Romans 2
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
There’s a show on television called “I almost got away with it.” The show documents true stories of criminals on the run and how they “almost” evaded escape. Obviously, all the criminals featured in this documentary are caught.
This brings to light the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” What is less frequently asked but implied in that question is this: Why do good things happen to bad people? For most people, our sense of justice is why do bad things happen to just-us?
When we think of good things happening to bad people, a name immediately comes to mind. It could be an infamous person known by the world. Names like Hitler, Stalin, Charles Manson, all come to mind. Or it could be a neighbor or co-worker known only in smaller circles. The latter are more personal and more offensive to us and they beg the question, why doesn’t God do something about them?
An honest and sober self-assessment will find that we are as deserving of God’s wrath as any other man or woman we know. Judging others is prohibited by scripture. During His sermon on the mount, Jesus admonished His listeners to remove the log from their own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else’s eye. (Mt 7:5) Many interpret this to mean we should ignore what others are doing wrong. This is an offense to God and His justice and a great disservice to another person. The true teaching of his passage is that we should remove the log, not just ignore the speck so both of us continue to dwell in our sin. By removing the log we are then in a position to help the other person remove the speck.
The failure to do this results in the key passage for today. If all we do is ignore the speck in a brother’s eye so we can leave the log in our own eye, we store up God’s wrath the same way one stores up a treasure, saves for a rainy-day, or sets aside money for retirement. We accumulate a great deal of God’s wrath that will be dealt out on the day of judgment. (Rev 6:17)
There’s an old saying that some Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. This is true. Equally true is the fact that we are so afraid of alienating people, or of appearing intolerant and judgmental, that we are of no heavenly value. To allow others to wallow in their sin like a pig in slop is the cruelest thing we can do for another sinner. Lovingly pointing them to the grace of God that we experienced by faith in Jesus Christ is an act of love.
