God is love...and wrath

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website, morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. Let's turn to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John 4. And I believe there are two primary ways, or more than that, but two primary ways the word of God today is being twisted or distorted.

The Love of God Twisted Into a One-Sided Message

The first way is to so overemphasize what the Bible says about the love of God. It is so overemphasized. It's at the expense of everything else. 1 John chapter 4 is where you get this statement that we all know and we all love and we should love it.

What's the statement? God is love. Is that true? God is love? Of course it is. Amen. But you know, that can be twisted. I saw a church sign. Sign out front of a church. It read, God is love. Period. And all capital letters.

Well, God is love. But when you say God is love, period, you know, the word period isn't in there. They added that part. And what are they trying to say? It's twisting the scripture because God isn't just love.

He's much more than that. And I'll prove it from the same passage that they're quoted. Many do this. 1 John chapter 4, starting in verse 7, you say, pastor, you shouldn't say that other people are wrong.

Why do you got to do that? Why are you going to say that other people or other churches are? They just have, if they, I'll tell you what, I'll make a deal. If they stop teaching lies, I'll stop pointing them out.

Is that a fair deal? I think that's fair. All right, let's look at verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God for God is love.

In this, the love of God was manifested toward us. That God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Verse 10, this in this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. This is such a great passage. God is love. That's what he says in verse eight for God is love. Amen. And if God so loved us, we should so love one another.

And that's true. But there's one word in this passage that would be really easy to kind of skip over to gloss over. And what is that word in verse 10? Jesus was sent to be what? The propitiation for our sins.

Do you know what that word means? The word propitiation. Well, the Greek word, he lost mass means to appease or to satisfy. You have to ask to appease what or to appease who. So here is how people twist the Bible.

They only give one side of the story and they totally skip over and ignore the things that do not fit the narrative. Right. Because that's what ultimately they're trying to do. They're trying to kind of spin a yarn.

They're trying to create a narrative. So you're only getting this one point that they want to emphasize and they want to ignore the rest of it. Like it's not even there. They want to cherry pick parts of the Bible that they think people will like.

What's the motivation? I'll tell you the motivation because the Bible tells us to tickle ears. Titus 1 11 teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. In other words, they tell people things that are sweet and flowery.

They tell people what they want to hear so they can get their money. Yes. God is love. Amen. We believe that. But in that same passage, it also says that God sent Jesus into the world to be the propitiation for our sins.

To put it plainly, that means that Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of God. God is holy and just. Mankind is sinful and unjust because God is holy and just. He must punish sin. And he did. That's what this is all about.

So Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of God. God sent his only begotten son into the world to die as a sacrifice to make atonement or to propitiate the wrath of God against sinners. That's the gospel. But that doesn't sound quite as sweet as God is love.

Actually, it does. If you're saved, it does sound just as sweet. If you're saved and you understand what the gospel is, because that is how the love of God was demonstrated toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus suffered the wrath of God so that you wouldn't have to. That is the love of God. But you see how that some people are going to be offended at this. So here's the irony. And that same passage that says God is love.

There is also the concept of a wrathful God who needs to be appeased. Now, people just don't like this. In the middle of the 20th century, many of the historic mainline denominations told their ministers stop preaching on the blood of Christ.

That's hard. That's hard for us to kind of wrap our mind around. Can you imagine if our deacons are wonderful men? They would never say, Pastor, stop preaching on the blood of Christ. Stop preaching on the cross.

Can you imagine that? It's so hard to hard to understand. People are doing it. They're twisting the scripture. They're doing it. You wouldn't tell me that, would you? Absolutely not. Amen. Amen. But this is what many of the historic mainline denominations did.

Don't preach Christ crucified. Preach a Jesus who's interested in justice, helping the poor. And those things are fine if they're biblical. Okay, but stop preaching the cross. They also demanded hymnals be altered and all the songs about the blood of Jesus removed.

Some have even gone as far as to say that a God who needs to be appeased is more like Zeus than the God of the Bible. I heard a pastor say that. I guess he never read Isaiah 53 verse 10, which says,. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

He has put him to grief when you make his soul an offering for sin. What's the title of this morning's message? Twisting the scriptures. I honestly wish I didn't have to preach a sermon like this. But beware of men who twist the word of God.

That verse, Isaiah 53 verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Remember what Jesus said when he was praying in the garden? Not my will, but thine be done. Jesus in his humanity. He didn't want to be tortured and crucified, put to death in his humanity.

He didn't want to become a curse for sin, but he did because he wanted to follow the will of the father. So it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to grief. When you make the Lord did God, the father made Jesus's soul and offering for sin.

You understand what that's saying? It pleased God, the father to send his son to die. The offense of the gospel. We heard of this. Dr. R .C. Sproul once told of a meeting that he attended where he was invited to speak and he preached that.

And in the middle of his sermon, a man stood up in the back of the auditorium and he cried out. That is primitive and obscene. R .C. Responded and said, you're right. You're right. Not only is this primitive, if there ever was an obscenity that violates contemporary community standards, it was Jesus on the cross.

After he became the scapegoat and the father had imputed to him, every sin of every one of his people, the most intense, dense concentration of evil ever experienced on this planet was exhibited. Jesus was the ultimate obscenity.

So what happened? God is too Holy to look at sin. He could not bear to look at that concentrated monumental condensation of evil. So he averted his eyes from his son. The light of his countenance was turned off.

All blessedness was removed from his son, whom he loved. And in its place was the full measure of the divine curse. That's what Jesus did for you. God is love. That's how that's how. But for us as centers to experience God's love, his wrath had to be satisfied.

Love Reframed to Excuse Sin and Follow the Culture

My friends today, love is being used in a very different way. Love today is being used not only to downplay sin. Love is being used to promote and celebrate it. False teachers are twisting the scripture.

It's not just false teachers, though. And this is the final point that I want to make. Any one of us can be influenced by this. This is what I believe to be the biggest issue in the church today. And you know, I'm I'm sure guilty of it.

You are influenced by it. Because what people do today, people, they read, look at the scripture, interpret the scripture through the lens of the culture. For example, if you were to take something that is clean, whatever it is, a teddy bear, you got this white teddy bear.

It's clean and you go and you drop it in a mud puddle. It's going to get a little dirty, isn't it? Well, as Christians, we have been cleansed from sin. We've been sanctified. But the culture we're living in, it's like living in the middle of a cesspool.

It's hard, if not impossible for it not to rub off on us. Godlessness is so pervasive. Even so-called churches break the Ten Commandments and teach others to do so as well. It's so common. It's everywhere.

It's almost become normal and acceptable. So here's what happens, right? If you're listening, say amen. Okay, this is one of the biggest problems today. And how people read and interpret the Bible. They read what the Bible says.

And if it doesn't line up with their presuppositions. If it doesn't line up with what the culture says, people take what the Bible says and they twist it. And they reinterpret the Bible to make it fit the culture.

And in doing so, the culture becomes the standard of truth and not the word of God. It's like, well, yeah, I know the Bible says that. But that can't be. I mean, look at what everyone else is doing. So people then are presented with a choice.

You can either go with God's word and stand out. Because if you go with God's word, just across the board, you will stand out like a sore thumb. How do you be faithful in this life? What is that verse we read in the scripture reading?

And yea, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. If there isn't somebody out there who doesn't like you because of your faith or took issue because you believe something, then I mean, you do the math.

So if we simply go with God's word, we're going to stand out. That's one option. The other option is be conformed to the world. It's one. It's one or the other. Jesus said in Luke 14 verse 27. This is why Jesus said that.

He said, and whoever does not bear his cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple. So in conclusion, this is the main reason why people twist the scripture. Because they don't like what it says.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Coronet Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscoronetchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.