Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. Deuteronomy 9:7
This language is used repeatedly in the Bible. The anger of God is a response to evil. It is provoked.
There is a very important difference between God’s anger and His love. The Bible says, “God is love.” That’s His nature. God’s love is not provoked. God does not love us because He sees goodness, wisdom, or beauty in us. The reason God loves us lies in His nature, not ours. But God’s wrath is different. God’s wrath is His holy response to the intrusion of evil into His world. If there was no sin in the world, there would be no wrath in God.
It has often been pointed out that the opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. What hope would we have in a world stalked by terror if God merely looked on with a weak smile, or even with a disapproving frown?
God is not passive toward sin, but He is slow to anger. “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psa. 103:8). Why does God allow evil to continue in the world? Why does He not come back now and wipe it out? “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
God holds out the offer of grace in Jesus Christ. People are coming to Him in faith and repentance every day as God patiently holds the door of grace open. The day of God’s wrath will come, but God is not in a hurry to bring it, because then the door of grace will be closed.
What would keep you from responding to God’s offer today?
