God's Unique Method of Justification, Part 3

Introduction: The Enduring Relevance of God's Vertical Issues

0:01 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, October 30th, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 Now would you please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Romans.

0:22 Romans chapter 3, and I'll read verses 25 and 26.

0:34 Well, I'm going to preach on verses 25 to 26, but I think I'd better read 24. It's 25, really. It's right smack in the middle of a sentence that we expounded last week.

0:46 Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. After mentioning Christ Jesus, the mention of the Son of God forms Paul's launching pad into his next thought. Then he says in verse 25, Whom God set forth. A propitiation through faith in His blood to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime in the forbearance of God.

1:25 For the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season, that He might Himself be just and the justifier of him that has faith in Jesus. Let us pray. Oh, Lord, our God, as we come into your holy presence to consider your holy word this morning, we pray that we may know the outpouring of your Holy Spirit, that He would enlarge our minds and hearts, but not only so that He would purify our minds and hearts, make us to be receptive to the truth of your word. Oh, God, write your truth upon us. For we know that apart. From your current activity within us right now, we will not profit from your word.

2:30 So we come, Father, in a spirit of dependence, in a spirit of need. And we plead with you that as we are aware of our need and our dependence and our sin, so that you might come and meet us, draw near to us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

2:55 Amen.

3:06 Now, in the light of the fact that over 200 of our Marines have been tragically killed in Lebanon, and in the light of the fact that the President has seen fit to send an invasion force to the little island of Grenada,

3:26 you might expect that this morning it would be appropriate for us to break our normal course of exposition and to bring a message. Perhaps a political message, a message directly related to some of those events.

3:50 However, it seems to me, and I'm convinced of it, that one of the dangers that we face in times like this is to lose a sense of perspective and to forget that the real issues that govern this world are not political or military, but that the real issues that we face are ethical, and spiritual.

4:21 And you remember I said in the beginning of this series of expositions of the Doctrine of Justification that the great issue and the great problem which human beings face is not social, and it's not political, but the great issue that we face is the problem of sin and the problem of the wrath of God against human sin. Now, I'm not saying that we should be afraid of that. We should be indifferent or callous with respect to human need and the loss of life. And I am not saying that we should be totally unconcerned and unaware of such developments as those. And for that very reason, we made it a point, especially to pray for our nation and for the blessing of God upon those who lead us through troublous waters and perilous times. But brethren, in the light of that, we must not forget what the great issues are. We must not forget that the real issues, the real issues and the real conflicts are not horizontal, but the real issues and the real conflicts are vertical.

5:40 Not conflicts between men and men, but conflicts between men and God and between God and men. And we don't have a social gospel and we don't have a political gospel and we don't have a military. We don't have a military gospel. We have a gospel that deals with the issue of sin.

6:03 That's the great problem. It's the great issue. And that's what we've been considering. That's what this book is all about, the book of Romans.

6:13 And this issue is burningly relevant, not only to those developing events, but to all of the struggles and all of the problems which grow out of that. That root problem, the problem of God's wrath against human sin.

God's Rationale: Propitiation as the Heart of Justification

6:37 And so, I don't intend to have any special message. I don't intend to divert our attention from where we have been in any way, shape or form. But rather, we intend this morning to deal with verses 25 and 26 in which the Apostle Paul comes to the heart of God's rationale. The heart.

7:01 The heart. The heart. The heart. The heart.

7:02 The heart. The heart. The heart of God's rationale behind his unique method of making men right with himself.

7:11 And the point is this. As he laid out the problem of God's wrath against human sin in chapters 118 through 320, so now in chapter 3, verses 21 and following, the Apostle is laying out God's method of dealing with that problem. And he describes that method in verses 21 through 22. And he says, And the heart of it is concerned with the righteousness of God.

7:41 God's righteousness is manifested. It is openly displayed through the life of Jesus Christ. God's righteousness is the virtue of Jesus Christ. And God's righteousness is bestowed and it is received by sinners in their own lifetimes when they believe.

8:04 It is bestowed upon everyone who believes, no matter who he is, no matter who she is. As soon as you believe in God, the righteousness of Christ is bestowed upon you as a gift. And it is received by means of faith, by means of knowing about Christ, by means of confessing what you know about Christ to be true, and by means of relying upon Christ and Christ alone as your only hope of going to heaven. It's bestowed by means of faith.

8:36 It's received by means of faith and by means of faith alone.

8:43 Now, that's what he says about God's unique method. God's unique method of addressing this root problem of his wrath against human sin. His unique method involves the display and the bestowal and reception of the virtue of Jesus Christ. That's what he says.

9:05 That's what he says. That's what it's all about. And he described that method in verses 21 through 24. And now he moves on in verses 25 and 26 to explain why God chose such a method as this.

9:20 What was in God's mind? What was in God's heart? Why did God plan such a, or devise such a scheme? Why did he work out this type of a plan?

9:31 Why this method? What was the rationale for it? And that's what he's going to deal with. And he says that the rationale for it is propitiation.

9:47 Propitiation. To describe it in one word. He says that God sent forth Jesus Christ as a propitiation.

Defining Propitiation: The Pacification of God's Wrath

10:02 And that's what I wish to speak about this morning. Now, I've changed the word in what I've titled this because propitiation. Propitiation is a big, long word that some people find it hard to remember, even to understand. And also because some of the Bibles that you read have had this word taken out of it.

10:25 And part of the reason for taking this word out was not just that they wanted to have a shorter word that you could understand. But some of the translations have taken that word out because they have deliberately intended to change the idea. They do not like that concept at all. And I'm going to get into that this morning.

10:45 So instead of propitiation, I've chosen a synonym for what this is all about, these verses. God's rationale, it's all this.

10:55 It's the pacification of God. The pacification of God. God must be pacified.

11:08 That's what it's all about. God must be pacified. He must be placated. He must be appeased.

11:20 And the apostle develops this idea of pacifying God. First of all, by showing us the provision which has been made for pacifying God. In the first part of verse 25, whom God set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood. That's the provision which has been made for pacifying God.

11:46 But then secondly, we find the intention. Behind pacifying God. Not only the provision for pacifying God, but the intention which the father had in mind in sending forth Christ as a provision to pacify himself. Notice what was his intention in pacifying himself.

12:13 Notice verse 25. To show his righteousness. Because of the passing over of sin. Because of sins done aforetime in the forbearance of God and also for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season.

12:31 And what's the bottom line of all this? What's the ultimate intention of making a provision to pacify God? Here's the ultimate intention that he might himself be just on the one hand, while at the same time being the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus. That's what it's all about.

12:55 That's the intention. So I submit to you that this passage is all about pacifying God. And first we have the provision for pacifying God and then the intention in pacifying God. Now, first of all, we'll come to grips with this provision, the provision for pacifying God.

Illustrating Pacification: Human Examples of Appeasing Anger

13:22 And as I begin. To lay out before you the provision, the divine provision for pacifying God himself, there's one thing that I need to say to you this morning, and that is, I need to enlarge or show you the concept of pacifying someone. What does it mean to pacify someone? Well, we often and I'm reminded of this by the presence of my little two month old daughter.

13:53 We often use that word. In a very loose sense, we have these little items which we call pacifiers and, you know, the purpose of a pacifier. And the baby screams and the baby makes a ruckus and drives you crazy and you can't sleep. And what do you do?

14:10 You take the little pacifier and you put it in the baby's mouth and the baby sucks on it and then you have some peace. So we use that idea of pacification to calm somebody down, to calm them down, to quiet. Them. Now, the baby wasn't angry.

14:31 She just had a need that she was absolutely determined to let you know about and to do everything in her power to induce you to pay attention to her and to do something about it. So you have to quiet her down. But the word to pacify the word or the concept of pacification that I'm talking about. The common denominator.

14:59 The common denominator is, yes, it's calming down, quieting somebody down. But the reason for quieting somebody down is that somebody is mad. Somebody is angry. Somebody is full of wrath.

15:18 They are hot under the collar. They are upset. You get the idea. And it's that kind of pacifying that's in view here.

15:31 It's calming somebody down when someone is burning with anger. Now, notice that this idea is found in the Bible. Turn with me to passages that will illustrate the idea. First is in the book of Esther.

15:49 You can find the Psalms. Everybody, I think, can find those if anyone has any trouble. Just before the Psalms, you'll find the book of Job. And just before the book of Job, you'll find a little book of Esther.

16:03 Book of Esther and chapter seven. I'm simply trying to show you the idea of pacifying someone when they're mad. Now, the situation is that this evil man named Haman in Esther chapter seven has set his heart upon the destruction of the people of God. But little did he know that one of God's people was the queen.

16:39 And so he's invited to a special banquet between himself and the king and the queen. And nobody else is allowed to go. Now, Esther also hated the queen's uncle. I'm sorry.

16:53 Wait a minute. Haman also hated the queen's uncle who was named Mordecai. And he had raised Esther and he had taken care of her and he was like a father to her. Well, this foolish man not only hated the queen's people, he hated the queen's uncle.

17:11 And he was prepared to kill the queen's uncle, Mordecai. And he had built a big gallows upon which to hang this man, Mordecai. But God intervened. First of all, he wouldn't let the king sleep the night before.

17:27 And then he brought to the king's mind the great kindness that Esther's uncle had done for the king. And the king said, well, whatever happened to him to repay this kindness? And they said nothing. So the first thing that the king does, he says, we're going to repay this man's kindness.

17:41 And he does so. And then they're sitting at the banquet of wine. And already poor Haman was upset because of the fact that Mordecai had just died. He had just been honored.

17:51 And there's a gallow sitting in his house for the man that the king had just been determined to honor. Now he's sitting there. And then Esther unloads on him in verse 6. And she says, after the king said, who's the man who dares presume in his heart to kill your people?

18:10 And Esther says, an adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman. He said, uh-oh, now I know I'm in trouble. And then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden.

18:35 The king got mad. He was angry. And they were sitting there having a good time. And this anger comes over the king.

18:43 And he walks out of the room. Now, Haman knew that he was in big trouble. And he falls down upon the king. And he goes to the couch where she is in order to plead with him for his life.

19:02 Because he knew that evil was determined against him by the king. The king was mad at him. And the king was going to get even with him. And verse 8, then the king returned out of the palace garden to the place of the banquet of wine.

19:15 And he saw Haman fallen upon the couch where Esther was. And then he totally misinterpreted that event. And then he was in real trouble. Then he said, will he even force the queen before me in the house?

19:26 And as the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered his face. And then here was an opportunist present. Seized the opportunity. Perceived that the king was looking for something to do to pacify his anger and calm him down.

19:43 He was going to do something to this man. And it had to be the right thing to do. And the opportunist Harbona says, behold, verse 9, the gallows 50 cubits high which Haman has made for Mordecai. Who spoke good of the king stands in the house of Haman.

20:05 And then the king knew what to do. He said, hang him on it. And they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. You see the irony of God.

20:20 And then was the king's wrath pacified. Then the king was appeased. Then he was calm. When they hanged that man on the very gallows he had made for Esther's uncle.

20:39 Then the king said, ah, I can rest at peace. And that anger which was stirred up in his heart was stilled and laid to rest. Then was the king's wrath pacified. You get the idea?

20:57 That's the idea of pacification. Well, there's one more text. One more text. Exodus chapter 32.

21:05 No, I'm sorry. I don't mean Exodus. I mean Genesis. I wrote Exodus down here on my paper, but I don't mean Exodus.

21:22 I mean Genesis. Genesis chapter 32. Now in Genesis chapter 32, Jacob is going home. And that wasn't an easy thing for Jacob to do.

21:41 Because at home, Jacob had a brother by the name of Esau who was also angry with him. And if you remember from your reading of the Old Testament, the reason that Jacob had to leave in the first place was that after he stole his brother's birthright by deceiving his father and dressing up like Esau and pretending he was Esau, and then he stole his brother's birthright. After he did that, Esau was comforting himself, purposing to kill Jacob. Esau was mad.

22:11 He was angry. He felt that he'd been wronged by his brother, and he was going to get even with him. And that anger was not something he could put away and forget about it. But that determination to get even, that desire for vengeance, that he'd been wronged, and he was going to get back at him, and the way to get back at him was to kill him.

22:32 That became the regulating, controlling thought and interest of his life. And when Jacob's mother recognized that, she said, You better get out of here. And so he did. He left.

22:45 He went over to stay with his uncle way up in the land of Paran. And now, many years later, he's coming back home. And who's the first one to meet him? Esau.

22:58 It's been a long time, but the question is, did Esau forget? Well, maybe after the passing of time, his anger would have calmed down a little bit. Maybe after the passing of time, he would be willing to forgive and forget and let's be friends again. But maybe he wouldn't.

23:18 Maybe that anger's still there. So what's Jacob going to do? And in the context, you find a form of the very word that's used in the book of Romans and chapter three. Now, of course, this is written in Hebrew in Genesis.

23:38 And there is a Greek translation of the Hebrew called the Septuagint. And in that Greek translation, the very word that's used or a very form, the verb form of the very word that's used in Romans. Chapter three is used to translate the Hebrew word here in Genesis. Chapter three.

23:56 Genesis chapter 32. Now, notice what happens. Genesis 32. He recognizes that Esau is going to meet him.

24:09 And what he does in verse 13 is he took. He takes the things that he has and he makes a present for Esau. He's going to give him a present. He's going to try to make up for what he did.

24:23 He's going to give him something valuable. And maybe that'll calm him down. And he lodged there that night. Verse 13.

24:30 And he took of that which he had with him for a present for Esau, his brother. And it was a big present. It was a valuable present. Look at 200.

24:39 She goats, 20. He goats, 200. Use 20 rams, 30 milk camels in their cults, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20. She asses tenfold.

24:50 And he delivered them to the hands of his servant. Every drove by itself. And then he says, look, I want to really give them the. The impression of the greatness of this present and its value.

25:01 So he says, don't give it all at once. Give a little bit at a time. So it starts to sink in. It says, give them the first part.

25:07 And then when he asked, what's this? Then you tell him when he saw says, what is this and whose is it? Then verse 18. This is what you're to say.

25:16 You shall say, these are your servant Jacobs. It's a present sent to my Lord Esau. And behold, he also is coming. So in other words, first comes the present.

25:30 And then comes Jacob. And the present comes in installments. The first installment comes in. Esau says, what is this?

25:37 He says. This all belongs to your servant. Jacob. It's a present for you.

25:42 And then next installment comes. And you also said, what's this? This all belongs to your servant. Jacob.

25:49 It's a present for you. And the next installment. And the next installment. And the last thing that you're going to find is Jacob.

25:56 And maybe after resulted, He sees all of these valuable presents. Maybe he won't be mad at me anymore. Maybe he won't fulfill his purpose to kill me. But maybe he'll be at peace with me.

26:07 Maybe he'll be calmed down. Maybe I'll be able to appease him, to propitiate him by giving him these presents and communing. See the idea?

26:21 And that's what Jacob exactly said. Look at verse 20. And you shall say, moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us, for he said, I will, and here's the word, I will appease. I will appease him with the present that goes before me.

26:43 And afterward I will see his face. Peradventure, he will accept me. See that? I will appease him.

26:53 He's mad, I'll calm him down. I'll appease him. And that's the word. I'll propitiate him with the present that is before me.

27:03 Well, that's the concept of propitiation.

Theological Attack on Propitiation: Liberalism and its Dangers

27:09 Now the problem, brethren, is that we're hearing in our day, well, it's one thing to have to appease an evil man like Esau. It's another thing to have to appease a pagan king like the one that was mad at Haman. But we're being told in our day that this concept of appeasing is totally inappropriate for the living. We shouldn't think this way about God.

27:44 We shouldn't think of God as someone who's mad, who's angry, who's upset, who's hot under the collar with people and requires something in order to appease him and calm him down. We're being told that this is a pagan concept that's totally unworthy of the God of the Bible. And especially, with great vigor,

28:14 is this being propounded by the liberal school of theology and in the front of their ranks is a man now dead by the name of C.H. Dodd. Now, I'm not going to go into great detail about the work of C.H. Dodd and what he's tried to do, but that man has had an incredible influence upon the thinking of our day. He's had an influence upon the linguists, that is, the people who write the Greek dictionaries and the people who translate the Bible from Greek into English. And that is no little reason or no little part of the explanation of the fact that I would not be surprised if there are some of you sitting here with Bibles that don't even have the word propitiation in it anymore in Romans chapter 3.

29:14 Isn't that right? I said, Eve, does your Bible even have propitiation? Well, if you have the King James or if you have the ASV or if you have the new ASV, it does. If you have the NIV or the NEB, it doesn't.

29:31 And no little part of the removal of the concept and idea of propitiation from the word of God has arisen from the work of this liberal who believed that God was all love and nothing but love, who believed that there was no wrath in God which required appeasing and that Paul only used the word wrath to refer to an impersonal process that works sort of like gravity,

30:09 an impersonal process of deterioration unto death from which God is not at all personally involved. And the idea, of appeasing or pacifying God is replaced with the idea of canceling sin. And that's why you'll find expiation, which means to cover or to cancel, put in Bibles in place of propitiation, which means to appease God. And it frustrates me and it frightens me when I think of the remarkable extent to which this influence has taken place. So that sincere Christians sitting in their pews, sitting in their own houses, reading what they think is the word of God, are being subjected to a climate in which the concept of appeasing God and even the concept of the wrath of God in some cases is being systematically removed from what they regard as their Bibles.

31:19 That's what's happening. And what's happening in this text is but one tragic instance of what's going on. Well, I hope I haven't bored you with technical concerns and I wouldn't have even bothered with them if these things were not right at the heart of the erosion of the climate vital to biblical religion which is taking place in our day.

The Necessity of Propitiation: The Reality of God's Wrath

31:47 And so now, having said something about the absolute necessity of this concept of propitiation, I would like now, to open up this idea of the provision for pacifying God. I've shown you what propitiation is. It is pacifying the living God. Now, let's look at the first place, the provision for pacifying God.

32:25 And what I wish to do is simply to answer several important questions that come out of the text. The first question, why is it necessary to pacify God?

32:41 Why is it necessary to make a provision for pacifying God? Well, the answer is straightforward. It is necessary to make a provision for pacifying God because of the reality of God's wrath upon human sin. That's why.

33:01 It's because of the reality of God's wrath upon human sin. Now, in biblical thinking, unlike the thinking of these religious liberals and the sentimentalists, in biblical thinking, there is no contradiction between canceling sin and pacifying God. Because, you see, God's wrath upon every form of human sin, God's wrath upon human sin is really one complex problem. And when sin is dealt with, then sin must be canceled.

33:39 Sin is like a debt that must be canceled. It must be covered. But you cannot cancel sin and deal with it unless you also find that the God who is personally angry is also pacified and appeased. And on the other hand, you cannot pacify God unless you cover and cancel sin.

34:03 So you can't cancel sin without pacifying God, and you can't pacify God without canceling sin. The two things must go together. And so this effort to divorce and abstract the canceling of sin from the pacification of God is an effort which is radically and utterly unbiblical. Now the reality of God's wrath, about human sin, is something that we must come to grips with again because this reality is the foundation, it is the necessity for a provision to pacify God. And I would just like now to give you various statements which should describe to you the necessity for pacifying God, the reality of His wrath. Now first of all, God's wrath is already here on the one hand, and yet God's wrath is still to come on the other. God's wrath is already here and God's wrath is yet to come.

35:17 Remember in Romans 1.18 we saw the wrath of God is being revealed upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And yet in Romans 2 He said, you are treasuring up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. John says, John says, whoever believes not the wrath of God is now presently currently already abiding upon Him.

35:46 And yet the wrath is yet to come when Jesus Christ appears in flaming fire taking vengeance on those that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the wrath of God must be understood as something which is already here and on the other hand as something which is yet to come. And then the wrath of God is a righteous wrath. It is not a capricious wrath, a selfish wrath.

36:16 It is a righteous wrath. A wrath which comes in response to a real wrong which deserves an angry response. And in the same way the wrath of God is an expression of retaliation. The wrath of God, because it's a righteous wrath, a deserved wrath, a just wrath, that wrath is the vengeance of God.

36:45 It's a wrath of vengeance. And that's why we read such statements as these. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay.

37:00 It's a vengeful wrath of retaliation in flaming fire bringing repayment, bringing vengeance upon those that do not know God or obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the wrath of God is not only righteous and retaliation. The wrath of God is fierce. And I would like you to turn with a passage with me to a passage in the Old Testament that describes the fierceness of the wrath of God.

37:34 Psalm 50, Psalm 50, beginning in verse 16. We read the following. We read the following statement. But to the wicked God says, what do you have to do to declare my statutes?

37:57 And that you have taken my covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and you cast my words behind you. And then he goes on to describe the behavior of wicked men. And he says in verse 22, he says, now consider this. You that forget God.

38:15 Now consider this. Consider this. You that forget God. Lest I tear you in pieces.

38:23 And there is none to deliver. And God speaks about tearing people in pieces. You know the imagery that he's using? He's using the imagery that's described over in Psalm 7.

38:37 Psalm 7 in verse 2. The imagery is employed again. He says, lest they tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces. While there's none to deliver.

39:02 Look at the idea. Here's a person who meets up with an angry, hungry lion. He's got no gun. He's got no knife.

39:13 He's got no help. There's no tree to climb. There's no place to go. There's just him and a hungry lion.

39:25 And God says, that's what my wrath is like. My wrath is like you meeting up with a hungry lion without any help. That's what it's like. And what does that lion do?

39:37 That lion with fierceness, it grabs a hold of the man and it tears him in pieces. And there's nobody to help. And God says, my wrath is fierce. It's like those teeth.

39:55 It's like those claws. It's like that lion that comes and tears and rips you to pieces. And there's nobody going to deliver you out of my mouth when I bite you. That's what God says.

40:14 Now, people might think that that concept is utterly inappropriate for modern man. That's a barbaric idea. Perhaps it is, my friend. You think that's barbaric?

40:25 Perhaps it is. But then the Bible's barbaric, if that's so, because it's in there. Lest I tear you in pieces like a lion and there's nobody to get you out of my mouth. The wrath of God is fierce.

The Fierceness of God's Wrath: Storm, Fire, and Warrior

40:46 It's described like a storm at sea. I've been told that unless you've actually been in the midst of a storm at sea, you can read about Jonah, you can read about Paul, and their shipwrecks, but you can't really understand the horrible dread of being in the midst of an angry sea. But God's wrath is like an angry sea. All the billows, all the waves of your wrath are gone over me.

41:22 And God's wrath is not only like a hungry lion. God's wrath is like an angry sea. And God's wrath is also like a fire. For we read in the book of Hebrews that we ought to render Him service with fear and awe because our God is a consuming fire.

41:44 The Scripture speaks again and again of the lake of fire, which is the ultimate expression of the wrath of God. And coming into the hands of God's wrath is like being thrown into an open fire and burned. That's what the wrath of God is like. It's fierce.

42:07 It's like an angry sea. It's like an open fire. It's like a hungry lion. And the wrath of God is like an incensed warrior.

42:16 A warrior, a soldier, determined to fight and to bring you down. The same Psalm, verse 7, I'm sorry, Psalm 7, the same Psalm we're in, verse 11, speaks of the wrath of God again. It says, God is a righteous judge, a God that has indignation every day. Every day He's mad.

42:41 Every day He's upset. Maybe that's a barbaric concept in some people's minds, but it's biblical. There's a God that's mad every day with His enemies. And then we get the military image.

42:55 God the soldier. He says this. This is what God will do to His enemies because He's mad. If a man does not turn, He'll sharpen his sword.

43:07 He has made His bow. He has bent His bow and made it ready. He has prepared Him the instruments of death. He makes His arrows fiery.

43:22 And God's like a soldier and He's sharpening His sword. And if you don't repent, God's prepared to come with that sword and to take off your head. He's not kidding. And furthermore, God's like a soldier and He's got an arrow.

43:40 He's got a bow. He's got the arrow in the bow. He takes that arrow and He dips it in fire. He's made His arrows fiery arrows.

43:50 He's got those fiery arrows aimed at His enemies and He's prepared to let fly. That's the picture of God. He's a hungry lion. He's an angry sea.

44:04 He's an open fire. He's a warrior with swords and arrows. Now, why does the Bible talk that way? The Bible talks that way because that's reality.

44:14 That's what the living God is like. People say that's barbaric. He's a God of love. That's pagan.

44:22 No, that's biblical. That's the Word of God. That's reality. The wrath of God is fierce.

44:32 And you say, when you talk like that, you're going to scare people. Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 13. For we know Him that said, Vengeance belongs to Me.

45:03 I will recompense. Vengeance belongs to Me. I will recompense. And again, the Lord will judge His people.

45:12 Alright, there's a great reality. The wrath of God is revenge upon the wicked. The wrath of God is fierce revenge. Now, what kind of reaction ought we to have to this?

45:27 Verse 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Say, preacher, you're not supposed to be stirring people up, making them afraid, scaring them with all this talk about hungry lions and open fires and the rest of that stuff. That's not right.

45:46 You're not supposed to do that. When people come to church, you're supposed to be made to feel good and feel welcome and feel at home. And I come in here and I don't feel at home. Because you're ranting and raving about hungry lions and open fires.

45:56 And that don't make me feel comfortable. Good, I'm glad. I'm glad it doesn't make you feel comfortable. You ought not to feel comfortable in the presence of a hungry lion and being ready to be thrown in an open fire and with an angry warrior standing with a bow and a flaming arrow pointed at you.

46:13 That's right. Don't feel comfortable to fall into the hands of the living God. It's a fearful thing. God's not a big pile of mush up in the sky.

46:41 It's not a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a big pile of mush. But it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And furthermore, the wrath of God's not impersonal.

The Personal and Unappeasable Nature of God's Wrath (by Man)

47:08 The wrath of God is personal. The wrath of God's not like gravity. God's not some big impersonal computer. God's not an impersonal force.

47:19 God's personal just like you. You know what it is to get mad at somebody. And so does God. And God, my sinful friend, God is mad at you.

47:31 He's mad at you. That's right. He's angry with you. And His anger and His wrath is like the wrath of a hungry lion in an angry sea.

47:41 That's exactly where God is at. And it's not impersonal. It is personal. He says, Vengeance is mine.

47:51 I will repay. You'll get it from Him directly and personally and face to face. When He says, speaking about that lion, He says, I, I will tear you in pieces and there'll be nobody to deliver you from me. I'm going to do it myself, He says.

48:20 And He means it. He is. And perhaps the most frightening thing of all about the wrath of God is that there's no way that you can pacify Him yourself. There is absolutely no way.

48:32 There's nothing that you can do. There's nothing that you can do to pacify God yourself. You can't do it. Jacob devised a way.

48:41 Jacob devised a way to pacify his brother. He gave him all those presents and he appeased him and calmed him down. But there's no way. You can give presents till you're blue in the face and there's no way you're going to pacify God.

48:56 There's nothing you're going to do. There's nothing you can do. You're in a situation like Haman's. The only thing that's going to pacify God is your head.

49:08 It's you hanging. That's the only thing that's going to pacify Him for what you've done. That's the only thing. There's nothing you're going to do.

49:15 You're not going to give Him a gift. There ain't enough money in the world to calm Him down. This is a matter of blood. And there's no way.

49:25 There's no way you're going to devise a means. No way to have God calm down about you. Now that's reality. You know what it's like?

49:37 It's like a man who has someone commit adultery with his wife. Scripture speaks about that. And it says if you commit adultery with another man's wife, you're the biggest fool in the world. You know why?

49:50 The Scripture says if there's a thief and he steals, men don't despise a thief. If a man's hungry and he steals, okay, the man stole. You pay me back and everything will be all right. You give me back four times and we'll forget about it.

50:04 He shall restore fourfold if he's caught. And then the man will be pacified and the anger will go away. But he that commits adultery with another woman does it at the expense of his own life. For jealousy is the rage of a man and he will not spare in the day of vengeance, neither will he ever rest content and pacified though you give many gifts.

50:31 You fool around with somebody else's wife and it ain't no matter of money. It's a matter of pride. It's a matter of jealousy. And when he gets a chance to get even with you, buddy, he will.

50:44 That's what the Bible says. You're not going to make up for it by giving him a Cadillac or a new car. You're not going to make up for it. It's a matter of pride and he's going to get even with you.

51:00 Well, that's the way this is. You're not going to make up for this. You're not going to make up for sin. But now we come to the heart of the text.

God's Provision for His Own Wrath: Jesus Christ and His Blood

51:09 God's wrath is real. It's personal. It's righteous. It's fierce.

51:15 It's frightening. And it can't be satisfied by you. But now notice, God has made provision for the satisfaction of His own wrath. When was this provision?

51:32 What is this provision? Notice the text. What is the identification of God's provision? Notice who it is.

51:39 It is Jesus Christ. Being justified by His grace through the redemption that's in Jesus Christ, whom God set forth to be the pacifier of His own wrath. Jesus is God's pacifier, if I may put it reverently. Not to equate God with a baby, but to say that Jesus is that which pacifies God.

52:06 The identity of this provision is Jesus Christ Himself. Now notice how and when God was pacified by Christ. Notice the text. It says that He was set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.

52:28 Through faith in His blood. It was upon the cross of Christ. It was through the shedding of the blood of Christ that God was pacified toward His enemies. The death of Christ was like...

52:47 Now I'm not saying that Haman's death was a type of Christ. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, in terms of the concept, the death of Christ was like the death of that man. In this respect and in this respect alone, when Jesus Christ died upon that cross, when He shed His blood, God the Father's wrath was then stilled and pacified.

53:14 See that? Just like we read about Haman, then was the King's wrath pacified when Haman was hanged. When Jesus was crucified, then was the King of Heaven's wrath pacified. Then was propitiation made.

53:33 Then it was accomplished. It was accomplished through the blood. And how could God's wrath against sinners be pacified toward sinners when Jesus died? Well, here's the answer.

53:47 It was through the great reality that our sin was transferred to Him. God made Him to be sin for us, the apostle says. God laid the sins of His people on Him. He transferred all of the guilt to Jesus so that our guilt was really Jesus' guilt.

54:10 And all the vengeance of God, which was supposed to come on us, came on Him. And all the arrows of God, which were supposed to be fired into us, were fired into Him. And we were the ones who deserved to be torn in pieces by God the angry lion. But it was Jesus who was torn in pieces by God the angry lion.

54:37 And we were supposed to be consumed in God the open fire, but it was Jesus who was consumed by God the open fire. And we were supposed to be shipwrecked in God the angry sea, but it was Jesus who was drowned in God the angry sea. You see it? That's the cross.

54:58 It's because Jesus had all of our sin, all of our guilt, all of our liability and desert of wrath and punishment on Him. It was fully His and fully His responsibility. And all of that wrath came upon Him in the shedding of His blood. And that's why God was pacified.

55:22 Because the wrath was all poured out on Jesus. And if the wrath has all been on Jesus, then none of that wrath will be on those for whom Jesus died. Now the question is this. If that's the glorious provision, then how do you receive this provision?

Receiving the Provision: Through Faith Alone

55:44 Well, Paul tells us in the text. Notice what he says. Notice what he says. He set Him forth to be propitiation in His blood through faith.

55:57 Through faith. How is this received? How does this provision that pacifies God, how does it become ours? One way.

56:08 Through faith. It's through faith that we receive Christ. It's through faith that we receive God's provision to pacify His own wrath against our evil deeds. So I call all of you who sit in this place this morning, all of you who are apart from Christ, I tell you that you sit here under the wrath of God.

56:34 That's a great reality that I've described. It's the biggest problem in your life that you'll ever have now or that you'll ever have, that you have now or will ever have. And I tell you that there is a provision. There is a provision which God Himself has made which is able to calm His own wrath.

56:52 And that provision is Jesus Christ crucified. And that provision is held out before you. And He says, look, believe, receive, trust and live. Trust in Christ.

57:08 Receive Christ. Cast yourself upon Christ and upon Christ alone. He's the only provision for sinners. But He's a real provision.

57:21 He's a suitable provision. Christ is all that's available. But thanks be to God, Christ is all you need. And if you have Him, you have everything that you need.

57:34 To be free forever from the wrath of God. Blessed be God who has provided such a provision for His people. But then, this is the note on which I'll close this morning. Where did this provision come from?

The Source of Propitiation: God's Self-Denying Love

57:51 Where did it come from? Well, notice what the text says. It says that God sent Him forth to appease His own wrath. Now I want you to turn with me to one text in the book of 1 John.

58:06 1 John chapter 4 verses 9 and 10. Herein was the love of God manifested to us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love. Here is love.

58:41 Here's what love is all about. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Here's love.

59:00 Awful lot of talk about love. But you don't have love if you take away propitiation. You don't have love if you take away wrath. You don't have love.

59:14 You got something else, but it ain't love. You call it love, but it ain't love. Because here's love. Here's love.

59:22 Here's what love is all about. It's that God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Love is all about this. God's not like a pagan deity who sits back and expects us to appease His wrath.

59:41 But the grace of God, the love of God is manifested in this glorious event that God Almighty has sent His own Son, the Father sent His own Son to appease His own wrath that we might live through Him. And that's love. That's self-denial. That's self-denial.

60:00 That's self-denying love which is prepared to have its own heart wrenched out and to pay the most extreme cost so that we, His enemies, might live. It's love that's prepared to endure the very wrath that we deserve. It's love that's prepared to send the most precious person to His heart to endure the very wrath, all of it and its fierceness and its completeness, everything that we deserve. And to appease that wrath and to quiet it and calm Himself down so that then we might live through Him.

60:41 That's the love of the Gospel. That's what love is all about. You can't understand or appreciate the love of God if you reject, deny, cast away the wrath of God and the necessity for appeasing God. Because that grace, that great reality, is the great reality that shows us the enormity, the incomprehensibility, the grandeur and the glory of His love.

61:18 Yes, dear friends, God is love. And that's what it means that God is love. What it means that God is love is that God sent His own Son to bear His own wrath so that we would live. Well, let's meditate upon the love of God.

61:37 Meditate upon the great largeness of heart that would do a thing like that for those of us who deserved His wrath. Consider His love. Consider the grandeur and the glory of it. You say, that's inconceivable.

61:53 That's insane. Nobody would ever do a thing like that. Yes, but the Bible says that's exactly what God did. That's exactly what He did.

62:01 Because He wanted to show us in terms that are absolutely astounding the glory of His love. And we can never appreciate the glory of His love unless we're prepared to bite the bullet of the reality and ugliness and fierceness of His wrath. May the Lord be pleased to write these truths upon our hearts to cause us to fear His wrath and to cause us to be moved with deep appreciation and out of that appreciation, love and obedience because of the love of God. Which He manifested to us in Jesus Christ, His Son.

Prayer: Marveling at God's Love and Pleading for the Lost

62:42 Let us pray. Our Father, what can we say? We marvel at Your love. Oh God, we thank You for the inconceivable, infinite love which sent the Lord Jesus, Your beloved Son to die upon that cross for Your people and to swallow up Your wrath against us.

63:11 Father, we confess that our flesh quivers it cringes at the thought of being torn in pieces by Your holy wrath. Oh, we thank You that though He knew that cringing in Gethsemane yet He went to the cross anyway because He loved us. And though He knew what it would be like when He left heaven yet He came here anyway because He loved us. And though He could have avoided it, Lord yet He didn't because He loved us.

63:43 We thank You for Him. Thank You for the marvelous provision. Oh, we pray, Father, that our hearts may be stirred up with appreciation that we may appreciate from the depths and from the deepest part of our being and spirit what You've done for us in sending Jesus Christ. And, oh, Father, we pray for those who do not have Christ and have not received this glorious provision by faith.

64:07 We pray that You would show them their need of Christ. Show them the reality of Your wrath. Oh, grant, Lord, that they may come to grips with what is real. That they may not be deceived by the climate of our day which hates Your wrath.

64:23 We pray, oh, Lord, that they may come to grips with this awesome reality so that they may flee to that provision and that they may have Christ and drink into their souls the wonderful taste of Your redemptive love. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.