Divine Wrath

The point: Don't rejoice simply because your neighbor says, 'I believe.' Instead, ask, 'What do you believe? In what are you believing?'

Martin references a children's ditty about faith, hope, and charity to illustrate a common, but unbiblical, understanding of faith as a general belief rather than specific trust in Christ.

No, what you want to say is, what do you believe? In what are you believing? And the little ditty that his son have faith, hope, and charity, for that's the way to live successfully. How do I know the Bible tells me so?

3:17 - 3:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to stand in awe and fear of the terrible awesome doctrine of divine wrath, just as you revel in God's electing love, to come up to the measure of Paul's thinking.

He points to Revelation 11 and 19, where the redeemed in heaven sing hymns of praise for God's wrath, to show that true worship includes adoration for this attribute.

And I would go so far as to state. that we are not Bible Christians and our worship is not worship in truth unless we have begun to learn what it is to worship God as much for His wrath as for His love. But when you open up the book of the Revelation and as it were the curtains are pulled back and we're given a glimpse of the redeemed in heaven you will find them not only gathered about the throne lost in rapturous worship and praise to God for His mercy but you will find in chapter 11 and in chapter 19 two hymns of praise to God for His wrath.

8:40 - 9:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to stand in awe and fear of the terrible awesome doctrine of divine wrath, just as you revel in God's electing love, to come up to the measure of Paul's thinking.

Martin uses the analogy of kindergarten to graduate school to describe how believers should begin to praise God for His righteous anger now, preparing for a fuller understanding in heaven.

They worship God that He has poured out of His wrath and manifested His anger in judgment upon the ungodly and upon the wicked. Therefore if we would be prepared for that state just as we are learning to worship Him and adore Him and magnify Him for His love and His grace and His mercy and that school room in which we are now found will find its full graduate level in heaven. So now we should be in the kindergarten of praise to God for His righteous anger and wrath and in that day we will enter the graduate school of praise to God for this display of His attributes as well. Very well then so m...

9:22 - 10:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Tremble and fall on your knees and cry for mercy, and dare not leave these doors until you know that all is well between you and your God.

He uses the Isaiah 40 description of nations as 'less than nothing' before God to emphasize the terrifying prospect of a puny creature facing infinite divine wrath.

That a creature helpless weak as I was reading in Isaiah 40 this morning that tremendous passage on the greatness of God seeking to have my own heart prepared for worship and when he says the nations are before him as less than nothing now what's less than nothing when you've got zero even you fellas and girls in kindergarten you know that you can't take anything from zero and get less than zero and yet the prophet declares the nations are before him not just individual creatures but take the sum total of all humanity and compare it with the greatness of God and the prophet says you come up wi...

17:30 - 18:55 Read in full sermon

The point: Tremble and fall on your knees and cry for mercy, and dare not leave these doors until you know that all is well between you and your God.

Martin contrasts the terror of human community wrath (like riots) with the infinitely greater terror of the infinite God funneling His wrath upon a finite creature.

upon His head infinite wrath oh it should be enough to make some of us tremble and fall on our knees and cry for mercy and dare to not leave those doors until we know that all is well between us and our God oh listen what will it be when omnipotence is linked to wrath and is funneled upon the puny little creature of dust it's a frightful thing when a community links together to bring wrath or judgment upon an individual a fellow creature and that can be terrible the riots of the past summer are an indication of this when a few people band together and want to give vent to the wrath of their he...

18:55 - 20:25 Read in full sermon

Driving home: do away with the divine doctrine of divine wrath and it won't be long before you're ready to jettison the doctrine of the cross and the only context in which the cross of Christ will be loved is the context in which the …

He uses the metaphor of being rescued from the mouth of a raging lion to illustrate the meaning of 'deliver' as an unusual escape from impending doom, emphasizing the urgency and danger of the situation.

will reveal let us consider in the second place and this is the wonderful truth of this verse that only Christ can deliver from this coming judgment Paul describes it when he says even Jesus who is the Lord who delivered us from the wrath to come which in the present tense it ought to be translated this way who delivers us or who is delivering us from the wrath to come someone has translated it this way our deliverer from the coming wrath the new English Bible translates it this way our deliverer from the terrors of judgment to come and the word for deliver means to rescue to bring someone out...

33:42 - 35:11 Read in full sermon

The point: May God send an arrow today to awaken you with the thought of coming wrath, as you have been indifferent and careless to gospel sermons.

Martin quotes Dr. Isaac Watts, who noted that most conversions under his ministry were awakened by the thought of divine wrath, illustrating wrath as the 'awakening power' and love as the 'drawing power'.

that's the only reason some of you aren't in hell today is that God is long suffering the only reason some of you aren't joining that rich man who cries out Father Abraham I am tormented in these flames only one reason the forbearance called in Romans 2 the riches of His goodness and His forbearance one day that will all be passed and judgment and wrath shall come down unmixed with mercy Dr. Isaac Watts who was wonderfully used with God in the conversion of many said that of all those converted under his ministry he could recall only one who had been awakened by the amiable attributes of God t...

45:30 - 46:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Look unto the rock from whence we were hewn and unto the pit from whence we were digged to produce gratitude.

He quotes Charles Wesley's self-description as 'a bran plucked from the burning' to illustrate the profound gratitude and motivation for service that comes from remembering deliverance from wrath.

you're not in hell how long has it been since you thanked God that wasn't your hopeless destiny you're not in hell shut out from heaven shut up to misery and shut in for eternity oh how we need to obey the exhortation of scripture to look unto the rock from whence we were hewn and unto the pit from whence we were digged and this would produce a motive of gratitude this is what drove Charles Wesley John Wesley continually when people stood amazed at the passion with which this man poured himself in to the work of preaching the gospel he said I am as a bran plucked from the burning and he never ...

48:28 - 49:46 Read in full sermon