Consider the Severity of God
by Charles Simeon Consider the Kindness and the Severity of
God Romans 11.22 Who knows the power of your anger? Psalm 90.11
Contemplate the inconceivable weight of God's anger. Of course,
in speaking of God's anger we must divest it of all those tumultuous
feelings of human anger, and conceive of it as manifested
only in his righteous dealings towards the objects of his displeasure
and wrath. Contemplate God's wrath as it
appears in this present world. The whole world bears the evidence
of being under the displeasure of an angry God. The creation
itself, even the animal and vegetable parts, as well as the rational
parts of it, is greatly changed since it came from its Creator's
hands. On account of sin, a curse has
been inflicted on it all. Storms, and tempests, and earthquakes,
and pestilences, and diseases of every kind, and death with
its attendant pains and its horrors, are all the sad fruits of sin,
and the effects of God's anger on account of sin. But the anger
of God is yet more strikingly visibly in those particular judgments
which God has executed upon men from time to time. Behold the
plagues in Egypt, the destruction of all the Egyptian firstborn,
and of Pharaoh's whole army in the Red Sea. See the awful judgments
inflicted on Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. ponder the myriads in
the wilderness who by their lewdness, their unbelief, and their murmurings
drew down the wrath of God upon them. 1 Corinthians 10 8-10 Behold,
fire and brimstone raining down from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah,
and the cities of the plain. See the whole world, with every
living creature except those eight contained in the ark, swept
away by one universal deluge. These serve as solemn proofs
of God's indignation against sin and His determination to
punish it according to its deservings. But, after all, there is nothing
that will give us such a full display of God's anger as a view
of the Lord Jesus Christ when Jehovah's sword awoke against
Him and inflicted upon Him the penalty that was due to our sin.
Behold that spotless Lamb of God suffering in the garden through
the inconceivable agonies of His immaculate soul and His sweat
becoming like great clots of blood dropping down upon the
ground. Hear him in the depths of unspeakable
suffering, crying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? See him finally dying under the
load of his people's sins. Could we at all fathom the depth
of this mystery? We would indeed say, Who knows
the power of your anger? Let us contemplate God's wrath
as it appears in the world to come. Behold! The state of those
doleful sufferers is thus described in the Revelation of John. They
will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full
strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented
with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the
Lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night. Revelation chapter 14 verses
10-11. Alas, there are many who scoff
at the concept of God's wrath, and knowing the terrors of the
Lord, I would persuade you. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse
11. Consider whether you will think
so lightly of God's wrath when you begin to feel it. Oh, think! Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the fierceness
of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire. Nahum 1.6 Who can dwell with
everlasting burnings? Isaiah 33.14 Consider the kindness and the
severity of God, Romans 11, verse 22. Christian, compare your state
with that of those who are now lifting up their eyes in the
torments of hell, and say whether eternity itself will suffice
to express your obligations to him who has redeemed you by his
sin-atoning sufferings and death. God demonstrates his own love
for us in this. While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Romans chapter 5, 8 Jesus, who
rescues us from the coming wrath.