June 18: TO STAND OR FALL

For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand? Revelation 6:17

We tend to think of wrath as an uncontrolled fit of anger, a temper tantrum, or the seething rage of someone whose personality revolves around fury. While these traits certainly describe the devil, they are exactly what the devil wants us to think about God. Our archenemy has gone to great lengths to portray our Creator and Redeemer in such a light. A study of the original word translated wrath brings the understanding of a justifiable abhorrence. It is because of our Lord’s great love that He abhors those things which harm His creatures. The wrath of the Lord is in direct proportion to the agape love that He has for us. His hatred for sin equals hatred of the terrible harm and awful separation from Him that it causes.

Though we are each still “a work in progress” there are already many acts and ideas that we may hate because of the harm they bring. Who among us does not loathe the ideas of child pornography and the sexual abuse of children? Knowing that our God hates these is all the more reason to love Him! He is accurately described as longsuffering. He has truly suffered more terribly than we know and for so long due to His patient pursuit of everyone who will allow Him to enter in and transform them. This time of divine patience must soon end, but He desires to extend the invitation of mercy and grace for as long as possible.

The solution for sin is a gracious gift from the Lord to His people. It is a solution that we can choose to cooperate with (or not). The way back to God is illustrated in the wilderness tabernacle, modeled after the heavenly sanctuary (Psalm 77:13). Following this way (John 14:6) supplies the answer to the question of who is able to stand? This question has been asked before. The prophet Malachi asked:

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderer’s soap. Malachi 3:2

The concept of standing is well developed in the Scriptures. Our God is intensely interested in our character development. Each of us, in order to be prepared for heavenly perfections, must possess a character that stands with God. The refinement and laundering that He performs not only systematically eliminates error and sin from our way of thinking, but it replaces them with thinking that is in alignment with His own. A desirable character trait is that of generosity. Our God is beyond generous to us, and He wants us to experience it for eternity. It’s interesting to think of numerous negative traits the development of generosity in a person replaces. To name just a few: hoarding, stinginess, blindness to the needs of others, etc. Another aspect of this refinement and laundering includes putting things on…

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil… Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Ephesians 6:11,13)

But a generous man devises generous things, and by generosity he shall stand. Isaiah 32:8

For further study: Exodus 3:5; 14:13; Deuteronomy 5:31; Psalm 1:5; 33:8,11; Proverbs 12:7;19:21; Jeremiah 6:16