The Day of God's Wrath

Introduction to the Day of God's Wrath

0:01 May I ask you please to turn in your Bibles with me to the book of the Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, and to chapter 6, and to follow please as I read, beginning with verse 12, Revelation chapter 6, and beginning with verse 12, and reading to the end of the chapter. Those of you familiar with this section of the book of the Revelation will remember that John in vision saw what to him was a sad sight. In heaven there was a problem, there was a scroll, and no one was worthy to open that scroll until the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, the exalted Redeemer of sinners, is declared worthy to take.

0:58 This book, or this scroll, and to open its seals, and it is evident that that scroll and the seals represents the unfolding of the purposes of God in human history, and here in verse 12 we have a record of what happened in the opening of the sixth seal, Revelation 6 and verse 12. And I saw when he opened the sixth seal. And there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. And the stars of the heaven fell unto the earth as a fig tree casts her unripe figs when it is shaken of a great wind. And the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.

2:15 And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath is come, and who is able to stand? We come tonight to this third and final evening of these general public meetings. God willing, we will meet tomorrow on the Lord's Day for the worship of our great God in the morning, and for the combined services of the Lord.

2:59 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 last night we considered together those amazing claims of our Lord Jesus Christ from John chapter 14 and verse 6 in which he said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by me. And what a joy it is for any gospel preacher to sit

4:19 upon such texts that magnify the grace of God. And the saving mercy of God in the gospel. But tonight we turn to a very solemn, a very sobering subject. A subject which any true servant of God would avoid if he could and still maintain a good conscience. But 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. That truth must be proclaimed in due proportion with other truths and certainly in a right spirit, even the spirit of brokenness and deep concern lest men come under that wrath. But surely.

5:25 No proclamation of the gospel is comprehensive and biblical if it does not include this solemn, sobering note of the wrath of God. For the scripture tells us in the very familiar gospel words of John chapter 3, he that believeth on the Son has everlasting life, but he that obeys not the Son. The wrath of God abides upon him. And in that very marvelous chapter in which we have that rich statement of the love of God in verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that very chapter closes with these words, the wrath of God abides upon him. And therefore no consideration of the God of the Bible and the gospel of the grace of God is complete if it does not direct our attention to this most solemn subject. And tonight we are going to contemplate that subject particularly as it is expressed in the last verse of the paragraph read

6:50 in your hearing.

A Unique Day of God's Wrath is Coming

6:55 The wrath is or has come and who is able to stand. And I want you to note with me as I seek to open up and apply this text of the word of God, four categories of truth as we consider the text together. First of all, note with me that a unique day of God's wrath is surely coming. A unique day of God's wrath is surely coming. Here in our text we read, for the great day of their wrath is come.

7:41 According to the scriptures, God's wrath has been displayed in times past in nothing less than terrifying ways. We open our Bibles in Genesis. Genesis chapter 1. And it isn't long before we come to chapter 6 and the description of the abounding wickedness that reached the very heavens of our God and caused God to say, I have had it.

8:11 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. And God rains down hell out of heaven upon the cities of the plains and consumes them in fire and brimstone in a veritable instant of time. We see again God's wrath manifested throughout the Old Testament when he opens up the earth and says, We see again God's wrath manifested throughout the Old Testament when he opens up the earth and says, We see again God's wrath manifested throughout the Old Testament when he opens up the earth and says, He swallows up men who rebel against God's appointed leaders.

9:31 We see his wrath in sending his covenant people into captivity. Yes, according to the scriptures, God's wrath has been displayed in times past in terrifying ways. Furthermore, according to the scriptures, God's wrath is being presently displayed God's wrath is being presently displayed in unbeknownst to us. God's wrath is being presently displayed in unbeknownst to us.

9:55 God's wrath is being presently displayed in undeniable ways. As Paul begins to expound his gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, in Romans 1 in verse 18 he says, For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven. Not the wrath of God shall be, but the wrath of God is. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven right now against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hinder or hold down or suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

10:39 And he describes how the wrath of God is manifested. It is manifested by God giving men over to the very things that their evil hearts desire. And they sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire. And quicksand of their own perversity.

10:58 And the word of God says this is an act of imminent, present judgment from the Almighty. God's wrath is not only been manifested in the past and recorded in scriptures, but it is being presently manifested in the undeniable ways described in Romans 1 in verse 18. And following, however, notwithstanding these revelations of the wrath of God, there is yet a climactic and awesome, a final and utterly unique day of wrath that is yet to come. It is called here in our text in Revelation 6 and in verse 17, it is called the great day. The great day of their wrath. The great day of their wrath.

12:02 It points to a specific and coming and climactic and final manifestation of the pure and holy and righteous wrath of the living God. It is to this day that Paul refers in Romans chapter 2 and in verse 5. But after your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. You see, the apostle has said in chapter 1, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven. Here he says, there is a day of wrath yet, to come in that day there will be a revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his works. In the passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, we find a similar reference where the apostle describing the conversion of the Thessalonians and the grace shown to them in Christ writes, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, and in verse 10,

13:29 to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. There is a wrath that is yet to come. And then in Ephesians 5 verses 5 and 6, there is a similar reference to the same day of God's coming wrath. For this, let us know of a surety that no fornicator nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

14:09 Let no man deceive you with empty words. For because of these things cometh the wrath of God. The wrath of God coming upon such sons of disobedience. And therefore when we read in our text as we have read tonight, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand, we are warranted to assert that a unique day of God's wrath is surely coming.

14:49 In fact, the language of our text puts it in the tense as though it had already come. It is so certain, it is so infallibly certain that such a day is coming that the Spirit of God can say the great day of their wrath has come. And who shall be able to stand? Mark it well, boys, girls, men, and women, that as surely as this day, January 27, 1996, dawned, has now come near to its conclusion.

15:34 There is a day marked out in the calendar of God, known only to God, but a day of His final, His climactic, His irreversible day of wrath shall come. Mark it down. It is as sure as though, it had dawned this very day. A unique day of God's wrath is coming.

Each Person is a Candidate for Wrath by Nature

16:07 But then consider with me in the second place, something that takes all of this and makes it intensely personal, and it is this. Each one of us by nature is a legitimate candidate for that coming day of wrath. Each one of us, Each one of us by nature is a legitimate candidate for that coming day of wrath. While the Bible teaches that there will be intensified measures of wrath for certain aggravated sins, the Bible also teaches that each and every one of us by nature is a legitimate candidate for the wrath of God. And where is this taught? It's taught in many places, but perhaps no text asserts this with greater clarity than Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.

17:16 And you did he make alive who were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, now follow closely, and were nature children of wrath, even. As the rest. And here the apostle describes all of the Ephesians, in spite of the great spectrum of diversity in their background, as those who without exception were by nature children of wrath. By nature they were liable to and the just objects of the righteous wrath of all. Almighty God, He includes Himself, the upright, morally impeccable Pharisee, who could say, with respect to my outward life, touching the law, I was blameless.

18:45 Describing the Ephesians, some of whom were idol worshippers and worshippers of the occult and involved in all forms of pagan immorality and utterly lawlessness, lifestyles from the proud, separated, morally upright, blameless Pharisee to the profligate who consults the stars and consorts with temple prostitutes as part of his worship, he said, in this we are all together children of wrath, even as the rest. Children of wrath means objects of God's settled, righteous indignation and the determination to execute appropriate judgment upon such. Never think of God's wrath as anything tinged with sinful irritation or with an unbridled passion such as wrath so often involves in us, but it is his holy and righteous indignation and determination to execute punishment in the language of the

20:05 passage read by the pastor to render holy vengeance. I say it reverently, to get even with sinners. Without any taint of sinful vindictiveness, without any taint of sinful vindictiveness, without any taint of sinful vindictiveness, without any taint of sinful vindictiveness, without any taint of sinful vindictiveness, without any taint of sinful vindictiveness, without any taint of sin, without any taint of sin, or without any taint of sin, say it so humbly�� that each of us may when we gel among the reviked gods have the moment to do so, I dare you not to do that—don't give up his gift, my people. I will still I'm not one of those who flaunts the law of God and the standards of decency. Oh, yes, I'm far from perfect, and I'm not all I ought to be, and not all that I see others are. But surely, isn't it an overstatement?

21:13 Isn't it a bit of overkill to say that Almighty God has such a controversy with every one of us by nature that unless something happens, He will vent His righteous indignation and execute appropriate punishment upon all of us? Well, that's a fair question, and the Bible gives a clear answer. Why are each of us by nature candidates for this wrath? Basically for three reasons.

21:44 Because of our sin in our first father Adam.

21:49 Because of our sin in our first father. Romans 5, verse 12 and following says, Wherefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. When did all sin? All sinned in Adam's first transgression.

22:17 And few doctrines are more offensive to our crass, independent spirit than the biblical doctrine, my friend, that your age and day of accountability came and went in the Garden of Eden. This notion that children are innocent little half-angels until some so-called day of accountability or age of accountability is utterly without foundation in the Word of God. The children come to...

22:54 to a stage of moral consciousness where they begin to personally know the difference between right and wrong and feel the accusations or approbations of conscience. Surely that is true, taught in Scripture and confirmed in the experience of every one of us. But they are not innocent up to such a time. The Scripture says that the entire human race, which fell in Adam and Paul goes on to prove this by showing that death reigns over all men, even infants.

23:34 And wherever death reigns, it's because sin reigns. And therefore, because of our sin in Adam, we are by nature children of wrath. But we are children of wrath because of our own individual violations of the law of God. We read from Ephesians, that because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience.

24:02 And the things mentioned are the specific violations of the law of God that men indulge in, that men engage in. Each time the holy law of God is violated in thought, in word, in desire, in intention, every moment, every moment, every moment, every moment, every moment, every moment, every moment, every moment, every moment, we live failing to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are culpable before His law and we stand condemned.

24:37 Every day that we do not choose Him as our God, serve and love Him with all of our faculties and powers, if the first and great commandment is to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength, what's the first and greatest sin we can commit? Failure to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength. That is manifested by putting other things in the place of supreme affection before the very God who said, you shall have no other God before me or beside me. Refusing to worship Him as He has directed, to honor His name, to sanctify His day, to respect His canons of authority within human, in human relationships as epitomized in the fifth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother. Refusal to recognize the sanctity of life and of the sexual relationship and of property and of truth and the sanctity of the heart set upon God so much so that Jesus said the look of lust is adultery. The word of derision, the word that bespeaks the disposition of despising another is of the very essence of murder.

26:03 Our own individual volitional transgressions of the law of God make us children of wrath. We are children of wrath by nature because of our sin in Adam, because of our own individual violations of the law, and because of our wretched crowning sin of unbelief. John 3.36, says, as I quoted earlier, the wrath of God, it doesn't say, shall come upon those who believe not.

26:36 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 come to the place where you sit and open my handkerchief and spread it out and say, John, Mary, Sally, Susie, my handkerchief hangs over your head, and all it would take to have it rest upon your head is to remove my hands. So the wrath of God hangs over your head, and all it would take,

28:03 to bring it crashing down, is for God to say,

28:10 no more breath for you. He gives to all life and breath, and all things, and you draw your next breath only because God gives it. Only because God gives it. Each of us, by nature, is a legitimate candidate for that coming wrath, and this is why this text, in Revelation chapter 6, is one that we must lay to heart and take seriously, because it affirms that a unique day of wrath is coming, and that each of us, by nature, is a legitimate candidate for that coming wrath. But thirdly, Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from the coming day of God's wrath. Though this is not, not explicitly stated in this passage, letting Scripture be its own infallible interpreter, it is clearly asserted in parallel passages that Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from the coming day of God's wrath. We go back to the 1 Thessalonians 1 passage for a moment.

Jesus Christ Alone Delivers from Wrath

29:32 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. And here the Apostles, speaking of the Thessalonians, says that he did not have to give a report wherever he went concerning the success of the gospel at Thessalonica, because he said they themselves, verse 9, report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how that you turned unto God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, now notice how he describes Jesus. What is the distinctive activity of Jesus that is highlighted in this passage? To wait for his Son, even Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath. We read in Revelation 6, for their great day of wrath has come. Who?

30:37 Who shall be able to stand? And the answer is those whom Jesus has delivered from the coming day of wrath. They and they only, but all of them shall be able to stand. It is Jesus Christ alone who can deliver us from the coming day of wrath.

31:10 And how does he do this? Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 in verse 9 for the answer.

31:19 For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation, deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. How does Jesus Christ deliver us from the coming day of wrath? According to 1 Thessalonians 5, 9, by bringing us into possession of his salvation. God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

32:02 And the word salvation means to be rescued, to be delivered from danger unto a state of safety and of blessing. It never means merely deliverance from, but deliverance unto. And it is Christ himself who by his salvation delivers us from the penalty of sin unto a status of acceptance with God on the basis of his own perfect life and his substitutionary death and his death. Upon the cross it is Jesus who delivers from the death to the wrath to come. How? By rescuing us from the penalty of sin unto a status of acceptance with God as justified and adopted sons and daughters. But furthermore, he delivers us from the power of sin, from the dominion and the power of sin.

33:10 And the power of sin and the power of sin and the tyranny of sin unto the life of righteousness and the reign of grace and a commitment to a life of holiness. Romans chapter 6, the whole chapter is taken up with demonstrating that whenever a sinner is so united to Christ as to be saved from the wrath of God unto the favor and acceptance of God, he is also delivered from the tyranny and the reign and the power of sin unto a life of righteousness, unto a life of servitude to God and to righteousness and to holiness. Jesus never delivers from the coming wrath by merely delivering us from the penalty of sin unto acceptance, but he always, always at the same time delivers from the power and the tyranny and the reign of sin unto righteousness and to a life of holiness. And thank God he will yet deliver us from the very presence of sin unto a state of being confirmed in perfect holiness,

34:40 conformed to his image, in the inward and the outward man. Some will get it in two stages. At death, when their spirits will leave their bodies, and in an instant of time, every last vestige of remaining sin will be purged from their spirits, and from the moment they breathe their last and look upon the face of Christ, they join the company described in Hebrews as the spirits of just men, made perfect. And then at the resurrection, they will receive, according to Philippians 3, a body fashioned like unto the body of Christ's glory, a body described in Romans chapter 8, a body described in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and they shall be forever delivered from the presence of sin. Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from the coming day of wrath, and the way that he does this for everyone delivered from that day of wrath is by bringing them to partake of his salvation. 1 Thessalonians 5, 9. He appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation.

36:05 It's either wrath or salvation. And what is that salvation? It is deliverance from the penalty of sin unto acceptance before God is justified and adopted from the power and the reign and dominion of sin unto a present life bound over to righteousness and holiness and the service of God. And thank God one day from the very presence of sin in soul and in body.

36:41 Now you see, if you deny, if you deny that you deserve the wrath of God, then you will never go to Christ to be delivered from it, will you? And if you don't go to Christ to be delivered from the wrath of God, pray tell, who's going to deliver you?

37:02 Are you foolish enough to think you can deliver yourself? Are you foolish enough to think there is some other creature that can deliver you? You see, our only safety is embracing the biblical witness against us and saying, oh, I sinned. In my own personal life history, I have broken your law.

37:30 I have provoked your anger. I deserve your wrath. And oh God, my wretched, wicked unbelief in your Son deserves your frown and your disfavor and the outpouring of your wrath upon me. But oh God, I flee to your Son that in Him I might in the language of this text in Thessalonians be delivered from the coming wrath by His salvation.

The Terror of the Day of Wrath

38:02 So we have seen that a unique day of wrath is coming. Secondly, that each of us by nature is a legitimate candidate for that coming day of wrath. Thirdly, that Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from the wrath of God. Thirdly, from that coming day of God's wrath now coming back to our text and its setting.

38:24 My fourth and final heading is this. When the day of wrath arrives, only penitent, believing, converted people will be delivered from its fury. When the day of wrath arrives, only penitent, believing, converted people will be delivered from its fury. Look at the graphic language given by the Spirit of God for John to pass on to the seven churches of Asia Minor.

39:05 Look at the language.

39:07 We read verse 14 and the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up and every mountain and island were moved out of their places and then seven categories of people are described. And the kings of the earth, the great ones, those who speak and hundreds or thousands snap into line at their voice.

39:35 The earth movers and shakers who make the decisions that affect the multitudes. The kings of the earth, the great ones who sit in the places of authority and power and influence. And the princes are notched below. And the chief captains who order their armies and who direct their troops and who affect the affairs of nations in their military strategy.

40:06 And the rich, the fat cats, the strong, those who have amassed wealth and influence. The strong and every bondman, every slave, a man who's the property of another wakes up in the morning, he makes no plans, he makes no plans for himself. His plans are made by his master. Do that, do the other.

40:31 He has no plans of his own. He is a bondman. He is the property of another. And the free man, such as we are, living in a so-called free democratic society.

40:43 You want to get in your car and take a drive and look at the mountains, go to the ocean, go to the mall. You are free men and women. No one calls the shots for you. The description of everything from the kings, to the princes, to the chief captains, to the rich, to the strong, to slaves and free men.

41:05 In other words, the full spectrum of humanity. What do they do in that day? It says they hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. Why in the world would kings leave their ornate thrones gilded in gold and huddle in caves?

41:30 Why would captains accustomed to the retinue of their underlings be found like cowards, men who marched into battle and looked death in the eye and never flinched? Why are they huddled together in caves and in the rocks of the mountains? And why are the strong huddled with them? And the bond and the free, why?

42:03 Read on. And they say, look at this, they say to the mountains and to the rocks, they're so desperate, they pray to physical objects. They pray to mountains and they pray to rocks. They say to the mountains and to the rocks, fall on us!

42:32 What in God's name makes mighty kings and princes and warriors and captains beg mountains to be uprooted and crush them into oblivion? Look at the text. Fall on us and hide us from one thing, from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. One of the strangest phrases in all of the Bible, the wrath of the Lamb. We can understand in some little measure that these who are impenitent, unbelieving, unconverted, and now they must stand before God their Maker and judge, and there they must meet and bear the weight of the results of their sin in Adam. All of their own individual sins, their lies, their lechery, their selfishness, their murder, their adultery, their fornication, their thievery, their blasphemy, their perjury, their dishonesty,

43:59 sins of the mind, sins of the tongue, sins of the hand, sins of the feet. And they now see the thrice holy God upon His throne and they say, just hide us, O mountains, crush us into oblivion, that we need look no longer upon the face of the one on the throne. It says in Revelation 20, when God sets His day of judgment, it says that heaven and earth shall seek to flee from His face. That we can understand.

The Wrath of the Lamb

44:36 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.

45:05 Gird up the loins of your mind and listen. When He came in that first coming, He came as the Lamb of God to bear away the sins of the world. And all about Him was lamb-like in the presence of those who would be the instruments to put Him to death. As a lamb before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.

45:36 He is led as a sheep to the slaughter. And our Lord voluntarily gave Himself up to His enemies. Gave Himself up to the ropes with which they bound Him, to the mockery and the scorn with which they rejected Him, to the blows of their hands and the strokes of rods with which they pummeled Him. He gave up His back to the lictors' lash with which they scourged Him.

46:11 Gave Himself up to the Roman soldiers who impaled Him upon a cross. And all was docile, non-resistant, lamb-like submission to the worst that men could mete out upon Him and to the unleashed fury of His Father against the sins of His people. But in the day of His second coming the Lamb will not come in that lamb-like, docile picture and posture of His first coming. He will come in all of the manifestation of His righteous and holy anger against His enemies. It flashed out now and then in the days of His flesh. Mark tells us, He being grieved for their hardness of heart looked round about them with anger.

47:23 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.

47:49 Get these things hence. Make not My Father's house a den of thieves. And He stood as a sentinel and no one dared challenge Him. Those were the, as it were, adumbrations, the little foretastes of the day of the wrath of the Lamb.

Only the Converted Will Be Delivered

48:12 But when that day actually comes, men would rather be crushed to powder by rocks and mountains than face the wrath of the Son of God. When the day of wrath arrives, only penitent, believing, converted people will be delivered from its fury. Kings cannot be delivered by all their amassed wealth and influence. And the princes and the chief captains and the rich and the strong will not be delivered by anything that they possess.

48:52 And no one will be exempt because he's been downtrodden and oppressed by his fellow man. Even slaves who are the property of others will receive no pity if they are impenitent and unbelieving and unconverted in that last day. Religion and form are not enough. Jesus said to the religious, of his day, who has warned you, John the Baptist, to flee from the coming wrath, do nothing to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father.

49:30 We belong to the covenant community. We've made a decision. We belong to an evangelical church. So what?

49:38 Bring forth fruits that answer to a deep and real work of grace in the heart. Bring forth fruits answering to repentance. Do not think to say within yourself, my privileges, my religious standing, my deeds. It is not enough.

49:59 The scripture says there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 1.9 says that those who are to be delivered from the coming wrath are those who have turned to God from their idols, to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. Who will be delivered in the last day from that wrath?

50:37 Not everyone that's raised a hand, walked an aisle and prayed a prayer and begun to live a reasonably decent life and go to an evangelical church and throw a few bucks in the plate. No, no, my friend. Only those who can be delivered as we described in the language of 1 Thessalonians 1.9 will know the blessing of 1 Thessalonians 1.10.

50:59 If you have not turned unto God from your idols with a disposition to serve this God, not to earn his favor, but out of gratitude for his favor and mercy in Christ, if you have not turned unto God, not religion, not mere form and ritual and ceremony, but turned unto God from your idols, your idols, the things that have been your gods, your face, your job, your pleasures, your children, your sexual partner, your business ambitions, the thing that possesses you, regulates you, dominates you, determines your value systems, that's your idol. You must turn from your idols to God through Christ. Your heart must be set on the world to come. You turned unto God from your idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for his Son out of the heavens.

52:18 You see this idea that you can receive the pardon and mercy of God and then it's optional whether or not you'll serve God is a doctrine spawned in hell and it'll take you right to hell. It'll take you right to the place where it was spawned if you believe it and rest on it. If you've not turned to God with a disposition to serve him, not out of a legal fear, not out of an oppressive sense, well if I don't serve God I'll go to hell. You've seen the glory of God in the face of Christ.

52:51 You've beheld the beauty and the loveliness of Christ in the gospel. And you've turned to this God who's so loved, as to give his only begotten Son. And you've said with Paul, Lord, what will you have me to do? In the language of the hymn writer here, Lord, I give myself away which is all that I can do.

53:15 Is that true of you, my friend? Could Paul say of you as he said of the Thessalonians, I don't need to give a report. I go into a town and I say, Hey folks, have you heard what God did at Thessalonica? I want to tell you.

53:30 They say, Paul, you're too late. You've already heard. Well, what did you hear? We heard that when you came to Thessalonica, the gospel came not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance.

53:43 Oh, Paul says you heard that? Yes. And how did you know that it came in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance? Oh, Paul, we heard.

53:52 Everybody fell off the chairs with gales of holy laughter. The Holy Ghost was coming. Is that what Paul wrote? No.

53:59 No. He didn't say that. How do you know that the Holy Spirit came and the Word came in power? How do you know this report is accurate?

54:12 Because people all raised a hand, prayed the prayer and walked an aisle. No. Paul says they themselves report of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, how that you turned unto God from your idols to serve the living and the true God. And to wait for His Son out of the heavens, even Jesus who was raised from the dead, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

54:45 I want to make it as plain as I knew I would have to make it, attempt to make it. Did I have a revelation I was to stand before God in half an hour? Hear me, every man, woman, boy or girl. If your professed experience of the salvation of God in Christ has not brought you to the place where you have from the heart repudiated the worship of anything or anyone, any ambition, any goal, if you have not turned from your idols unto God with a disposition to serve Him in love according to the revelation of His will in the Word and to seek to be brought and prepared for a better world and to become more and more like Christ in preparation for that world, then, my friend, you have not been delivered by Christ from the coming wrath. I don't know how to state it more bluntly and more biblically. And that day of coming wrath is sure to dawn. And when it arrives, only penitent, believing, converted people will be delivered from its fury.

The Eternal Torment of the Lost

56:10 But thank God, every penitent, believing, converted man, woman, boy or girl shall be delivered from its fury. Bold shall I stand in Thy great day, for who ought to my charge shall lay? Be absolved from these I am, from sin and fear and death and shame. Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress.

56:48 Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed with joy, shall I lift up my head. Are you tempted to go out and say, I heard this stuff before, another preacher getting worked up, doing his thing, trying to get me upset, and rattle my cage? My friend, oh my friend, in God's name, don't blow me off so lightly. Because if you'll read on in this very book of the Revelation, in chapter 14, there are words, I've never dared preach on them, I've quoted them.

57:27 I don't know if my humanity could stand the weight of preaching them. For it says, the smoke of their torment shall ascend up forever, and forever, and they have no rest day nor night. God help you, if you treat these things lightly. The smoke issuing from their torment shall ascend up forever, and forever, and they have no rest.

58:04 Jesus, meek, lowly, tender Jesus said, it is a place where their worm dies not, and the fire is never quenched. If a maggot is to live, it must have something to feed upon. Jesus uses gross imagery. He said, in hell their worm never dies.

58:30 The gnawing of conscience and of memory, bringing back nights like tonight, when a preacher told you of a coming day of wrath, and he told you, you deserved it, and he told you Christ alone could deliver you from it, and he told you how you had to go to Christ to be delivered, and you spurned it and turned away, and you will remember, and there will be the gnawing of that worm of remembrance in the conscious torment of separation from God. Their worm dies not, because it always has something to feed upon. And if fire is never to be quenched, it's because fuel is continually there to be consumed. If you do not continue to put the logs in the fireplace, eventually the embers die down, and the fire goes out. If the fire is never quenched, it's because the fuel is ever supplied. There will be a frightening support of Almighty God of the body and soul, of everyone in hell, that his fury and his wrath will be vented forever.

59:50 It's a frightening thing to be born a human being. It's a frightening thing to be born a human being. That little dog that you know has got some kind of life far beyond the flower, beyond even a bird, but when that dog dies, that's the end of him. There's no doggy heaven.

60:19 There's no doggy hell. But you, a human being, man or woman, a few more breaths, a few more years, and human history will be wound down at the coming of the Lord Jesus, and the sixth seal will be opened, and the day of their wrath will have come. Where will you be? With the kings?

60:48 Princes? Strong ones? Bond and free? Begging mountains and rocks to crush you into oblivion?

61:01 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 never forget. A song that was sung at such meetings, and these are the words. I dreamed that the great judgment morning had dawned and the trumpet had blown.

A Dream of Judgment and a Final Plea

62:08 I dreamed that the nations had gathered to judgment before the white throne. From that throne came a bright shining angel and he stood on the land and the sea and he swore with his hand raised to heaven that time was no longer to be. And oh, what a weeping and wailing when the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks and the mountains.

62:41 They prayed, but their prayer was too late. The moral man came to the judgment, but his self-righteous rags would not do for the men who had crucified him had passed off as moral men too. The man that had put off salvation, not today, I'll get saved. No time now to think of religion.

63:14 Alas, he found time to die. No time now to think of religion. No time now to think of turning from my idols unto God through Christ. No time now to think of repentance and faith.

63:36 No time now to think of religion. Alas, he had found time to die. And oh, what a weeping and a wailing when the lost were told of their fate. They cried for the rocks and the mountains.

63:57 They prayed, but their prayer for the great day of their wrath has come. And who shall be able to stand? The great day of their wrath has come. And who shall be able to stand?

64:26 Only those who are in Christ. They shall stand. And they shall in that day, according to the passage read in our hearing, be the very theater within which God displays the glory of His grace to the whole moral universe. Which will you be?

64:51 The theater to display His glory or shriveling, cringing in rocks and caves, crying to be obliterate rather than meet the wrath of the Lamb? Let us pray. Oh, our Father, we plead, we beg of You in the name of Your beloved Son, will You not even now, come and seal Your word with power that none who this very moment are under Your wrath in their sin and unbelief would be able to rise up from their seats and saunter out of this building and back into their cars and back to their homes, business as usual. My Father, our Father, have mercy and arrest men and women and boys and girls lest they destroy themselves in their willful ignorance, unbelief and love of sin. We who by Your grace have been wakened up from wrath to flee,

66:19 who have been hidden in the Savior's side by the Spirit sanctified, how we thank You. Oh, how we thank You that we shall never know the wrath of the Lamb. We thank You, Lord Jesus, that You bore all of the wrath that we deserved, that we might wait for Your coming out of the heavens with joy and not with cringing fear. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

66:55 Amen.