Consider the SEVERITY of God!

(Charles Simeon)  LISTEN to Audio!  Download Audio

"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 visible, 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 first-born,
  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 sulfur 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 14:10-11

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 5:11

Consider whether you will think so lightly of God's wrath, when you begin to feel it?

O! think, "Who can stand before His indignation?
 And 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 11:22

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 5:8

"Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath!" 1 Thessalonians 1:10