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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Does God Get Angry With His People Today? In Hebrews 3 we see that God got angry at His people in Old Testament times. Heb. 3:11 says, "so I (God) declared on oath in my anger, 'they shall never enter my rest'". Also, in Heb. 3:17, "...with whom was He angry..." The context shows that God was angry with His people. You can also see this in Heb. 4:3. Note that the author of Hebrews quotes from Psa. 95:11. God declared an oath in His anger. God made a promise to His people that they would not enter into that which He originally promised them. This is quite interesting. It is interesting in one sense because we tend to think of God's promises as being positive, and nice for us to hear. Yet this was far from a positive promise. This was far from what these people wanted to hear. Yet God made a negative promised to these people because they failed to trust Him. The question can be asked today. If God got angry with His people in Old Testament times, can He get angry with His people today? If you read Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 you will see that it is clear that God has not changed. He can still get angry with us who are His people today. This is the admonition of the book of Hebrews. This may not be a popular thought in this day and age when Christian teaching seems to neglect any hint of negativism. We want to dwell on the positive. We don't want to suggest any hint negativism in our words. But this is not what New Testament leaders taught. Let us accept what the Bible clearly teaches. Sometimes it comes across as being quite negative. This is one example. God does still get angry with His people. The number one reason why God got angry with Israel of old was that they failed to really trust Him. You can see this in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4. Israel was constantly sinning. The reason why they were sinning and being rebellious was because they didn't really trust God. They didn't really give themselves to God in the trusting relationship that God wanted. This same is true with us today. The reason why we sin is because we have a lack of true trust in Jesus. We are lacking in a true committed and trusting relationship with our Lord. We speak of our faith needing to be stronger. When we say this, we should realize that what we mean is that we simply need to trust Jesus more than we do. We need to build that committed, that trusting relationship with Him. This is what faith is all about. Faith is not something that gets bigger and stronger. Faith is trusting Jesus. So as the author of Hebrews says, "see to it brothers, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart..." (Heb. 3:12) The book's writer says this as an admonition, because if God got angry with His people of old, He can get angry with us today. Heb. 3:18 says that those who rebelled in the Old Testament died in the desert, without receiving what God had for them. Let me suggest to you that the same can happen to us today. If we refuse to trust Jesus, we will die in our own desert, both as individuals and as the church. God is not obligated to give us something when we refuse to trust Him. Let me also suggest to you that parts of the church are dying in their desert today because they have failed to embrace Jesus and all that He taught. In His anger, He will not allow that part of the church to continue, if it remains in unbelief.
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