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The Wrath of Almighty God: (Jonathan Edwards on God's Judgment Against Sinners) (Great Awakening Writings (1725-1760))

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Edwards is the greatest mind America has every produced and his stuning logic, acumen, and biblical knowledge are on display here. Edwards, unforetunatly, is only known today for hellfire and brimstone sermons. This is unfortunate because this does not represent the totality of what he talked about. His 'hellfire' sermons are in here. Unfortunately for humanity, he was correct. If you do not understand God's holiness and justice, these sermons will seem cruel and sadistic to you. (I would suggest you read R.C. Sproul's Holiness of God.) However, if you are willing to be challenged with the extent of your own sin, read on. Jonathan Edwards is a giant among men. I wish we could have another like him for today.

This book is not for those who want a light read. Edwards doesn't write like that. Bring your thinking cap. You must also remember he was speaking and writing in the 1700's. The style of the prose reflects that. But his genious still comes through. I thank God for Edwards and I highly recommend this book.

Time and time again the grace of the Lord is often misrepresented and prostituted by "grievous wolves" in sheep's clothing. The world is never at a shortage to promote it's universalists with their humanistic agendas. God's infinite,perfect love requires perfect justice that can only be disseminated by a God whom "trieth the reigns of the heart". Religious men will attempt to explain away the wrath of God because they know not of the infinite holiness of God. These men will often cite passages out of context to promote a utilitarian Jesus whose sole agenda is to meet our "felt-needs".

So only the God of the Old Testament was angry, huh? God no longer unleashes Justice from His Sovereign throne? Yes, the Lord(Christ Jesus) has appeased the just demands of a Holy God...but what of the nonsubmissive, God-hating, rebels on this planet who hold Christ and His atoning sacrifice at the cross in contempt?
Heb:10:27: But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
Heb:10:28: He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
Heb:10:29: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
Heb:10:30: For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
Heb:10:31: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Wow!! Those verses alone don't gel w/ today's mushy-mushy, Krispy Kreme Christianity. Irregardless of modern day evangelicalism...God is still angry with the wicked,unrepentent sinner(Psa 7:11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry [with the wicked] every day).

Moreover, there are numerous of New Testament verses that speak of God's wrath...Here are some more for the naysayer;
John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him
Hmmm? I think we will ignore this passage...doesn't fit the universalists' "Jesus saved us all whether we know it or not" rhetoric. Maybe Christ didn't mean what He said?Moving on...

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

"all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" Well ain't that a pickle! The Universalist should be jumping for joy by now...the word "all" in this verse means universally all!

Ephesians 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Are we still in the New Testament Dr.? Do you notice the "Let no man deceive you with vain words..."Irregardless of contemporary religious trends the wrath of God is still being handed out.
Revelation 14:1o
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:


Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever
Pretty vivid imagery from the Holy Writ-If God had done away with wrath altogether why is he yet dispensing judgement in the new testament?

Rev. 14:19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast [it] into the great winepress of the wrath of God.


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Rev 15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.


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Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.


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Rev 16:1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

It is superfluous for me to continue any further... This short list of verses from the Bible are just a few examples(and warnings) for liberal theologians and "itchy-eared" masses who hearken not to the admonishing of the Lord. God is Love but He is also a God of justice. And for the smooth talking preacher that makes Christ nothing more than a modern day hippie...Heed the Word of the Lord;
Isa:55:6: Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Isa:55:7: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isa:55:8: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
Isa:55:9: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So what's the problem of man today in a verse or two?

2Tm:4:3: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Tm:4:4: And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

God will eact His wrath on the unrighteous for the Lord's Name's sake and the avengence of His elect's blood.

Lu:18:7: And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Lu:18:8: I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Only those who have been washed in the atoning blood of Christ and have been born again in Him will escape the wrath of God.God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but will not at all acquit the wicked because of His love.

_The Wrath of Almighty God: Jonathan Edwards on God's Judgement Against Sinners_ is a collection of fire-and-brimstone sermons and writings by early America's formost Puritan theologian. The object of these, as the title explicitly indicates, is God's Wrath. Very few books go into this uncomfortable subject the way Edwards does. "Natural Men in a Dreadful Condition," "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners," "The Final Judgement," "The Portion of the Wicked," "Wicked Men Useful in Their Destruction Only," "The Future Punishment of the Wicked," "Wrath to the Uttermost," "Concerning Endless Punishment," "The Eternity of Hell Torments" and "The End of the Wicked" make up the pantheon of sermon titles in this volume. Of these, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is by far the most well-known. The view of God expressed by Edwards (at least in this collection) is that of a God of Vengeance, who will punish the most minute sin with an eternity of Fire, Wrath and of course good old-fashioned Righteous Indignation. Consider the interpretation of the God Who speaks in Isiah 63:3, "I will tread them in Mine anger, and trample them in My fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled on My garments, and I will stain all My rainment": "It is perhaps impossible to concieve of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things: contempt, hatred, and fierceness of indignation..." _Wrath of Almighty God_ is very different from the implied threats of Hell in other branches of Christendom today. As I align myself with Eastern Orthodox theology, I find this Purtitan view to be moving away from (but NOT totally) the Orthodox doctrine of God as "philanthropos" or "Friend of Man." If you want to read a treatise on God's justice for sheer shock value, than look no further, and hopefully you will feel how insignificant human beings are in the Splendor of the Divine.

God is a good God! He isn't mad at us. He not only loves us, He likes us! He will never leave us nor forsake us, no matter how badly we miss it. His love is unconditional. His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness!

These are radical statements! They go contrary to the typical Christian teaching concerning God. Usually God is represented as stern, angry, and ready to get us for the slightest misstep. This leads to conclusions and attitudes about God that hinder an intimate relationship with Him.

There are reasons for the Lord being represented harshly. In the Old Testament, the Lord vented His anger and judgment often and in devastating ways. There was Noah's flood; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; a death angel killed all the first born of Egypt in one night; an angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night; and on and on the list goes. There is no doubt our God is a holy God who hates sin and demands justice.

But there is also the portrait of God that Jesus painted through His teachings and actions. He showed mercy on the worst of sinners. He associated with publicans and harlots. The only people to receive His harsh rebukes were religious hypocrites. And His ultimate action of dying for our sins proved beyond any doubt that He came to save, not condemn the world.

How does this fit with the Old Testament view of the harshness and severity of God? Is God schizophrenic? Does He sometimes love us and other times hate us? How can we have a healthy relationship with someone who changes His moods frequently?

These are questions that present a dilemma keeping many people at arm's length from the Lord. The vast majority of people KNOW there is a God. They just don't know how to relate to Him. They are confused because there have been confusing signals sent to them, often by the church.

A minister will say that it was the Lord who sovereignly killed a baby and in the next breath ask if anyone wants to serve this GOOD GOD. We are told that God won't answer the prayer of anyone in sin, yet we are told that we all sin. Where does that leave us?

Without a prayer!

There is a simple answer to these questions and a harmony between the wrath and mercy of God. God is not schizophrenic. There is one true nature of God clearly represented in the Word and that is LOVE! First John 4:8 says,

"...God is love."

He doesn't just love at times. Love is the nature of God! Jesus gave us the greatest representation of the true nature of God ever presented. But what about the harshness of God's judgments in the Old Testament? Many expect God's mercies when we do well, but what about when we sin?

God placed our sin on Jesus and punished Him in our place. God satisfied His own demands for justice, not by punishing us but by punishing His Son in our place. This wasn't a partial payment for our sins, conditional on our holiness being added to it. It was a total payment that leaves us with nothing to do except believe and receive or doubt and do without.

Jesus' payment for our sins forever changed our relationship with the Father. If Jesus had made His sacrifice for sins in the Old Testament, then we wouldn't have seen the wrath of God vented as recorded in the Old Testament scriptures.

Here's an example. In 2 Kings 1, Elijah called fire down from heaven and killed 102 soldiers who had come to arrest him. Jesus' disciples asked to do the same thing and cited Elijah as their example. Jesus rebuked them for even thinking about such an act, saying,

"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them..." (Lk. 9:55-56)

Jesus rebuked His disciples for trying to follow Elijah's example. This shows that if Jesus had been present on the earth in His role as Messiah, Elijah's act of judgment wouldn't have happened.

There is a difference between the way God dealt with mankind under the Old Covenant and the way He deals with mankind under the New Covenant. One of the biggest problems in the church today is a failure to understand these differences. Before the sacrifice of Jesus there was harsh judgment. It wasn't because the Lord desired to punish us. His nature has always been love. But there was a price that had to be paid for sin, and until that price was paid by Jesus, He had to do something to restrain sin.

It's similar to the way we train our children. If you wait until your child is twenty years old and can comprehend exactly what you say before you begin disciplining him, you and the child will be in big trouble. A child has to be restrained from doing wrong from a very young age. At one or two years old, a child may not understand that it is the devil tempting him to take his sibling's toys. But he can understand, "If you do that again, you are going to get a spanking." He may not comprehend the issues of heaven and hell, but when the devil tempts him with covetousness, he will say "NO!" because of the fear of a spanking.

Likewise, before the new birth, the Lord restrained the amount of sin in the earth through enforcing the strict Old Testament law by harsh judgments. This put the fear of God in men, but. . .

"...fear has torment." (1 Jn. 4:18)

Although the amount of sin may have decreased by those under the law, the sin they did commit became more exceedingly sinful and damaging to their lives through the law (Rom. 7:8-13). Therefore, the law wasn't God's best, or first, way of dealing with sin. Prior to the time God gave the law through Moses, God didn't impute men's sins unto them. That means He wasn't holding men's sins against them or, as the word impute literally means, God wasn't putting men's sins on their account. Romans 5:13 says,

"Until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law."

Men were sinning, and that sin was destroying their lives. God didn't want to punish them. He was willing to show them mercy, in a sense on credit, looking forward to the sacrifice of His own Son for their sins. But men began to take the lack of God's judgment as approval.

This can be clearly seen with Cain and his descendants. Cain killed his brother Abel (Gen. 4). Instead of punishment, God extended mercy toward Cain, even putting a mark on his forehead to warn others that God was protecting him. But Cain's great-great-grandson, Lamech, interpreted this as approval of Cain's murder. Lamech killed a man in self-defense and therefore felt more justified in his killing than Cain was. He said,

"If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." (Gen. 4:24)

God didn't say that. Lamech said that. Lamech was being presumptuous because of God's lack of punishment upon Cain. Therefore, mankind began to move so far away from a proper standard of holiness that if God had not intervened there wouldn't have been a virgin left from whom Jesus could've been born.

As Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 10:12,

"...but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are not wise."

This has always been the case. If one gets by with sin, others will be emboldened to commit more sin. So, before the Lord could produce the new birth where He came to live within us and guide us through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, He placed external restraints on sin that even lost people could understand. "You sin and you die." That's the way it was. Not because that's the way God really wanted it to be, but sin had to be restrained until Jesus' atoning sacrifice could be made.

God's lack of punishment on sin had also led to a total loss of a true standard of right and wrong. Men compared themselves with others so often and for so long that no one knew what God originally intended. Something had to be done.

Therefore, God gave the law, but not because it was His best. He could have given the law to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they first transgressed, but He waited 2000 years until the time of Moses. That's because the law had serious side effects of condemnation and guilt. God didn't want us to run from Him but to Him. However, sin was destroying the human race and had to have some restraint before Jesus came. That's why He gave the law.

The law wasn't God attempting to save mankind. It was God showing us that we could never measure up to His holy standard. It was to drive us away from self-righteousness and toward receiving the sacrifice of Jesus by faith. Yet, amazingly, the church has interpreted it in a completely opposite manner. Most Christians think the law is wonderful and something that we are obliged to comply with as much as possible. Not!

The law was given for two main purposes. It caused us to fear God's punishment on our sins, and therefore, to those who listened, it lessened the amount of sin in our lives, thereby diminishing Satan's in-roads. Second, it totally took away all hope of being saved by any virtue of our own. The law made everyone guilty before God with no hope of justice. We needed mercy.

Those were the main purposes of the law. It was not God's list of steps one through ten thousand of what you must do to be right with God. It was God's list of all you have done wrong, proving that you can never be right with God unless He provides another form of payment. It was not to set you free. The law was to bind and destroy you. It was a severe spanking for the whole human race to turn us from sin and self-salvation.




Luke 2:14 says,
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will TOWARD MEN."

1 John 2:2,
"And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD."

Romans 2:4,
"knowing that it is the GOODNESS of God that leads man to repentence."


Before I learned these truths, I used to say that God would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if He didn't judge America, because we are just as deserving of judgment as they were. But now that I know the truth, I say, "If God does judge America, He will have to apologize to Jesus, because Jesus satisfied God's demands of justice."