Andrew Wommack Says:
"God's Never Angry!"
- But I Don't Buy It!
By Dennis Pollock
In this devotional study I am going to do something I almost never do. I am going to name a minister with whom I strongly disagree. Normally when I am contradicting what I consider to be a spiritual virus in the body of Christ, I will not mention the names of the ministers who preach such things. It just makes people defensive and gets them grumpy to the extent that they refuse to hear anything I have to say.
But in this case, I feel I have to call a minister by name, and his name is Andrew Wommack. The reason I feel the need to mention his name is that throughout this study I am going to be quoting several statements from one of his articles, and to be quoting him this much, it feels somehow wrong to neglect to mention the man from whom these words have come.
I have to say that I don't know Andrew well. I have seen him on TV occasionally as I flipped through the channels, but I don't think I have ever listened to a single one of his sermons in full, or read any of his books. So this study has nothing to do with how competent he is in other areas. I simply have a strong disagreement with him on one particular teaching.
“Better Praying”
Some time ago a friend handed me a copy of one of his articles which was titled “A Better Way to Pray.” In this message Andrew declared that in his younger years he would pray that God would show mercy to sinners and spare them from his wrath. This was in his “unenlightened” days. But he goes on to say that he now understands the nature of God better and has discovered from the Bible that God is never angry with anyone. His idea is this: Jesus died to take away the sins of the world and to reconcile us to God; therefore God never gets upset with anyone and there is no need to pray that God would show mercy to anyone. He has already done this through Jesus.
Let’s look at a couple of his specific statements. Andrew declares: “First, we need to recognize that God isn't angry at mankind anymore. He is no longer imputing or holding our sins against us.” This certainly has a Biblical ring to it. The Bible does indeed tell us: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…” (2 Corinthians 5:19). So Andrew's declaration that God doesn’t hold anyone's sins against them seems to come straight from the Bible. And if this were the only verse addressing this issue in the Bible, we would have to conclude that every single man, woman, and child living on this earth gets a free pass from God. Our Creator does not hold anyone accountable for their sins: not liars, not killers, not rapists, not child molesters, no one, regardless of what they have ever done will ever be judged for their sins. God is no more upset with the serial killer than He is with the godly widow who prays hours every day and volunteers at the homeless shelter five days a week.
That doesn't sound right to most of us, but this is what you would have to conclude if you really believed that God is never angry with anyone. And the verse about God not holding our trespasses against us certainly sounds like this is the case. The problem is, that is not the only verse in the Bible which addresses the issue of sin and the anger and judgment of God. To simply quote that verse over and over and ignore the hundreds of other verses which suggest there is more to it would be foolish.
What Wommack has failed to see is that this deliverance from the penalty of our sins is a potential deliverance, and totally depends upon our receiving Christ as our Savior. Receive Jesus, and it is certainly true that your sins and trespasses are not held against you. But refuse Jesus, and all your sins, all your lies, all your blasphemous words, all your dishonesty, sexual immorality, and everything else you have done is still on the books!
Abiding Wrath
The apostle John makes this crystal clear, writing: “He who 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 on him” (John 3:36). To abide means to stay, to remain in position. So John tells us that those who refuse to believe on Jesus Christ have God's anger resting on them day and night. His wrath never leaves them. It is present when they go to bed and it is still there when they wake up in the morning.
The apostle Paul warns sinners: “In accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5). Every day the sinner lives, he is adding to his collection of sins and the wrath of God that will come on him at the day of judgment. Paul says he is “storing up for himself wrath in the day of wrath.” This hardly sounds like the easy-going, chilled-out, never-get-upset God of whom Wommack proclaims.
In the Book of Ephesians Paul writes: “For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:5-6). Keep in mind that this is written by Paul, the foremost teacher of grace in the Bible, the writer that the hyper-grace teachers love to quote. They use Paul and his teachings on justification by faith as the premier evidence for the idea that behavior means absolutely nothing to God. But Paul doesn’t just suggest that God might be a little displeased when people claim to belong to Christ and still live ungodly lives; he flat-out says that God's wrath will surely come on these “sons of disobedience.”
In his article, Andrew Wommack announces: “(God) isn't mad; He's not even in a bad mood. The war between God and man is over.” He would be right if he were talking about men and women who had received Jesus by faith and were now abiding in Jesus. But to suggest that God is never angry with anyone over anything is preposterous! At least it is to those who take the time to read the Bible. The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and then states: “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11). Jude warns that when Christ returns to the earth, it will not be a pleasant prospect for the sinners, writing: “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed…” The return of Jesus has always consisted of two major themes: deliverance and comfort for the people of God, and terrible judgment upon the wicked.
No Longer a Problem?
Andrew Wommack writes: “Sin is no longer a problem with God. It has been atoned for.” Sin has been atoned for, but that atonement will do you no good if you do not run to the cross of Jesus and apply it to your life personally. Andrew may not know it, but in truth he is only a tiny step away from universalism – the idea that everyone is saved, no one will go to hell, and it is unnecessary to be born again. Many, if not most, of the teachers who teach along these lines end up in the universalist camp. Often, they will not tell the church that they believe everyone will be saved, because they know it would be considered heretical, but this is what they truly believe in their hearts. The Bible tells us differently. John writes: “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12). Jesus is surely the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” but if you want your own personal sins forgiven and taken away, you had better make sure that He is your Lamb of God, your own Savior, and that you have received Him by faith. Otherwise, your sins still cling to you with a stain you can never wash away.
Wommack declares: “Before I understood this, I would say, 'If God doesn't judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Now I say, 'If God judges America, he will have to apologize to Jesus.'" So according to him, God can never judge America or any other nation, and certainly can never judge the entire world, because Jesus died on the cross and took away all our sins. Yet the Book of Revelation describes precisely this – it goes into graphic details about God judging the world with horrific death and destruction just before Christ returns to take control. In Revelation 6, we read about all the kings and great leaders of the world hiding themselves and crying out to the rocks: “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:16-17). Following this John describes terrible scenes of death and misery coming upon the earth, as God slams the world with judgment after judgment. In one place John writes: “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth’” (Revelation 16:1).
And yet Andrew Wommack tells us that if God ever judges America, and presumably any other nation he will have to apologize to Jesus! Can you imagine, after the terrible tribulation which Revelation describes is ended, and millions are dead and the world lies in ruins, God turns to His Son Jesus and says, "I'm sorry, Jesus. I guess I lost my head. I forgot I'm not supposed to ever get angry again.” Really, Andrew? Really?
Patently Absurd
The idea that God never gets angry, never judges anyone, never shows the slightest sign of displeasure is so absurd and patently ridiculous, you wonder how anyone could ever believe it, let alone a minister who preaches on television to thousands and has his own Bible college where young men are being trained for ministry. Is this monstrous deception a part of their training?
The sad thing about all of this is that Andrew Wommack is simply one of a huge number of professing Christians who have fallen into this error. My only question to these people is this: “What Bible are you reading?” It cannot be the Bible which contains the words of Jesus, and the epistles of Paul and John. They were far too explicit in condemning sin and insisting that the same God who “so loved the world” and the same Jesus who died for our sins, also can become more than a little indignant when their offer of grace is spurned, or when those who claim to possess grace live filthy and wicked lives. In Hebrews we read: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27). But the author of Hebrews not only warns, but also has a word of encouragement for his readers: “But we are not of those who draw back to destruction, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39). Let it be so with us all!
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