The Day of God's Wrath

Driving home: No man of God can be true to the word of God and to the gospel of the grace of God if he avoids the gospel of the grace of God. This is that solemn, sobering subject, namely the wrath of God upon impenitent sinners.

The contrasting portraits of the publican and the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14 are presented as a 'picture gallery' or 'portrait gallery' painted by Jesus, illustrating the nerve centers of the gospel.

So in a very real sense, the meetings of Thursday and Friday and tonight have formed a unit of opportunity for public ministry of the word of God. And in the two previous evenings, I have sought by the help of God with an open Bible before us to take you to the very nerve centers of the gospel of the grace of God in our lives. Lord Jesus Christ. On Thursday night we took a guided tour through the picture gallery, the portrait gallery painted by our Lord Jesus as we looked at Luke chapter 18 verses 9 to 14 and considered the contrasting portraits of the publican and of the Pharisee. And then la...

2:59 - 4:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He establishes that while God's wrath has been displayed in terrifying ways in the past (e.g., the Flood, Sodom) and is presently being revealed (Romans 1), there is a climactic…

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone is given as a historical example of God's wrath manifested in a marked way.

My spirit will not always strive with man. And we have the account of that flood in which all but eight men and women were blotted out. In a matter of hours or days when God poured rain out of heaven and broke up the fountains of the deep and all but Noah and his family safe in the ark were utterly destroyed in one stroke. God's wrath was manifested in the flood. God's wrath was manifested in the most marked way again when on the cities of the plains, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the homosexual perversity became aggressive as it is in our own day. And God said, I have had enough. An...

8:11 - 9:30 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And if you do not believe with what the Scripture calls the faith of God's elect, with a faith that is the result of God's supernatural regenerating work in your heart, God's wrath hangs, hangs over your head as you sit …

The analogy of a handkerchief hanging over one's head, ready to fall with the removal of hands, illustrates how God's wrath presently hangs over unbelievers, ready to crash down when God withdraws breath.

It says the wrath of God, present tense, is abiding upon those who obey not, who believe not the Son. And surely as this ceiling is presently hanging over all of our heads, it is not, it is not something that shall be true tomorrow if God enables us to meet, and we must wait till tomorrow to say this roof is abiding over us. It is true right now. And if you do not believe with what the Scripture calls the faith of God's elect, with a faith that is the result of God's supernatural regenerating work in your heart, God's wrath hangs, hangs over your head as you sit here. As surely as if I were to...

26:36 - 28:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Children, listen. Young people, teenagers, listen, listen, listen. Gird up the loins of your mind and listen.

The image of a lamb before its shearers, dumb and submissive, is used to describe Jesus' docile posture during His first coming, contrasting with His wrath in the second coming.

But this phrase, the wrath of the Lamb, it's a reference to the Lord Jesus. And we know from such passages as Isaiah 53, when He is revealed as the Lamb of God, we are told, as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Children, listen. Young people, teenagers, listen, listen, listen.

44:36 - 45:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Children, listen. Young people, teenagers, listen, listen, listen. Gird up the loins of your mind and listen.

Jesus driving out money changers from the temple with a scourge is presented as a 'foretaste' or 'adumbration' of the wrath of the Lamb that will be fully manifested on the day of judgment.

They saw the anger flash from His eyes. When He came into the temple and saw that His Father's place of prayer had been turned into a very cave of brigands, a den of robbers, with the scourge made by His own hands, He drove out the changers of money. He drove out the beast. He overturned the tables.

47:23 - 47:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Where will you be? With the kings? Princes? Strong ones? Bond and free? Begging mountains and rocks to crush you into oblivion? Or will you be found bold in that day, covered in the righteousness of Christ, transformed i…

An old gospel song is quoted to vividly depict the scene of the great judgment morning, the wailing of the lost, and their futile cries for rocks and mountains, reinforcing the sermon's theme of the inescapable day of wrath.

Or will you be found bold in that day, covered in the righteousness of Christ, transformed in your nature by the grace and power of Christ through the Holy Spirit, standing resplendent with the glory of conformity to the image of Christ by the grace of God? Which will it be? I close with the words of an old gospel song that back in my days when I used to move in circles where evangelists had song leaders and soloists, there is much about those days that I'm ashamed of and would never want to repeat. But there are some things that had elements of truth that we do well to remember, and I shall n...

61:01 - 62:08 Read in full sermon