Hot Displeasure
“For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also. ”
Perhaps you've been displeased with the service of a less-than-courteous waitress. Or maybe you were just disappointed with a food you had hoped would be as tasty as the picture advertised. But have you ever felt hot displeasure? The other day, I waited for an hour outside the post office only to be told that I did not have the documents required to mail my paperwork. For as displeased, or disappointed (maybe even angry) as I was, I'm not sure if I felt hot displeasure the way God has felt.
But...I'll admit, there have been some nasty moments in my life where I have gotten really angry... very un-pastorly angry. In my worst moments, I've even broken things. That's really hard to admit, but it is even more difficult for my loved one's to see. Especially if I'm angry at one of them. If you've been around humans for any length of time, you've seen this anger, none-sensical road rage, behavior that is so far out of line that people lose jobs, lose marriages, lose their families because of the hostility. Anger can be a dreadful and dangerous sin. And as James warns us, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). So what does?
Does the anger of God bring about his righteousness?
Can we even fathom the anger of God in our comfy Christian lives so lavishly blessed with the Spirit and resurrection life we have in Jesus?
In Deuteronomy 9:19, Moses describes how he was fearful of the hot displeasure of the Lord over the sin of Israel. Hebrew gives a word picture of wrath, nostrils flaring with heavy breathing that the Lord is bearing against Israel. This weighted fury is enough to end in the extermination of the Israelites. God was ready to kill off his people in the desert, literally leave them for dead... We're led to believe that this is a real possibility, because every time any among them rose up in rebellion against God, death would shortly follow. Thousands died of disease, fire, snakes, and once, the earth even opened up and swallowed a whole rebellious family.
This is hard for us to grapple with. Especially today when the goodness of the gospel tends to make us numb to the whole reason we needed good news in the first place.
Praise God that when we were under his hot displeasure, he didn't "lose it"! As wrathful and just as he is to punish sin, he is as loving and gracious to forgive sin. But, I think it is a good spiritual practice to stare hard at the mangled, bloody, body of Jesus on the cross of Calvary and contemplate how much our sin is worth. Is it worth the brief pleasure, the self-righteous feeling, the false peace, the shallow Christianity, the numb relationship with God? Scripture says that our sin is worthy of death and eternal punishment. If payday had come before today, that is what would be written on the check:
Eternal Punishment and Death
PAY TO THE ORDER OF {your name}.
Cashed immediately upon loss of life.
Signed: Adonai Elohim
If that doesn't sober us on a daily basis, then we still flirt with the sin that would have landed us in hell. Why do we do that?
I keep an index card in my Bible where I have listed the ways of my old life (ex: Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 4:17-32: anger being one of them). Those old ways raise their heads in my life more often than I feel comfortable writing about here, but they have become a list of all that the Lord has paid for, all that was canceled on the cross of Christ. They are real sins that I still commit (hopefully less as I grow in my sanctification), but I have to repent of them and return to God's grace constantly. This is humbling and it is good for our growth in Jesus. This magnifies the grace of God and strengthens our faith in Jesus.
Do you ever feel like God is angry with you?
Have you taken time to confess your sin to the Lord?
Do you believe that Jesus has taken the hot displeasure of the Lord for your sin and taken it on himself?
Who could you talk to about this?
What could anyone really ever do to us that our hot displeasure could possibly make right?
What could a regular practice of repentance and faith look like in your life?
Together for his Kingdom,
Loren