On June 17^th, 2011 Emmaus released our first CD of original songs titled, Church Songs. Each of these 8 songs was born in our congregation and for our congregation with a desire to serve other Christians and congregations around the world. You can download the CD and name your own price – even free! – at this link. Pastor Cole Brown co-wrote each of the songs and the following is the story behind one of them.

God of Wrath

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. That was certainly true with the song “God of Wrath.” I was preparing to begin a sermon series on the book of Judge and was excited for our community to hear from God through this book and encounter the ever-relevant themes found within it. The most common themes in the book are the tendency of God’s people toward idolatry, God’s righteous judgment on such idolatry, and God’s faithfulness to mercifully provide deliverance from the ultimate judgment his people to deserve.

In preaching these themes it was important that our congregation recognize that this isn’t just the experience of the ancient Israelites but that it’s also our experience. Though few of us bow to idols made of wood and stone we do the same thing in a different way. We give our love, our obedience, and our sacrifice to created people and things instead of to the Creator of all things. For that we have earned God’s wrath and deserve his judgment. Thankfully, God has raised up the true and perfect judge in Jesus Christ to deliver us from the wrathful judgment that we deserve.

Just typing those words moves me to worship and I knew that the people of Emmaus would likewise be moved to worship after hearing these truths preached from God’s Word. For this reason I wanted to ensure that we had several worship songs that we could sing together in response to this preached word. It was important to me that we found songs that spoke of these same themes, so that our response in song would match the responses of our hearts after hearing these truths. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything. I found many songs about our worship of God, but few about our idolatry. I found many songs about God’s love, but few about his wrath. And I couldn’t find any songs that connected these truths together. I was frustrated by this and didn’t know what to do. Eventually I decided I would try to write one myself.

At this time I had never written a song for our church specifically or for congregational worship in general. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. But we didn’t really have any other options at the time. So I tried. I was surprised at how quickly the words and melody came. To this day it was the easiest and quickest song that I’ve ever written, and it is also the most personal. When I wrote this song I was not writing a song for our church as much as I was repenting to God. Through my study of Judges I became increasingly aware of my own idolatry. From this increasing awareness and conviction I simply wrote down what I saw in myself.

The first verse was my confession of my idolatry in general: “We have all gone astray/we have all lost our way/we have all given chase/after gods that don’t save/we have all bowed ourselves/at the altar of self/we have all served our pride/at the cost of what’s right.”

The second verse was my confession of specific ways I saw this idolatry manifesting itself in my own life: “We have all sung the songs/we have all prayed the prayers/we have all said the words when our heart wasn’t there/we have all lived our lives/as adulterous wives/we have all spilled the blood/of the ones we should love.”

I wrote these verses first. But I had no intention of letting the song end there. I had to tell the whole story. So I wrote the chorus and then the bridge, both of which relieve the tension by confessing that we will not taste the wrath our idolatry deserves because Jesus tasted it for us. After completing the bridge I was confident that we had a song that would work for corporate worship during our series on Judges. There was only one problem: it had no music. Thankfully, my friend Jelani Greenidge came to the rescue. I sang the words and melody to him and he built the right music around it within a matter of hours (how anyone can discern a melody from my singing I am still unsure). Emmaus was able to sing the song for the first time just a few days later.

That was three years ago. The version you hear on Church Songs is a darker, stripped-down version of what Jelani and I initially composed (if you’re crafty you may be able to find the original online). While the original will always hold a special place in my heart I love how this acoustic version (from Jonathan Wold and Brandon Woods) captures a quiet mood of repentance and desperation, as that’s what I felt when I wrote it.