The Jesus Christians Forget

As I share the Gospel with people, I often have lost people tell me that God will not send them to hell because God is a God of love or that He is forgiving or that He is merciful. Because of their misconceptions of who God is, I often see no urgency on their part to get right with God. Where do lost people get this idea that God is a mere benevolent granddaddy in heaven? I believe it is a result of ignorance on today’s church. We love the Jesus of the Gospels, the meek lamb that takes away the sins of the world, but there is another portrayal of our Lord and Savior that is equally as valid. In fact, to prefer one portrayal of Christ over the other is idolatry; it is creating a Jesus that makes you comfortable and rejecting the Jesus that is revealed in scripture. This portrayal I write of is found in Revelations.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (Revelations 19:11-16)

This passage describes Jesus! Look at what it says! “…he judges and makes war… Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations… He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.” This passage talks about the wrath of God that Jesus will bring on the ungodly, sinners, unbelievers, lost, and all those who have rejected the redemption found in Christ Jesus. This passage then continues to describe how Jesus will crush all the ungodly with mere words. “The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh” (19:21).

We must come to the realization that God is just at terrifying as He is loving. He is the God of wrath and the God of love. He is both, not either or. We must stop trying to lure the lost with a false impression of God’s love. We give the impression that God just throws His love around like a prostitute. What a blasphemous impression to give about our God! God’s love is best expressed in that He saved us from His own wrath by suffering His own wrath on our behalf. We need to be like Paul and tell lost people how God loved us. Paul wrote, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The love of God is available to all but will only be bestowed on those who repent and put their faith in Christ. Those who don’t will suffer the wrath of God. The Gospel message cannot only consist of merely saying God loves us; it must also consist of the terrifying wrath of God to make it not only biblical but also to make it make sense.