What Makes God Mad?

What Makes God Mad?
John R. Petrilli

In the 1700’s God raised up a clarion voice by the name of Jonathan Edwards. Among his many distinguished theological accomplishments stands his legendary address, Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God. In that milestone sermon Edwards stated, “The reason why they [sinners] do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them … Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth: yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell.

God? MAD? An ANGRY God? Words like these wouldn’t be tolerated for one second in the non-offensive “seeker sensitive”, “God Loves You” churches of our day. What has happened to the wrath of God? As a Christian of over 33 years, I can’t recall a single sermon devoted to this important subject! Not that God is one big celestial meany with a bad attitude. Of course He’s loving. Of course He’s merciful. Of course He’s forgiving. But none of that has any clout if its not placed against the backdrop of His thrice holy character that rages against sin and ungodliness.

Face it. The contemporary church, at least here in America, has lost its sense of the justice and wrath of God. Afraid of the attendance attritions that would surely accompany such bold preaching, most sermons and sermonizers settle for a comfortable God, a weak God, an overlooking kind of benevolent Being, in short, a “pansy” sort of God. But such an incredibly short-sighted estimation of God is nothing shy of blasphemous. How would any of us like it if we were publicly portrayed week after week in church as a one-dimensional person? Why, we would quickly stand and protest that such characterizations unfairly left out a whole gamut of who we were! Yet we depict God in that very way when we choose to major on His soft, positive side, almost to the total exclusion of His hard side, His justice side, His angry side.

In his refreshingly honest song, Awesome God, the late songwriter Rich Mullins gives us a much-needed reminder of the fact that God is awesome in His righteous reign and readiness to pour out His wrath upon sin.

When He rolls up His sleeves He ain’t just puttin’ on the ritz,
Our God is an awesome God!
There’s thunder in His footsteps and lightning in His fists,
Our God is an awesome God!
And the Lord wasn’t joking when He kicked ‘em out of Eden,
It wasn’t for no reason that He shed His blood,
His return is very close and so you better be believing,
That our God is an awesome God.

In judgment and wrath He poured out on Sodom,
The mercy and grace He gave us at the cross,
I hope that we have not too quickly forgotten,
That our God is an awesome God!

These lyrics reveal the dangers of trifling with God’s holy character, never coming to grips with His hard side. I propose at least ten of the many instances in Scripture that shed much needed light on the kinds of things that stir-up of God’s anger.


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO CHOOSE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OVER HIS LOVE. Gen. 6:1-7 ; 7:17-23

“The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on earth had become, and that every inclination of his heart was only evil all the time … the Lord was grieved that he had made man … the Lord said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth … for I am grieved that I have made them.

Can you hear the absolute sadness and total disappointment in His words? He was completely heart-broken over what man had made of himself after the fall. Yet God’s perfect justice did not delay forever. Judgment time would come, and eventually did. God created us with the intention of enjoying fellowship with one another, we with Him, and He with us. That plan became seriously marred when our ancestors stumbled and fell over the devil’s cleverly laid tripwire. Because their fall was a conscious decision of their own, God judges, not just the tempter, but the man and woman as well. As we read the rapid downward spiraling of the human race into total degeneracy, it’s no wonder that God’s heart was so grieved. But His justice was also offended, and that required a cut off point to this cancer called sin, and an endpoint for those committing such heinous acts.

A few short chapters after the fall we discover how God really feels about the epidemic immorality and debauchery His creatures had fallen into. Radical surgery was require, and radical surgery it was. A flood was sent to wipe the slate clean, allowing eight righteous survivors to restart the human experiment known as mankind. Does got ever get angry? A worldwide catastrophic, species annihilating flood says He most certainly does!


GOD IS ANGERED BY THE UNREPENTANT LIFESTYLE OF THE WICKED. Psalm 7:11

“God is angry with the wicked every day.”

When we stress the comforting, “positive” traits of God to the exclusion of His “negative” traits of justice and wrath, we inadvertently shortchange Him as well as ourselves. This verse reveals that God is not only angry with unbelievers, He’s angry with them every single day that they persist in their unbelief and rejection of truth as well as His Son. Imagine what it would be like if you went totally out of your way to rescue someone, only to have them reject your help, then castigate you besides. That’s the kind of ungrateful and foolish nonsense the Lord puts up with each and every day. This doesn’t negate His love, for it’s entirely possible to simultaneously love someone yet be angry with them. We do it all the time with family members and friends. Just because we’re upset with them at the moment doesn’t mean that we stop caring about them and valuing our relationship with them. God is patient, and His patience comes into play big-time as He endures man’s sinful, self-centered folly (1 Peter 3:9), but a day of reckoning is on its way for those who persist in their unbelief (Acts 17:30-31). Does got ever get angry? His attitude of pure disgust toward the persistent sinner argues in favor of such a conclusion.


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO LOVE AND WORSHIP THE COMPETITION. 2 Kings 17:16, 18

“They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshipped Baal…so the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His presence.”

“You’re GROUNDED!” This sentence is dished out every day to young people who have repeatedly or seriously violated their parents expressed wishes and rules. This is what God said to Israel after they showed zero intentions of righting themselves spiritually. Time was up, and harsh discipline was in order. He “removed them from His presence”. Their sin angered Him so that He wanted them out of His sight. Kind of like a juvenile violator getting sent to his room, losing the privilege of contact and fellowship with the rest of the family. They had fallen prostrate before pagan false gods long enough; their practice or astral worship was over as far as God was concerned. It was clearly time for decisive action, and action they got. Does got ever get angry? The repeated deportations of His own yet idolatrous chosen people out of their homeland says He most certainly does!


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO EXECUTE THEIR OWN OFFSPRING AS AN ACT OF WORSHIP. 2 Kings 17:17

“They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire … and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.”

God had warned His people early on of the dangers of not wiping them out entirely. He told them that these idolatrous neighbors, if left to live, would someday become their downfall as they dragged them into unequally yoked marriages and the grossest forms of idolatry possible. Israel’s pagan neighbors lived up to the bad reputation God gave them, and succeeded in entrapping God’s people into the most grievous sins.

Some people today are sold out to auto racing, others to football, others to music, others to art, and others to movies. The list of preoccupations is virtually endless. In the case of Israel, they had become sold out to sin … and the sin of idolatry in particular. The height of that sinful system of worship was the moment when otherwise loving parents would agree to cast their own children to their fiery deaths.

Before we point the finger of judgment at them, we need to realize that our nation is guilty of the selfsame sin! Worshipping at the altar of convenience, well over 49 million American women (and in many cases their male counterparts) opted to destroy a living, heart-beating, brain-waving child in the womb. We dare not point the finger! We are mistaken if we interpret God’s seeming silence in the face of this moral atrocity as indifference. God saw the violently, sinfully shed blood of a single man, Abel, on the ground, and marked that act of murder as deserving His judgment. He has personally witnessed every unborn being torn to shreds, burned in saline, or decapitated by partial birth abortion. YES, He’s grieved at this, but NO! He’s not ever going to simply ignore it! According to one source child sacrifice was the one sin that d finally did in a number of ancient societies. Will America be next? Does got ever get angry? God’s burning anger unleashed upon child killers answers that with a resounding “YES!”


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO DISRESPECT AND MISUSE HIS HOUSE. John 2:12-17

“So He [Jesus] made a whip out of chords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ‘Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father’s house into a market!’ ”

Religious commercialism has been a very profitable venture for centuries. Be it the pagan religions or the Hebrew and Christian faiths, unscrupulous people have always devised ways to make an easy buck by playing to people’s religious sensitivities and legitimate though misplaced aspirations. One day after a refreshing visit with His biological family and some close associates, Jesus pulled into Jerusalem to honor and celebrate the important Jewish feast of Passover. Once inside the temple gates He was shocked by what He saw.

It was a veritable shopping mall of buying and selling. Oh yes, it was all in good taste as they were selling animals that were needed for temple sacrifices per Jewish law, but the location was all wrong and the atmosphere reeked with rank commercialism. Jesus, in a rare but often overlooked moment of anger, unleashes His righteous rage against such a defiling of the Father’s House of prayer and worship. Hastily creating a whip out of some strips of leather chord, He angrily drove both merchandise and merchandiser out of the holy courts of God. Does got ever get angry? Jesus’ behavior in ejecting economic opportunists from the temple indicates He most definitely does!


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO PLACE THEIR OWN SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS AHEAD OF PRESSING HUMAN NEED AND SUFFERING. Mark 3:1-6

“He looked at them in anger, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts.”

The stage was set. The first showdown between God and self-righteousness legalism was about to begin. The scene is that of a small town Galilean synagogue. In one corner stands Jesus, Son of God, Healer of the body as well as the soul. In the other corner, a group of self-satisfied church folk who relied on good works to get to heaven. The latter group watched and waited for the former combatant to make the strategic mistake of doing the “work” of healing on the one day that work was forbidden.

I love it. Without a moment’s hesitation, without a modicum of intimidation, with an almost seeming deliberateness, Jesus steps up to the plate and smashes a home run. He has the “audacity” to heal somebody on the Lord’s Day? Why, what nerve! But there’s a revealing phrase, an editorial pause if you will, which speaks volumes about Jesus capacity for intense emotion. “He looked at them IN ANGER.” So what’s the deal Jesus? What’s got you so riled up and uncorked? Simply that some people could be so hopelessly hard-hearted toward human suffering, and so blinded by self-righteous legalism to deny a fellow human being the relief of healing. That’s what uncorked Jesus’ anger. Instead of throwing a temple tirade, He opts to show His absolute disgust at their callousness by boldly healing the man of his disabling ambulatory disease.

Could there be time when we allow our own preconceptions to get in the way of God’s work in our life or the lives of others? Are there times when God is at work in unprecedented ways, but is hindered by our lack of faith or spiritual short-sightedness? Better take care, you may be getting God’s goat when you do this. Does got ever get angry? Jesus’ reaction to spiritual hardened and socially insensitive people delivers a verdict of Yes!


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO KNOWINGLY SQUELCH THE TRUTH ABOUT HIM. Romans 1:18-20

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”

Our culture seems to be approaching a stage of critical mass. We’re teetering on wholesale denial of Christ in nearly every sector of public life. Most public schools continue to stubbornly subscribe to and disseminate the heresy of evolution as the truth about our origin. In the face of overwhelming mounting evidence strong enough to win over non-Christian scientists, the educational establishment maintains a posture of exclusive adherence to Darwinian concepts of origins.

In spite of consistent statistical evidence that a clear majority of Americans believe in creationism, the government system continues to keep it out of the classroom (“suppressing the truth”), pursuing a policy of indoctrinating our children with twelve years of scientifically unproven and soundly refuted theory that degrades our race and denies our dignity as beings made in the image of a glorious Creator God. Christian believers don’t like this state of affairs, and so doesn’t Someone else.

Paul informs us of God’s take on people who promote systems of belief that deny Him, and it’s not a happy picture. In fact, God disapproves of this behavior so much that it earns His wrath. People suppress the truth in many ways. Some do so in a public fashion, while others are more private in their internal decision to attempt to keep God out of everything around or inside of them. Any way you square it, they are in the worst and most dangerous form of denial possible. Paul cites the testimony of the vastness and complexities of the created universe as proof positive of the Being that some insist doesn’t exist. They mostly do so because such an admission would mean that they are accountable to that Being for the things they think, say and do; and accountability to a higher power is something that the fallen human heart rebels against fervently.

In this particular case, God’s anger is unleashed in a different way, whereby He takes away their ability to distinguish right from wrong. Like the proverbial child who gets his hand burnt on the stove, they become morally crippled and are destined to commit even greater acts of indecency and profligacy. Now that’s one form of judgment I wouldn’t wish on anybody, but there it is. Does God ever get angry? His indictment of those who deny His existence and His justice meted out in the form of loss of conscience replies to the affirmative.


GOD IS ANGERED BY THOSE WHO SPIT IN THE FACE OF GRACE. 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10

“When the Master Jesus appears out of heaven in a blaze of fire with His strong angels, He’ll even up the score by settling accounts with those who gave you such a bad time. Those who refuse to know God and refuse to obey the Message will pay for what they’ve done. Eternal exile from the presence of the Master and His splendid power is their sentence.”

We all love to see right win out in the end. For evildoers to get their due, and for goodness and righteousness to carry the day. Writing to the new Christians at Thessalonica, Paul paints a highly descriptive picture of a knight in shining armor coming to rescue His friends and destroy His enemies. The Thessalonians were under the gun with long-term opposition and persecution for their faith. They needed a shot in the arm, and Paul delivers the goods in the form of encouraging words about the certain destiny of the very people who were causing them so much trouble.

The picture is one of a returning Conqueror accompanied by a cavalcade of angels on a mission of dishing out divine retribution. In fiery justice the Deliverer consumes the wicked in an instant of unleashed divine rage. The destruction is total and final. Never again will these enemies of God be around to torment and decimate His people. They’ll be gone … forever. The King James describes the motive as “vengeance”. Doesn’t sound like a very forgiving picture to me. The day of grace has passed at this point in time. It’s time for the books to be balanced and the long overdue and well-deserved punishment to get dished-out. Such a display of heavenly wrath, rather than being a discredit to God, is actually something that will glorify Him for His justice and a thing of wonder to the gladsome eyes of beaten-up believers. Does God ever get angry? The powerful execution of justice leveled by the lord Jesus at His return certainly argues a “Yes” verdict once again!


GOD IS ANGERED BY THE DEVIL AND ALL WHO CHOOSE TO FOLLOW HIS REBELLIOUS WAYS. Revelation 6:12-17 ; 14:9-10 ; 20:7-15

“The kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave, and every free man … called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him Who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’ ”

As kids we would run and hide when mom found out about some wrong we did. Hiding is not only a tacit admission of guilt, it’s an indicator of the raw fear of the punishment that’s on its way. In the days of the Tribulation Period, there will be a global admission of guilt before God, but, unfortunately, it won’t be the kind of admission n that leads to repentance (Rev. 9:20-21 ; 16:9,11). Rather, it will be a dreadful confession that is like the last words spoken by a dying criminal, a deathbed confession that they did, indeed, commit the crime.

Somehow I just can’t get my arms around this scene. Every unbeliever around the globe from every level of society shrieking aghast in fear, actually begging the inanimate mountains to crush them a swift and relatively painless death, rather than to have to endure the upcoming dispensations of intolerable wrath of an angry God. A greater display of terrifying fear and total dread the world will never have seen before and will never see aft.

At this point they’d already survived the first six of seven devastating blows known as the seal judgments. They left the planet in a war-torn state of environmental and economic disaster. Monstrous earthquakes had leveled a vast amount of earth’s cities, and even the stars in the night sky fell from their galactic locations down to the earth. Worst of all, the very real corporate death wish longed for will be denied as God supernaturally preserves their lives (Rev. 9:6). Does God ever get angry? His response to a Christ-rejecting devil-worshipping world leaves no doubt about that.


GOD’S ANGER IS ONLY AVERTED THROUGH SAVING FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. 1 Thessalonians 5:9 ; 1:9b-10

“For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him ... You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait from His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead – Jesus, Who rescues us from the coming wrath.”

Lest some may get the wrong picture, God is not enjoying all this retribution. It was never His design. He wants everyone to be right with Him and enjoy eternity in heaven. But he’s given man the capacity to choose, and choices have consequences. In this case, those consequences are permanent and irreversible. Anyone who
dies without Christ will be summarily judged then sent to hell (Hebrews 9:27). With God’s awesome wrath comes His unmerited favor. No one will be able to point their accusing finger at God charging Him with any type of failure or injustice. They will know they are guilty of rejecting the light He gave them through creation (Romans 1:20), the light of conscience (Romans 2:12-16), or the pure light of the gospel itself (2 Tim. 1:9b-10).

Every mouth of objection will be silenced as unsaved billions stand before the One Who loved them enough to be their personal Savior, but Who now, by their own choosing, sits before them as their only Judge (Romans 3:19). Does God ever get angry? Yes, but that anger is reserved for the habitually disobedient and God rejecting soul. None of us needs to be in that number, for Jesus paid the death penalty our sins call for. His death expiated the wrath of God, it absorbed that wrath, so that we can be completely forgiven and literally go “scot-free” (1 John 2:2 ; Romans 3:23-26)! Does God ever get angry? Yes, indeed. But His loving heart has made a way for us to escape that wrath, and receive grace and mercy in its stead. Come to Jesus just as you are and watch Him make you into someone entirely and refreshingly new, the person He meant you to be all along! (John 1:12 ; 2 Corinthians 5:17).