It’s rather pointless to have laws if you are not going to enforce them, right? I’m thinking now, in terms of traffic laws and criminal laws and such that helps a society function in a way that keeps some form of order. Otherwise…it would only be a matter of time before civilization would just deteriorate into utter chaos and anarchy.

Guess what? God already thought that through, when it came to His law… and He has taken care of that. Granted, His timetable might not always coincide with ours, given that His ways are not like our ways…but make no mistake about it…and ‘be not deceived’… ‘your sin shall surely find you’. (Num. 32:23; Gal. 6:7-8; Eph. 5:5-6; Rom. 8:13).

And if…we ‘fail to repent, we shall all likewise perish.’ (Luke 13:1-5). His words, not mine.

I mentioned the other day that Deut. 28 is a rather enlightening chapter to read, because God spells out all the blessings His people can expect to receive and walk in IF…they ‘diligently obey the voice of the Lord…to observe carefully all His commandments’, even adding that those blessings (which he lists in vs. 3-13) will ‘overtake you’ (Deut. 28:1-2).

But…God spends even more time laying out in great detail what happens should we ‘not obey the voice of the Lord…and fail to carefully observe all His commandments. He calls these things ‘curses’ and warns that they ‘will come upon you and overtake you’ (15). There was no use of the word ‘might’... come upon you, as He then goes on to emphasize over and over how ‘The Lord will bring these things upon you’. You really need to read through the rest of that chapter; and don’t be surprised if you begin to experience a touch of ‘fear’, which honestly... is the ‘beginning of wisdom and knowledge’. (Prov. 1:7; 9:10). Can I warn you that you will also see a host of ‘health related’ issues in those ‘curses’ as well?

Now some might be quick to point out that all those writings pertained to the ‘old testament’ days from ages ago, and don’t have anything to do with us ‘New Testament’ folks today. To which I would point out that you do know that God ‘never changes’, yes? (Mal. 3:6). And we also find in multiple places in our New Testament...scriptural warnings given, even some of them coming from Jesus Himself. What was His word of caution to a man He healed, in John 5:14? – ‘Go and sin no more or something worse….will what?’

What happened to Ananias and his wife, in Acts 5: 1-11? Why were ‘many’ in the church at Corinth falling ill and even dying, according to 1 Cor. 11:30-32? Paul tells them they were being ‘judged’ and/or ‘chastened by the Lord’, which is a ‘new testament’ teaching if I read Hebrews 12:5-12. It even explains there how ‘chastening is not joyful, but painful’, but also serves a very important purpose. That was spelled out as well by Paul in 1 Cor. 5:5, where a man who was committing sexual immorality and was told to be ‘handed over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh…in order that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord’.

Are we not warned in Eph. 5:5-6 and Col. 3:6 to ‘be not deceived for because of such things the wrath of God comes…’? And what was the warning found in Gal. 6:7-8? Need I go on?

Oh, but you want to point out that the ‘law’ was given to the children of Israel (Jews) back at Mt. Sinai under Moses, and not to us today? Okay, so let’s examine that. Are we not told in Galatians 3:26-29 that we became ‘the seed of Abraham’ through our unifying ‘ faith in Christ’ and ‘are all one’ by becoming ‘sons of God’? And let’s not forget Paul’s words found in Romans 11:17-22 that talks of how we Gentiles (non-Jews) were ‘grafted in’ to one branch. So yes, indeed…the law applies to us as well.

This would be a good time to be reminded once again…what ‘sin’ is. Sin is ‘lawlessness’, or breaking the commandments of God’s laws (1 John 3:4). So when Jesus told that man to ‘go and sin no more… or something worse will come upon you’ (John 5:14), He was simply affirming that breaking God’s laws still has consequences. To think or believe otherwise is to be deceived; and we are cautioned regularly throughout the NT to ‘be not deceived’.

So where does that leave all the people out there who don’t align themselves with being Christian followers of Jesus? That’s a great question, and before I point that out, let the record show that ‘ALL have sinned (broken God’s law)…and fallen short of God’s glory’, and there is ‘none who are righteous’ (Rom. 3:9-10,23). And therefore we were all subject to the ‘wrath of God’, which is what it means to fall under God’s judgment for breaking His laws.

Now…let’s revisit John 3:36 which informs us that “whoever believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides, or remains…on him.”

Friends...having God’s wrath ‘on you’…is not a good thing. So does that answer the question as to where anyone who is not a follower of Jesus finds themselves in? Eph. 2:1-3 gives more insight to our ‘spiritual’ condition before coming to Jesus with all our heart as we learn that we ‘were dead’(spiritually) and governed by the ‘prince of the power of the air (Satan) who operated IN us, working through the lustful desires of our flesh and mind…and therefore we 'were' ‘by nature…children of wrath’. And what is this ‘thief’ known to do, according to Jesus? (John 10:10) Now, go read 1 John 5:19.

Did you know that when the Bible speaks about the ‘wrath of God’, it is talking about what/who God uses…to ‘carry out His wrath and judgements’, and it is the ‘powers of darkness’, or the devil and his minions that fell to the earth long ago (Rev. 12:7-12; Ps. 78:49-50). I know…sounds like some dark and mysterious fable now, which is why most folks tend to want to roll their eyes and scoff, because they just ‘can’t see it’. But guess who can... see it? Those who come to Christ and have the scales removed from their spiritual understanding and are no longer blinded by the ‘god of this age’ (Acts 26:18; 2 Cor. 3-4; 2 Cor. 3:16).

Did Jesus not tell us that the ‘mysteries of the kingdom’ are ‘revealed’ to those who come to Him, or the ‘babes’, as He mentioned in one place? (Matt. 13:11; 2 Cor. 3:16; Luke 10:21). And what did Paul say was now ‘being revealed from heaven’? Did he declare it was the ‘wrath of God…that falls upon ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’ in Romans 1:18...that was being revealed or made known?

So when we talk about someone ‘getting saved’, I fear we have a misconstrued perception as to what that actually means…basically because we don’t understand how and why God’s laws…and judgements are still relevant today. Hence, the reason there is no fear of God…and tragically…the reason why so many of God’s people continued to be ‘destroyed’ (Hosea 4:6).

Oh…did you know what it was that Jesus came to ‘save’ us from? It is the ‘wrath of God’ (Rom. 5:9). Want to guess how He actually does that? Join me tomorrow and we can continue, but it has to do with Him leading us to fulfill God’s law…just like He did! (Rom. 8:4; 1 John 2:3-6).