Sabbath School Lesson for January 25-31, 2025
Overview of Lesson 5, The Wrath of Divine Love
Memory Text: “But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath.” Psalm 78:38 NKJV
Perfect love and goodness must have a response to evil and unjust behaviors that are inflicted upon the innocent. God loves all His creatures so much that He must react when they are threatened or injured by wicked evildoers. To ignore His own people when they are the ones who commit sin would not be a loving response either, nor would it have the potential of helping them overcome their harsh, unfaithful ways.
The Old Testament is full of stories that describe the passionate way God deals with sin. His anger is appropriate and understandable, when we see the patterns that are involved in the Bible narrative.
After repeated offenses, God withdraws His presence, allowing the offenders to suffer the consequences of their unwise choices. But when they repent of their wrongdoing, He is always quick to forgive and allow them to return and remain under His watchful care. This is how a compassionate God operates.
- Sunday: Grieved by Evil–the cycle of rebellion
- Monday: God is Slow to Anger–God is patient and longsuffering
- Tuesday: Righteous Indignation–even Jesus was upset by evil and zealously responded to it
- Wednesday: God Does Not Afflict Willingly–God’s anger is felt by anyone who harms the innocent
- Thursday: Show Compassion–in a sin-free universe someday, God’s anger will not be needed
Sunday: Grieved by Evil
Psalm 78, which highlights God’s repeated kindness to rebellious Israel, is the longest Psalm, next to Psalm 119. It is a good review of Israel’s history, much like Psalm 105 and 106, allowing us to see the patterns of rebellion that emerge from generations of God’s chosen people. This rebellion often included human sacrifice and other abominable, cruel atrocities associated with idolatry. Psalm 78 helps us remember the loving and powerful acts of God that were expressions of His love and justice.
We see in this chapter how God’s people rebelled against Him, causing harm and injury to many innocents. God then withdrew His presence from them, and they were oppressed by foreign enemies. After they would cry for God’s deliverance, He graciously answered their prayers and delivered them from their adversaries–only for them to rebel again more openly and egregiously than before.
Psalm 78:38, the memory text, captures this pattern, emphasizing the compassionate way God’s anger strives to correct sin, not just punish it.
Verses to discuss:
Psalm 78:32-39
- Why was God able to forgive so many times in Israel’s history?
- In what ways do you think God’s response to the situation was appropriate and needed?
Monday: God is Slow to Anger
There’s always been a delicate balance for God to show mercy and grace to sinners without excusing their sin and allowing oppression and abuses to continue. Therefore, God does not turn a blind eye to injustice, but He is “slow to anger”–providing ample time for the circumstances to correct themselves before He intervenes. The patient and longsuffering nature of God’s anger allows Him to show wrath in the most constructive way for all concerned at the most appropriate time.
One of God’s prophets had a problem accepting God’s compassionate way of dealing with sin. Jonah saw the atrocities of the Assyrian army against the Israelites, and this caused him to be reluctant to go preach in Nineveh, in the heart of Assyria. He was actually afraid his compassionate God might forgive their iniquities as He promised to do if they would repent.
Even after God finally convinced Jonah to preach there, his negative attitude persisted after Nineveh repented. Read about it in Jonah 4:1-4. God told him it was not right for him to feel angry, when God had shown nothing but grace to the Ninevites, and to him.
Verses to discuss:
Jonah 4:1-4
- Why was Jonah so angry and displeased with God for saving Nineveh?
- How had God shown mercy to Jonah?
- How does this situation show that God not only dealt compassionately with the Israelites, but with any nation who repented and called on His name?
- How does this example show us that we need to be gracious and patient with all people, not just those in our church family?
- Which is harder for you to do: forgive those in the church or those outside the church, and why?
Matthew 10:8 and Romans 3:25-26
- What message has God given to us that we need to share with all who are in need of grace?
Tuesday: Righteous Indignation
Jesus’ cleansing of the temple (tipping over the tables of the moneychangers) is used as a classic example of God’s righteous indignation. This event may have taken place early in His ministry, as John 2:14-15 tells us–or later, right after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, as told in Matthew 21:12-13 and Luke 19:45-48. Regardless, it was definitely a moment His disciples chose to remember. Perhaps it happened more than once at the annual Passover celebration during the three years of Christ’s public ministry.
Jesus accused them of making God’s house a “den of thieves”, so we know that robbery was involved with the money exchanges going on. Widows, orphans, and the poor were taken advantage of by their unfair exchange system. Jesus’ divinity, His divine wrath, was moved to do something when these injustices were so blatantly displayed in the holy temple. They were fortunate His response was as mild as it was.
But there were other times when Jesus got angry over some unjust situation. Before healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, which was frowned on by the Pharisees, Mark tells us that Jesus “looked around at them with anger” before healing the man’s hand, despite the accusations He knew they would later make against Him (Mark 3:4-5). And another time, mothers brought their children to be blessed by Jesus and were turned away by the disciples. Mark 10:13-14 let’s us know that the Master “was greatly displeased” with the disciples’ rebukes.
Verses to discuss:
Matthew 21:12-13 and Luke 19:45-48
- How, and why, did Jesus show anger here and other times in the Gospels?
- What do we learn from the way Jesus showed anger?
- What kind of things should make us angry, and how are we to respond?
- Is it OK to be angry with people who wrong us? Explain your answer.
Wednesday: God Does Not Afflict Willingly
God’s withdrawal from us when we turn our backs on Him is done decisively, but His heart is not in it. The evidence for this is found in Lamentations 3:32-33, where it says “He does not afflict willingly”. He demonstrated this by sending multiple prophets to warn them of impeding doom. But when these warnings were ignored, God was forced to act in favor of the downtrodden and oppressed by withdrawing protections they would otherwise have enjoyed.
These periods of judgment when God was forced to do something about wickedness were not just for Israel. The Babylonians were later “punished”, too, by being overthrown by the Persians, because of the excessive way they had invaded Judah. Without God’s protection, any country is capable of being overtaken by their enemies.
God’s love for all nations, indeed for the whole universe, will someday be demonstrated by His elimination of sin and evil once and for all. He does not relish the loss of so many, or even a few, but His perfect love for His creatures demands it. God and all those who are righteous in His sight will triumph in the end.
Verses to discuss:
Lamentations 3:32-33
- Why is God’s heart not in His punishments?
Ezra 5:12 and Jeremiah 51:24-25, 44
- How do we know that God does not show favoritism?
2 Chronicles 36:16
- How did God try to warn the people before their enemies overthrew them?
Thursday: Show Compassion
With our human tendency to react to injustice in all the wrong ways, God has reassured us that we can turn our anger and desire to seek revenge over to Him. As a matter of fact, He says vengeance rightly belongs to Him (Deuteronomy 32:35). It is His creatures who are affected by wickedness. Therefore, we must trust Him to deal with it in the most compassionate, complete way–even if that means waiting till Christ returns.
Proverbs 20:22 and 24:29 warns us not to recompense evil, or to say “I will do to him just as he has done to me”. Rather, we are to “wait for the Lord, and He will save you.” In the New Testament, Paul advises us not to avenge ourselves or give place to wrath. Instead, as far as possible, we are to live in peace with all men (Romans 12:18-19).
Jesus demonstrated the kind of peace and love we are to have by loving us even when we were still sinners. And we are saved from our wrath through Him (Romans 5:8-9). In other words, through the same kind of saving love that justifies us. Those who have faith in Jesus can be delivered from wrath–that resulting from our sins, and the kind that makes us angry with others here on earth.
Verses to discuss:
Deuteronomy 32:35
- Why does vengeance belong to God, and not to us?
Proverbs 20:22, 24:29, and Romans 12:18-19
- Why is it important for us to not seek vengeance for ourselves?
Romans 5:8-9
- How do this message help us not to be angry?
Friday: Final Thoughts
Israel’s sin of making a golden calf to worship at Mount Sinai was a prime example of the kind of rebellion that often rocked the nation God had longed to bless. The depraved worship rituals that Moses encountered when he returned to the camp would be enough to sicken the heart of any caring person. We can only imagine the disgust God must have felt, after all He had to done to bring them out of slavery in Egypt.
Yet, Exodus 32:26 verifies that they were again given a choice to be on God’s side. They had to simply go stand with Moses. For those who chose not to, showing themselves to be persistent in rebellion, the punishment of death was inevitable. Thousands may have been lost, but if God had not acted, millions of rebels would have been emboldened, destroying their plans of ever making it to the promised land. This punishment, as out of character as it seemed for God, also sent a powerful message to the surrounding nations of the inevitable result of idolatry.
Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 325, by Ellen G. White, says: “Love no less than justice demanded that for this sin judgment should be inflicted…In order to save the many, He must punish the few.” Yes, we can trust that God’s love and mercy will always be the underlying foundation of His judgments– even the bold, harsh ones.
Next Week: God’s Love of Justice
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