Episode 3: The Wrath of Jesus

Erika VanHaitsma: Have you ever been frightened by what you thought was the voice of God? Erin Davis has.

Erin Davis: I was eight years old. I was staying the night at one of my best childhood friend’s homes. Her name was Angie. We rolled out our sleeping bags in the basement, and as little girls tend to do, long after Angie’s parents had told us to go to bed, we were still talking and giggling and making some noise. 

All of a sudden I heard this booming voice, “Angie, this is God! Go to bed!” I froze. I was terrified. That was a long time ago, and I can still remember all of the blood draining from my face and laying there like a board. Angie kind of thought for a minute. She walked over to the air conditioning vent, and she said back, “Okay, Dad. Goodnight!” And she went back to play. 

Erika: This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Erika VanHaitsma.

Why do people love diamonds so much? One reason is this: a diamond has so many facets that it keeps reflecting light. It’s beautiful to see the waves bounce off all the sides. Compared to the wonder of Jesus, though, a diamond is nothing. But that can be a picture of the way we look at Him. The more we see of Jesus, the more depth of beauty we can discover. In this season of The Deep Well, Erin’s helping us to discover new facets of Jesus. 

Erin: Welcome back to The Deep Well. We’re looking at the other side of Jesus, the sides of Him that maybe we missed before or we glossed over. Maybe they made us uncomfortable. We’re trying to see the whole picture that Jesus reveals about Himself in His Word.

In this episode we’re going to park in Revelation 19:11–16. And though this is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, I will also confess that it reveals a side of Jesus that doesn’t fit particularly well into our post-modern world. Let’s jump in. I’m going to read Revelation 19:11–16:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Let’s break this passage down. The apostle John was given a vision, a revelation, that’s why this book is called the book of Revelations. And in this vision, among other things that he saw, he saw Jesus seated on a white horse. And instead of John calling Jesus by His name, John identified Him by His attributes. He said He was “faithful” and “true.” He called Him, “the Word of God,” which points back to what we read in John’s gospel, John 1:1. 

So, this is not Jesus as a baby in the manger. This is not Jesus on the hillside teaching the Beatitudes. This is not Jesus in the boat with His disciples or even Jesus on the cross. Those are all snapshots of Jesus that should be familiar and I would say even more comfortable than the picture of Jesus we’re going to look at in this episode. 

This is Jesus the Warrior.

Verse 11 tells us His intent. “In righteousness, He [Jesus] judges and makes war.” I want you to take every soft-edged, sepia-toned, warm, fuzzy image of Jesus that you have, and for just a moment I want you to set it aside. It’s not that those things aren’t true. Jesus did teach people on the hillside. Jesus was a baby born in a manger. But that’s not the full picture. We’re going to consider the depiction of Jesus given to us here in Revelation 19, specifically verses 12–13. 

The Bible says His eyes are like a flame of fire. John did a lot of this in Revelation. I’ve often said that John used the word “like” more than a middle-school girl. He didn’t have the language to describe what He was seeing. He was earth-bound like the rest of us. He had eyeballs like the rest of us, and he had seen creation like the rest of us. Then he has this vision, this revelation. He’s always saying, “It was like this.” In other words, “My words fall short. The best analogy or word picture I can come up with isn't exactly accurate . . .” When he looked at the eyes of Jesus in this vision, he saw something like flames of fire. 

He also told us that on His head are many diadems. You’ve probably sung the hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” It’s because Jesus is not just worthy of one crown, he’s worthy of them all. And then in verse 12, John also tells us that Jesus has this secret, sacred name. Apparently, John could see the name, but he could not interpret what it meant. 

That takes us to verse 13 where John told us that Jesus was wearing a robe dipped in blood. Blood often symbolizes the purification of sin in our Bibles. Here Jesus wasn’t necessarily on a mission of redemption. He was on a mission of judgment. 

In verse 14 John tells us he didn’t just see Jesus on His horse, Jesus was commanding a vast army. He describes it as the armies of heaven. And they were also riding white horses, and they were clothed in white robes. They were battle ready. They were prepared to strike at Jesus’ command. But my encouragement is that we don’t focus on the heavenly army too long, because John didn’t. He quickly shifted his writing, his story, the description of this vision, rightly back to Jesus where our focus belongs. 

We get to verse 15 which tells us that from Jesus’ mouth came a sharp sword. Let me ask you, have you ever seen Jesus depicted this way? Jesus is one of the most painted and sculpted figures in history. Have you stood in an art gallery and seen a painting of Jesus on a white horse with a sword for a tongue? Most homes with small children have a storybook Bible on their shelves. Have you seen a cartoon picture of Jesus with a sword coming from His mouth? Have you ever seen any art depicting Him this way? As in a blood-soaked robe with a sword for a tongue? Me neither. 

And yet, this side of Jesus is depicted in Scripture just like all the other ones that feel more familiar . . . and let’s face it, more safe. And yet, when we commit to knowing our whole Bibles, we also sign on the dotted line that we want to see Jesus as He reveals Himself fully in His Word. It’s right here in black and white! It’s hard to deny that there is a side of Jesus intent on carrying out wrath. We see it right there in the text.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

This warrior Jesus that we don’t have very many mental pictures of, He’s coming to accomplish at least two things: He’s going to strike down the nations, and rule them with a rod of iron. That reference actually points back a few chapters to Revelation 15:4 where John wrote, “All nations will come and worship him, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” And we can leapfrog from that passage in Revelation 15 all the way back to Psalm 86:9 which says, “All the nations you have made,” which is, by the way, all the nations, “shall come and worship you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.”

We could spend an entire season of The Deep Well on the future of the nations. For now, to simplify, what we need to recognize is that the presidents and prime ministers, the cabinets and congresses, all have limited power. 

I just went on a school field trip with my third-grade son. We went to the Missouri capital and we got to see the House of Representatives in session. I tend to be a girl who very much loves government. I called Judah close and was like, “Look, Buddy, these are our representatives. They’re debating a law right now. You’re getting to see it. I’ve never gotten to see it before!”

And he said, “I think maybe I'll run for office.”

And I said, “I think maybe you should.” He’s only nine. We’ll see what happens. 

But as we spent the day in the capital, it was clear to me there were many people there who felt they had a lot of power. People in fancy suits walking around with serious expressions. I’m not saying what they do doesn’t matter. It does. But Scripture tells us that it’s not term limits that are going to limit their power. There’s going to come a time when God will subject the nations of the world to His power. They’re already under his control. A day is coming, a day described here, where all leaders will be rightly aligned under the authority of, not a king, but the King of kings. 

I don’t want to spend all of our time talking about that. It’s the wrath of Jesus that I don’t want to say I want to park in, but it’s the wrath of Jesus that I think we need to spend some time with as we look at this other side of Jesus. Listen to it again:

“He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God,” Yahweh. Wrath. It’s right there. This is where that phrase, “the grapes of wrath” comes from. There’s this image of Jesus pushing down the grapes, and wrath, the juice of that, overflowing. 

Wrath is a word that doesn't feel good in our mouths, and I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. One of them is that we live in a “rights and responsibilities” culture. So, it might not seem fair. We love that phrase. “It’s not fair!” It might not seem fair for God to pour out His wrath, His fury, especially for those of us in America who feel like we have the right to a fair trial. We have the right to escape punishment that we deem cruel and unusual. But the truth is that because we are sinners, every one of us, we do deserve God’s wrath. 

What is wrath exactly? Well, it’s a holy action. We know that because God’s holy, it’s justice because God is just. And wrath is holy justice toward those actions which deserve evil punishment. I know what might be reflexing in your heart because it’s reflexing in mine. “Sure, I’m not perfect, but I don’t deserve eternal punishment!” That’s not what Scripture says. Scripture says, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 3:23). 

Wrath is a divine and holy and just reaction to evil. You know, this is one hurdle that those who claim they’re atheist or agnostic really struggle to clear. They’ll ask the question, how can a good God send people to hell? And the answer is that only a good God can, because He takes sin so seriously. 

This is probably a puny example, but a good parent does not let their child’s rebellion go unpunished. Scripture tells us that a father disciplines the child he loves. A passive parent that has no boundaries for their child is actually not doing something loving, because in so doing, their child will lose all respect for that parent and will gravitate toward those choices and patterns that are not good for them. Don’t believe me? Go interview ten people who are currently incarcerated, and most of them will tell you that they grew up in a home without boundaries, and that wasn’t good for them. 

So if you've been a follower of Jesus for a while like I have, or you’ve been a student of His Word for a while, then this concept of God’s wrath might conjure up images for you of bloated bodies floating past Noah's ark. That was wrath. It might bring up the image of Lot’s wife turning to salt for looking back as Sodom and Gomorrah were buried under heaps of fire and brimstone. Maybe you think, sure, God the Father executes wrath, or at least He did in the Old Testament, but surely not Jesus? And yet, here, right here in Revelation 19, we see our sword-tongued Savior delivering the fury of the wrath of God. What are we to do with this side of Jesus?

One realization for me as I’ve been studying for this series is that there is no good cop, bad cop in the Trinity. It’s not like the Father’s the one that does all of the punishment and Jesus is the one that wishes His Dad didn’t have to be so severe! The thing about the Trinity is God is one. The three members of the Trinity are always unified. And yes, there is a side of Jesus who will pour out wrath on those who refuse to follow Him. Wrath is not an Old Testament relic; it’s a New Testament promise. Wrath is a coming reality. 

Yes, Jesus is our Savior. When we think of Jesus, we should overflow with gratitude for our salvation. But what exactly has Jesus saved us from?

• He saved us from many things. He saved us from me-centered living, which is the key to living miserable.
• He saved us from being slaves to our own ideas of right and wrong.
• He’s given us His Holy Spirit inside as a guide and His Word.
• But He has also saved us from wrath.

Without the reality of judgment, the beauty of our salvation is lost on us. Salvation and judgment, salvation and wrath, are two sides of the same coin. When we say someone is saved, we need to remember what they’re saved from.

So while this passage does describe Jesus as this strong and bold warrior, I think we should also acknowledge that He doesn’t revel in it. Second Peter 3:9 tells us that He is patiently waiting for this moment of wrath because He wishes that no one would perish but that all would repent, and in repenting avoid His wrath. So if you are in Christ, you’re a lot like my friend Angie. She wasn’t afraid of the voice in the vent. She knew that was her dad, and he was telling a joke. If you’re in Christ, you don’t need to fear this side of Jesus. Man, that’s good news. 

I love the lyrics of the song “In Christ Alone.” You probably know it. I’m not going to sing it. The lyrics go, “’Til on that cross as Jesus died,” the what of God was satisfied? “The wrath of God was satisfied.” It’s not that the wrath of God was forgotten. It’s not that the wrath of God was just a fairy tale. No, the wrath of God was rightly directly at sin and Jesus took the wrath of God on Himself so that you wouldn’t have to as He died on the cross. The rest of that lyric goes, “For every sin,” every sin, “on him was laid. Here in the death of Christ I live.”

Consider Romans 2:5.

But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

That passage isn’t directed at us, Christians, but it is directed at those who are hard-hearted toward God. It says it right here. “Because of your hard and impenitent heart,” your unrepentant heart. Because your heart is hard toward Jesus, because you won’t admit that you have violated God’s holy law, because you won’t surrender your life to His authority. You’re doing this to yourself. You’re storing up wrath. God’s judgment will not be random, nor will it be unjust. Those who experience the wrath side of Jesus will have made their own choice by refusing to submit to the authority of the God who made them. 

You know, one thing I don’t want to ever do on The Deep Well is proof text. I don’t want to take a single passage or verse and try to use it to make a point. And I don’t have to. When we look at our whole Bibles, we see that Jesus was not afraid to talk about a subject that so many of us are afraid to talk about: hell. Now I’ve often heard it said that Jesus talked more about hell than heaven, and let me send you on your own scavenger hunt to find out if that’s true on your own. It’s not quite as lopsided as you may have been led to believe, but He did talk about hell, and He talked about it often. 

In Luke 16, for example, He told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and He described hell as this great chasm. In Matthew 25, you’ll probably remember that Jesus separated the people into two categories: the sheep and the goats. And in verse 41, he said that the [goats] will be sent to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. In Luke 16:23 Jesus described hell as a place of eternal torment. And in Mark 9:43 he described it as a place of unquenchable fire. That’s just the tip of a very large iceberg of times in Scripture that Jesus taught on the reality of hell. 

Let me ask you, when was the last time you talked about hell? When was the last time you read about hell in your Bible, or did you quickly do what I tend to do which is fast-forward through those to get to more comfortable ground? When was the last time your pastor preached on hell? When was the last time you shared the reality of hell with someone you know and love who hasn’t submitted their life to Jesus?

Though Revelation 19 describes Jesus delivering God’s wrath, the gospels are filled with Jesus describing God’s wrath. It won’t be a surprise. It won’t be because He didn’t warn us. He’s not tricking us. He has warned us that wrath is the ultimate end of those who do not surrender their lives to him.

Leonard Ravenhill told a story in the book, Why Revival Tarriesabout a man named Charlie Peace who was a criminal on death row. He was on his way to the scaffold to hang, and he met the chaplain who was sitting there, unemotional, reading, unmoved by Charlie’s fate, to which Charlie allegedly replied, “Sir, if I believe what you do and the church of God says you believe, then even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it if need be on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living just to save one soul from an eternal hell like death.” 

When we refuse to look away from this side of Jesus, we see that He will deliver His wrath on those who refuse to turn to Him. And when we see that this is real, hell is real, and real people go there, and wrath is real, and the day of wrath is coming; and when we refuse to look away from that side of Jesus, we can’t help but remember that we’re the ones who have been commissioned as hope-bearers and gospel-sharers. 

This has been kind of in my face lately, the realization that people who don’t know Christ are not just people who don’t go to church, they’re people who are going to hell. They’re people who are operating in this broken world, like we are, without any hope. They’re people who, many of them think, when I die that’s it. I become worm food. Nothing for eternity. Can you imagine? 

And it’s into that that God has commissioned us. It’s called the Great Commission because we’re co-missioned with Christ to go into all the world and tell them there’s a way; there’s a way to be saved! And it’s not as hard as you might think. It requires you to admit with your mouth that you’re a sinner and confess that Jesus is Lord. And then you don’t have to ever spend another second worrying about God’s wrath. 

Part of the reason that I haven’t spent much time thinking about hell or reading about hell is because I know I’m not going to spend one nano second there. That’s not my future. But it is the future of some people that I love very much. Apart from God’s intervention in their lives and them surrendering to His Lordship, it is the future of women that I wave to as we’re dropping our kids off at school and the person that checks out my groceries. And so, I think in adopting this attitude that I don’t have to think about it because I’ve been saved from it, I’ve become calloused to the lost. And the sword-tongued, wrath-bringing Jesus strips away those calluses. 

When we call ourselves saved, it’s good for us to remember what we’ve been saved from. We’ve been saved from the sword of war. The winepress of wrath is not for us. We get grace instead. So, what are we to do with this side of Jesus? The same thing we do with the other sides of Jesus, we worship. 

I want to wrap up this session by reading from Psalm 90:7–14. This was a psalm penned by Moses, and you’ll hear in him something we read often in the psalms, the pivot. He starts with the wrath of God, and he ends with the worship of God. And so, if this image of Jesus in Revelation 19 is a side of Jesus that grabs your heart, I’d encourage you to follow that progression. Psalm 90:7–14:

For we are brought to an end by your anger;
   by your wrath we are dismayed.
You have seen our iniquities before you,
   our secret sins in the light of your presence. 

It’s a terrifying thought to think of your sins being dragged out of the dark into the light! And Moses is acknowledging that here in these verses.

For all our days pass away under your wrath;
   we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy,
   or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
   they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger,
   and your wrath according to the fear of you?

So, [here’s the pivot] teach us to number our days
   that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O LORD! How long? 

He’s asking for this day when evil is taken care of and the righteous get to live with him. He says, “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!” And then he says,

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
   that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make it so, Lord. 

Erika: In my own study of Scripture, Erin, I have benefited from learning a lot from Jewish culture, especially Jewish teachers. They’re usually called rabbis. The rabbis have many statements that I’ve come to appreciate, but one of them is where they compare the Bible to a diamond.

Erin: Yes.

Erika: They’ll tell you that as a diamond has so many facets . . . You know, every time you pick up a diamond and turn it just a little bit and the light shines through it, the beauty is revealed in a new way. They say that’s the Word of God. Every verse you pick up and turn just a little bit, you see more truth and beauty. They say there are seventy facets to the Torah.

Erin: So beautiful. Where does the number seventy come from?

Erika: Perfection, I think. That's the number for perfection.

Erin: Very cool. That’s definitely been my experience.

Erika: Yes.

Erin: I’ve never picked up the Bible and had it look the same as it did before or not have something to reveal to me. So, I love that idea of picking up a diamond every day.

Erika: This week, Erin, you’ve been helping us see new facets to Jesus that we’ve never seen before, or maybe saw but didn’t really pay attention to previously.

Erin: I hope so.

Erika: And that’s what you’re doing in this entire series called “The Other Side of Jesus.” 

If you enjoyed hearing this kind of in-depth teaching, I hope you’ll listen to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She digs into the Bible each day to help women discover greater freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. You can hear both The Deep Well and Revive Our Hearts by downloading the Revive Our Heartsapp or visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

Erin: It’s time for my favorite part, “Erin Unscripted.” Erika, I’m so grateful you were here facilitating that conversation. Let’s listen. 

Erin Unscripted

Erika: How do you deal with someone who only sees the wrath of God in the Old Testament? How would you answer someone who says there’s nothing else in there?

Erin: Well, I don’t know that I’d start with the wrath of God. You need to start with knowing all of our Bible. Scripture tells us that all of Scripture is God-breathed and useful for instruction, and that comes from 2 Timothy. I think I would start there. 

It sounds to me like some skewed thinking on the purpose of Scripture, how Scripture came to be, more than it does about the character of God. Once you kind of set that right and make peace with that, that all of Scripture matters—that’s why we talk about it so often on The DeepWell—then you can let that friend discover it on their own and then field those questions.

I have a new believer in my Bible study right now, and she is a sponge. She has all of these questions about things that I think I just take for granted as someone who's walked with the Lord for a long time. It’s so fun to hear her say, What does that mean? What about that? I don’t understand that? That doesn’t seem right?

She said the most profound thing the other day. “My parents would always tell me when I was growing up about the patience of Job. I just read Job, and I don’t think it’s about patience.”

I said, “What do you think it’s about?”

And she said, “I think it's about faith. What do you think?”

You know, it’s all fresh to her. So, I would just encourage that person who feels like there’s a disconnect to get into their whole Bible and see how it connects. 

Erika: My second question was, we have neighbors around us who are not believers. I have kids that are excited to share Jesus with them, and one day my ten-year-old was like, “Mom, I’m going to tell my friend about hell!” I was like ahhh! So how do you teach your kids about hell and help them explain to others who aren’t believers when they want to share their faith? How do you handle that conversation?

Erin: Great question. I realized fairly recently that I had taught my kids a lot about heaven and very little about hell. That is one thing, I do think we need to teach them both sides. I came to Christ as a fifteen-year-old, very zealous. Imagine this zealousness twenty years ago without maturity. So very quickly after I came to Christ, I said to a friend, “If you die tonight you would burn in hell forever!” Tears were pouring down her face. I thought I was doing the right thing! I’ve since talked to her about it. But it was incredibly abrupt and not the way I’d recommend going about it.

People tend to come to the gospel through love, that God loves them, that He cares about them. So, wrath might not need to be our opening line. But we also shouldn’t pretend it’s not there. And so, I equip my kids to be ready for those conversations when they happen. I equip my kids to ask people, “Can I pray for you?” I’ve never met anybody who says no to that. I equip my kids to hold off on the more serious conversations if possible until they have a relationship with somebody. 

Now, my kids are young but my teenagers, especially my oldest, he’s really got an evangelist’s heart, so he is good about talking with people about Jesus. But we do have conversations about starting with how much God loves them. Start with inviting them to church. Start with the fact that God is real. Start with what God’s done in your own life. Scripture tells us to always be ready for the hope that’s inside of us. Nobody can ever argue with your testimony. But if somebody comes to us with a question about hell, we ought not to dismiss them either. I wouldn’t start with it, but I wouldn't be afraid of it.

Erika: Alright ladies, any other questions that you may have?

Woman: In your “Joseph” podcast, you said the quote in relation to what’s fair, when people say it’s not fair, you said you don’t want what’s not fair to a holy God. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Erin: That same son that I talked about in an earlier episode that has that strong sense of justice, it’s just wired into him. Things should be how they should be. He is frequently the one who will say, “But mom, that’s not fair!” And he’s not even always talking about a punishment he’ll receive. He’s talking about the world around him.

And what I’ll frequently tell him is, “Buddy, you don’t want what’s fair. You don’t want God to necessarily in this situation do what’s fair. Because what’s fair is, if a holy God creates creatures who rebel against His authority, and when He gives us love, we give Him hate; when He calls things good, we call them bad, and when He calls things bad, we call them good . . . If a holy God’s response to that was fairness, He would rightfully squash us like bugs and maybe start over or maybe just go, “No, I don’t want to tolerate that.” 

Instead, He describes His posture toward us as longsuffering. He tells us about Himself, that He’s slow to anger. He wants us to know, “I’m slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Meaning, “I’m not giving you what’s fair here. I’m giving you not what you deserve, but what is motivated by My love for you.” So, yeah, none of us want what’s fair, because what’s fair is that the punishment for sin is death. And all of us have sinned, so we should immediately die at the sight of that first sin, but God gives us grace.

I was teaching about this recently. In the Old Testament God describes the mercy seat as the mercy seat in the Tabernacle. He gives us those words. He spoke through Moses. In so doing He gave us His intent. He didn’t call it the wrath seat. He didn’t call it the judgment seat. He Himself said, “It’s my intent to show you mercy.” And mercy isn’t really fair. Mercy is grace. It’s undeserved. So yeah, I’m grateful he doesn’t give me what’s fair.

Erika: Erin, in a precious episode we talked about how we can imitate God’s anger when we show righteous anger. Is there an avenue for us to imitate God’s wrath? Or is that something that only God can righteously have?

Erin: Any attempt at wrath ultimately falls tremendously short of God’s. We have justice. We try to inflict punishment for crimes, so to speak. But wrath is the pouring out . . . I don’t know that it’s final. I would want to know this for sure, but my instinct is to think that wrath is final. Where we see wrath is Sodom and Gomorrah, for example. The cities were done; they were buried. There was no longer a chance to repent. 

And where we see this day of wrath as it's described in Scripture, it’s that same thing. It’s ultimate judgment. So, I don’t think we can model godly wrath. The closest we can get is probably justice. And even with that I don’t need to tell anyone that our human justice systems are imperfect. Anybody waiting for news from the justice system could sing that song for us. So even our smaller attempts are flawed. Only God can execute justice and wrath rightly and perfectly and permanently.

Erika: One thing that has helped me as I was learning about wrath is realizing that without the wrath of God, there are people who get off scot-free. You have a Hitler and a Stalin, or wicked people that die in their wickedness, and they had fun lives. You know, there are a lot of people today who are like, “Lord, that is a wicked person enjoying life.” And to think that the wrath of God still catches up with them in the end and there is justice . . . There’s an element where, because we are creatures who want justice, we think, Thank you, Lord! I do want that. 

My husband, Bryan, gave a great example. We haven’t seen it, but there’s a new Batman movie out, and he loves soundtracks. So, he was listening to this soundtrack. He loved it, so he looked up some information on this soundtrack. Apparently there’s this one scene in the movie where the bad guy is who you’re viewing this through. And so, Batman is going after the bad guy and it’s almost like Batman’s going, not insane, but he’s so dedicated to reach this bad guy that the bad guy gets terrified of Batman because it’s this unrelenting pursuit of justice. 

Bryan and I were talking about it, and he said, “Erika, do you realize this is what will happen to the wicked?” That unrelenting pursuit of justice is going to come one day, and they will be terrified and not able to hide from it. I was like, Thank you, Lord! On the one hand I felt bad for them. Oh, that’s a terrifying thought! But to think that that’s what Jesus stands between me, and to think that there is justice coming. There is wickedness in the world. God will deal with it, and the universe will stand aside and be amazed. 

Erin: Yeah. I mean, as you’re saying that, I’m thinking, everybody who receives grace received it undeservedly. No one who receives wrath will receive it undeservedly. They will have earned it. That was that verse we read, “by their own choices.” And you’re right, things aren’t going to go unpunished. Either Jesus took on the punishment on the cross and we accept that, or the sinner will take on the punishment. And so it does reveal that God will rightly deal with injustice.

Erika: Erin, we’ve talked about anger and wrath now. What are we going to learn about next?

Erin: Well, bust out the confetti, because we are finally getting to the happy side of Jesus!

Erika: Yay!

Erin: It’s interesting, a little behind-the-scenes scoop, as I was watching the faces of the women in the room, this is the episode where I saw the most tears and the most emotion.

Erika: Yes.

Erin: So, we'll see what is it about the happy side of Jesus that grabs us by the heart.

Erika: Sounds great! That’s next time on The Deep Well.

The Deep Well is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to greater freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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