Flee from the wrath to come

Flee from the wrath to come Matt.3:7God never punishes without giving an offender the due advice and warning in advance. Since He is merciful, He never likes to see people condemned to death. He, therefore, advises wrong-doers to repent and resort to life. He has taught us that it is not the will of the Heavenly Father to see the perishing of anyone of the little ones. Matt.18:14. Thus, the wrath is His fair judgement which He passes after having given advice and warning when culprits insist on the evil walk of life. The advice He gave to His children through Mosses, Noah, Jonah, etc. to refrain from evil acts can be cited as good examples to His love to see people in life. Jer. 7:25-28. The prophet Amos bears witness to this heavenly justice when he says that “the Lord God surely does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His serevants, the prophets.”3.7. Those who heeded the warning and repented duly have saved themselves from condemnation; those who did not have got the punishment they deserved for their refusal. As per His Fatherly mercy, God sent John the Baptist to Israel to tell them what to do to flee from the wrath to come prophet, apostle, celibate and Baptist Jahn come to Israel after thirty years of seclusion since his birth. His purpose of coming was to “prepare the way of the Lord” by telling Israel that ”the kingdom of God is at hand thereby executing his long prophecied role. Matt. 3:1-6. By the time John /the Baptist/ came to them, it was already a very very long time since Israel had seen a prophet. They were longing for one So, when he came to them clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist and his food being locust and wild honey, Israel saw to themselves that St. John never willed to share from the riches of this world. They, therefore, concluded that he was indeed a prophet they longed for. Infact, he was a man of angelic purity as was testified by the Lord Himself .Jan.1:27,28. This being the case, “… Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him [John] and were baptized by him in the Jordan confessing their sins.” Matt.3:5. Among these were the Sadduccees and the Pharisees. It was because he saw these two groups that St. John said this:Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, “we have Abrham as our father,” For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abrham from these stones. And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Matt. 3:7-10. The baptist's warning for them to flee from the wrath to come was not a groundless one. He was warning them that, unless they believed in the Christ whose way he has come to prepare and live a life palatable to Him the Savior, they are going to be condemned in Hell. Even if the Incarnate Lord has come for them and was performing miracles- healing the sick, raising the dead, etc-, they were not willing to embrace Him as their Redeemeer. They crucified Him the savior who declared the remission of sins of the repentanti they gave him a gall-mingled sour wine to drink; etc. So, they invited a wrath for themselves. What is the Wrath to Come?The wrath to come is the punishment Israel deserved if they did not leave their evil track of life. In the first place, they were punished by the Romans and, secondly, they are to be eternally condemned in the Hades unless they repented in due time. How horrible the eternal condemnation is isdiscernible from the advice of the Lord to the ladies of Jerusalem who shed their tears for Him as He was going to Crucifixion. He said, “ Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed! Then they will begin to say to the mountains; Fall on us!, and to the hills, “Cover us.” Luke 23:28-30; Hosea 10:8. Out of sworn evil, Israel crucified Him. He, However, still wanted them to repent and resort to life. He thus sent them apostles to show them the way God desires. Instead of regretting for their ill-motived past, they did harass His apostles Just like Him. 1 Tes.2:15-16. When they become so resolutely set on evil, God started to send the wrath they deserved. In 66 A.D, Neron the Caesar of Rome sent his war leader Vespastian, to Jerusalem to crush a Jewish revolt. Vespastian, accompanied by his son, Titus, invaded Galilee the following year. When Neron committed suicide, Vespastian assumed the post of a Caesar for the Roman Empire by leaving the full authority of commanding the war in Jerusalem to Titus. Jerusalem became completely besieged by the forces of Titus and Jews had no outlet at all. As they were overcome by famine that was so awful, it is related that, God forbid, even mothers went to the extent of making their offsprings their prays. After a fierce fight of 143 days, Jerusalem entirely fell into the hands of the Titus force. To those who congratulated him for the victory, Titus is said to have responded that it is not his forces who won the war. It was rather because God was angry at them that the Jews fell into his hands. Titus admitted that he was only an instrument of God to punish Israel who were out of tune with their Creator. This was one of the bloodiest wars which our world has ever entertained and it had long lasting consequences. Over one million Jews lost their lives due to either the fighting or its side- effects, i.e, famine, disease, etc. Many others became prays of gladiators in the theatre halls of Rome. There were also a good number of them who were sold as slaves. Those who remained alive were dispersed through out the world and they had to live for millennia as stateless diaspora. Even as late as the modern 20 th century, millions of them have been victims of the genocidal crimes committed in the Nazi Extremination camps. Up until 1948, the year when the state of Israel was reborn by jews who gathered from the different corners of the world, they knew Jerusalem only by name from their history. Indeed, they passed through many horrible incidents at different times in their History. The cause for this is their stone-hearted refusal to live upto the will of God. It was to see them saved from this all that the Lord advised them first by sending John and then by His own coming. Yet, they adamantly refused thereby inviting all the wrath that had come up on them. The eternal condemnation they have to face is incomparably worse. They were the “Brood of God” But, now they are labeled as “Brood of Vipers” because of their loathe some; sinful life. Though they used to boast of having God as their Creator and Abraham as their father, God Himself told them that they are rather from their father the Devil whom they embraced in their deeds or in their will to live in disbelief and sin. That means, they are in their own accord divorced from God and have wedded themselves to the Devil. And, what a punishment could be worse than being kept away from God? The axe by the trees, which is the power of God, has done all this. Their stone-heartedness secluded them from their spiritual stem, Abraham. In their stead, God gave Abraham spiritual children from the stones /the Gentiles/. Thus, the Lord says unto them,” and I say to you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the Sons of the Kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matt.8:11-12. St. John the Revelationist has also indicated what is to happen on the Day of Judgement to those who have failed to believe in the Name of the Christ. He says, “Behold, He is coming with clouds and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so. Amen.” Rev.1:7. Thus, when His faithful long for His coming in glory, those who did not embrace Him as their Messiah would mourn and cry in vain. As St. Paul has indicated, the wrath upon Israel is there for us as well to take a lesson out of it. To put it in his words, “… all these things [the various wrathes which Israel encountered] happened to them [Israel] as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whem the endes of the ages have come.” 1cor.10:11. This makes us stop and ask as to what we should do to save ourselves from the wrath both in this world and in the afterlife. What Shall We Do To Save OurSelves From The Wrath To Come?1. Repentance:- To repent is to realize from the bottom of our hearts that we have never pleased the Lord who has loved us to the extent of death. It is to feel our wrongs to our bones and change our life-style in favour of God's will. If we are indeed repentant, we live with self-admonition for the evils we have been doing. It is saying what St.David has said about himself. “For I will declare my inquity; I will be in anguish over my sin,” says the meek David. Ps.38:18. We are also expected to pray for the remission of our sins if we are indeed repenting. Ps.51:1-19. We need to vow to wage a struggle against sin even until death. Heb.12:4 We need to acknowledge that whatever is happening or may happen against us is rooted in our sins. Though Israel was God's chosen and was full of heavenly assets like the synagogue in which they had to worship the Lord, they opted for idols. Thus, not only their assets but also they themselves were taken captive by a heathen named Nabuchedenzzar. Similarly, if we are bent on living with and for the fruits of sin /Gal.5:19-21/, we would be inviting a wrath upon ourselves. We would be enslaved both in the flesh and in the soul. We would also lose our heritages. This means that it is the spiritual quality of our life which safeguards our assets. God is trusted to pass the same Judgement as He did to Israel. That is why St. Paul warns us that God would not spare us if He had not spared the natural branches, i.e, Israel. Rom 11:21. Therefore, God's voice for our repentance deserves to be heeded. In the words of Isaiah, “Come now, and let us reason together,' says the Lord.' Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as whit eas snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but, if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Is.1:18-20. So, if we have to redeem ourselves from the wrath to come, we should, hence, repent right now. 2. Aspiring and Living for Truth only :- We need to distinguish truth from lie. We need to stick to the former by unswervingly hating the latter with the Devil, its Father. That was why the Lord warned the Jews saying, ”If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Jn.8:31-32. They, however, failed to live upto this and all the wrath they encountered came upon them. Even now, they live in war and their future is not promising unless God gives them the heart for peace. When our Lord appeared before Pilate, He told the latter that He has come to testify the truth. Then, pilate asked the Lord as to what the truth is and gave the Lord away to the merciless. So the faultless died in the hands of the rebellious. Just like pilate, many in power do not know the truth and they have no will to know it. They leave criminals free and , as to the pious, they are either put behind bars or are executed if the worst comes. To live in truth means to live in peace for the truth is God Himself. Jn.14:6. On the contrary, it is the Devil who generates lie and liers will never win the kingdom of God. Rev.22:15. We shall thus live in quest of the truth by keeping ourselves away from lie if we aspire the heavenly kingdom of life which our God is trusted to offer to the loyal. 3. Living for the Good of others:- An egoist is no better than animals if not lesser than them. Infact, animals defend themselves in group. The safety and security of each of us is similarly dependent on the safety and security of other fellow human beings. Thus, not to be concerned for other persons amounts to being careless about one's survival. If we, for instance, take Mosses, he preferred to suffer for the sake of the liberation of his people when he could have led a lavish palace life in the premises of the Pharaoh. St Paul has applauded this commitment of Mosses which exemplifies love for others. Exod. 2:11; 5:7-14; Heb.11:25. When Miriam and Aaron spoke against Mosses, God told them to stop by telling them that Mosses is great in His eyes. Numb.12:6-8. From the testimony of God and His saints, we could learn that Mosses won the favour of His creator because he lived for others. Similarly, when Joseph was ordered by his father to take their meals to his (Joseph's) brothers, he (Joseph) never thought of their attempts to kill him feeling envious of what he saw in a vision, i.e, that he shall rule over them. What was in his brotherly mind was their thirst and hunger. As he went to them with their meal, they threw him into a pit and they felt happy for they thought they had removed their “enemy” though he was destined to be their life-saver. Gen. chap.37-50. God elevated Joseph to the highest rug of the ladder of power in a foreign land simply because he was a man concerned for the safety of others inspite of their evils. A person who cares only for himself will not, therefore, get what is good for him. But, one who worries much for others as well will get whatever is good in plenties and bounds. St. Paul advises, “Let no one seek his own, but each one the other's well-being.” 1cor.10:24. 4. Prayer :- Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christs has told us to pray in diligence if we want to avoid temptations. Those who have prayed honestly have got the mercy they aspired for. This is what we learn from the people of Nineveh, for instance, who took the message of the Prophet Jonah very seriously. When they repented, the wrath that was at hand vanished and they lived safely quite contrary to those who perished by turning their deaf ears to the words of God's messengers like Lot. As there is no one among us who will give his child a stone when asked for a slice of bread or a sanke when asked for a fish, what the kind Lord would pay to us if we pray would be beyond the explaining power of words. For the Lord of Hosts to visit us in His mercy, we shall, therefore, pray with utmost commitment and faithfulness. Let God be with us and His Saints help us all at any time in life. Amen! May God Bless us, Amen