson from a coarse human similitude, in order that he might inspire terror unto the ungodly. For he speaks against stupid and hardened people, who would not apprehend the reality of a divine judgment of which he had just spoken; but they might possibly be brought to consider this by greater earnestness on the part of man.” Those today that are like Jesus and follow in His footsteps for ministry are not being treated any better then Jesus was. Acceptance by God often is accompanied by rejection by man. It is true that there are few people today that preach against sin and sinners and those who do so are certainly not on America’s most popular preachers list. David Wilkerson wrote this, “I tell you, America has become sick! You can’t tell me that God isn’t angry, that He’s simply overlooking it all. I once received a note from a well-known evangelist that read, “Don’t speak against America. Her best days are ahead. God is pleased!” No! That is exactly what the Bible says the false prophets will claim in the last days!” THE HOLY HATRED OF GODWe seem to have it all wrong today! What can the current church do with a scripture like Ps 5:5 that says “God hates all workers of iniquity” considering modern messages? We say “God hates sin but loves the sinner.” So what do you do with Ps 5:5? It certainly throws a wrench into our theological gears. Leonard Ravenhill said in an interview right before he died “the menace of many of our meetings is; we are trying to get people saved who don’t know their lost. ‘Come forward. The Lord loves you. The Lord loves you.’ The Lord hates you! Instead of a bumper stick ‘God loves you’, ‘God is angry with the wicked everyday’ (Ps 7:11) or ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell.’ (Ps 9:17)” That is what a man of God said after roughly 70 years of being in the ministry. No one can deny his experience, so there are some important truths to learn from that quote. I only wish that I could begin to explain the mysteries of God, but I cannot adequately do so. As large ships need large rivers to sail through and can not move in small rivers, the fullness of the truth of God can not be fully comprehended by our shallow minds. Let me appeal to men greater then I to help us understand. In C. H Spurgeon’s “A Treasury of David” he has a quote from William Gurnall for Ps 5:5. William Gurnall (author of Christian in Complete Armor) wrote this, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.’ For what God thinks of sin, see Deut vii. 22; Prov. vi.16; Rev. ii. 6,15; where he expresseth his detestation and hatred of it, from which hatred proceeds all those direful plagues and judgments thundered from the fiery mouth of his most holy law against it; nay, not only the work, but worker also of iniquity becomes the object of his hatred.” Spurgeon also put a quote from David Clarkson, B.D. 1621-1686, in his commentaries who said, “Those whom the Lord hates must perish. But he hates impenitent sinners, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” Now, who are so properly workers of iniquity as those who are so eager at it that they will not leave this work, though they be in danger to perish for it? Christ puts it out of doubt. The workers of iniquity must perish. Luke xiii. 27. Those whom the Lord will tear in his wrath must perish with a witness; but those whom he hates, he tears &c. Job xvi. 8. What more due to such impenitent sinners than hatred! What more proper than wrath, since they treasure up wrath? Rom ii. Will he entertain those in the bosom of love whom his soul hates? No; destruction is their portion. Prov. Xxi. 15. If all the curses of the law, all the threatening of the gospel, all the judgments in earth or in hell, will be the ruin of him, he must perish. If the Lord’s arm be strong enough to wound him dead, he must die. Psalms lxviii. 21…… Avoid all that Christ hates. If you love, approve, entertain that which is hateful to Christ, how can he love you? What is that which Christ hates? The psalmist (Psalm xlv. 7) tells us, making it one of Christ’s attributes, to hate wickedness…. as Christ hates iniquity, so the ‘workers of iniquity." You must not love them, so as to be intimate with them, delight in the company of evil doers, openly profane, scorners of godliness, obstructers of the power of it. 2 Cor. vi. 14-18. If you love so near relations to wicked men, Christ will have no relation to you. If you would have communion with Christ in sweet acts of love, you must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, or those that act them.” Sin and sinners are both opposed to the Lord. God will not only cast sin into the fires of hell, but He Himself will cast sinners into the fires of hell. The Law is opposed to criminals who commit crimes, and are not just opposed to the crimes themselves. Rev. 21:8 says “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” It does not say that “cowardice, murders, fornication, adultery, idolatry, and lies will be tossed into the lake of fire”, but cowards, murderers, fornicators, adulterers, idolaters! You must pull a plant up by the roots or it will grow back again. God goes for the root, not just the branches. Sins are the branches that spring up from the heart of the sinner. If you are outside of Christ, you are in desperate need of a heart transplant because the heart you have now is flooded with the waters of iniquity. It’s too sick to give you life. God “commands all men everywhere to repent” Act 17:30. But He is not merely asking that you give up a few bad habits. Jesus said “unless a man is born-again he will by no means see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3. In the light of the truth that God is against sin and sinners, the message of the new birth takes a new appearance. Being born-again is becoming a new person, receiving a new heart with a new mind! It’s so much more then simply straightening out your life. It’s receiving new life! It’s more then giving up sins, it’s no longer being a sinner. Because God is not only against sins but He is against sinners, we must be born again and made new creations. We must be able to say “the old has past and the new has come” or else we are still left abiding under the wrath of God. Both sins small and great can fit through the wide gates of hell. The heavy weight of even the least of your sins is enough to weigh your soul down so that you sink into hell. The unconverted must be made to know that they are not saved even if they have cleaned up their lives by getting ride of their major sins, but must know that God desires to give them knew lives all together.
