DBG Weekend Spotlight (1-27-17)

Josh Buice

In Alistair Begg’s sermon, he points to the important issues of unity of the faith. This is essential in the local church.

$5 Friday: Apologetics, Scripture, & the Trinity – As always, Ligonier is offering some really good books for only $5.

John Piper’s Journal Entry on January 27, 1987 – “I shut the door to my study as I opened it and fell to my knees at my chair with the book in my hands. I was trembling and tears came to my eyes. I laid the book before God and pleaded with him for protection from the temptations to sin that the book will bring. I told him that I would rather die and come home to him rather than be made proud or self-exalting or useless to him…”

Only 1 in 7 Senior Pastors Is Under 40 – “As clergy live longer and stay in ministry longer, the average age of Protestant senior pastors has risen to 54—a decade older than 25 years before, when the average age was 44.”

Trump narrows Supreme Court list to four – This will be important as it unfolds in the political world moving forward.

Do Children Have a Financial Obligation Toward Their Parents? – Tim Challies writes, “a church may need to consider beginning the process of discipline against a member who refuses to care for his parents or close family members. The person who will not take on this responsibility has ‘denied the faith’ and made himself ‘worse than an unbeliever.'”

A plea for pastoral prayer – “Pastoral prayer—the part of the worship service where a pastor stands before the congregation and leads them in prayer as part of the worship service—seems to have fallen on hard times.”

2018 G3 Conference – The early conference registration for the 2018 G3 will close at midnight (1/27/17).  If you plan to make it to next year’s conference, this is the time to secure your seats.  The theme for next year will be centered on “Knowing God: A Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.”

Theology Word of the Week: Wrath of God

Wrath of God. It is a necessary part of moral character to abhor evil as well as to love good. God is actively and strongly opposed to all forms of evil; and the biblical writers express this opposition, in part at least, by speaking of the wrath of God. Hundreds of biblical passages refer to the divine wrath. God is ‘a God who expresses his wrath every day’ (Ps. 7:11); ‘our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:29).

In modern times, this is rarely emphasized. Indeed attempts have been made to eliminate the concept altogether, by suggesting that God is not personally angry with sinners. An impersonal process is operating, it is argued, by which sin is inevitably followed by unpleasant consequences, and the ancients called this process ‘the wrath of God’.

While it is true that human anger often involves passion and loss of temper, such emotions are out of place in a consideration of the anger of God. When we speak of God’s wrath we must supply the qualification ‘without the imperfections we see in human anger at its best’. In fact we must supply that qualification when we ascribe any quality to God, even love. Even in human life, furthermore, there is a ‘righteous indignation’ which is not sinful.

The denial of God’s wrath does not solve the imagined moral problem. For what would be the meaning of an impersonal process in a genuinely theistic universe? God has created a moral universe in which people reap what they sow. Since he is also active in the universe, we cannot deny that involvement by depersonalizing his wrath.

Moreover, if there is no wrath there is no salvation. If God does not take action against sinners, then sinners are in no danger and do not need salvation. Only when we take seriously the wrath of God against sinners do we put real meaning into the salvation that Christ wrought on Calvary.

The idea that God is not angry with sinners belongs neither to the OT nor to the NT it is neither Jewish nor Christian, but an alien intrusion from the Greek world of thought. For a healthy religion, we need the concept of a God who is unalterably opposed to evil and who takes action against it.


  1. Sinclair B. Ferguson and J.I. Packer, New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 732.
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Author DBG Weekend Spotlight (1-27-17)

Josh Buice

Pastor Pray's Mill Baptist Church

Josh Buice is the founder and president of G3 Ministries and serves as the pastor of Pray's Mill Baptist Church on the westside of Atlanta. He is married to Kari and they have four children, Karis, John Mark, Kalli, and Judson. Additionally, he serves as Assistant Professor of Preaching at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. He enjoys theology, preaching, church history, and has a firm commitment to the local church. He also enjoys many sports and the outdoors, including long distance running and high country hunting. He has been writing on Delivered by Grace since he was in seminary and it has expanded with a large readership through the years.