I have traveled to the location in Anfield,
Connecticut, where Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon,
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
It is now an empty field which sits
across the street from a Presbyterian church, and
in the middle of that field is a
stone marker which states that on July 8,
1741, Jonathan Edwards preached in the Meeting House,
which stood on this ground from the text
Deuteronomy 32, 35, their foot shows slight in
due time, and as I walked the length
and breadth of that sacred plot of land
where God under Edwards' preaching manifested his awful
presence to such a degree that the people
felt the soles of their feet being warmed
from the flames of hell below, and strong
men in the congregation grabbed hold of the
pillars in the church lest they dropped into
hell and its raging flames, the people were
bowed down with an awful conviction of their
sin and their great danger.
I have an actual account, friends, from that
meeting as it occurred that remarkable evening of
July 8, 1741, from the pen of a
minister who was in that very Meeting House
as Edwards preached.
The eyewitness account is by a man named
Stephen Williams who recorded the events of that
evening in his diary.
Here now is his vivid description of what
transpired that evening while Jonathan Edwards preached.
We went over to Enfield where we met
dear Mr. Edwards of Northampton who preached a
most awakening sermon from these words, Deuteronomy 32,
35, and before sermon was done there was
a great moaning and crying out through the
whole house, what shall I do to be
saved?
Oh, I'm going to hell, oh, what shall
I do for Christ?
So ye minister was obliged to desist, for
ye shrieks and cries were piercing and amazing,
amazing and astonishing power of God was seen.
Listen, friends, Jonathan Edwards was not afraid to
preach up the wrath of God to awaken
the lost, but today the doctrine of the
wrath of God is a neglected doctrine in
our churches.
It's not politically correct, so it's avoided like
the plague because we don't want to offend
anybody.
Why, if we preach an uncomfortable message like
that, that got under somebody's skin, they may
get mad and get up and leave and
take their tithe with them, and we just
can't have that.
And if we start preaching the full counsel
of God and being honest with folks, why,
we might upset the chairman or the deacons
and we can't have that either.
So we preach nice little sermons about the
love of God and how God loves the
sinner but hates the sin, and we make
it sound like God has become just a
love God who wouldn't send anybody to hell
these days because he's a chilled out God
who's more tolerant of sin than our Bibles
declare of him.
So you'd be hard pressed, friends, to walk
into a church in this country and stumble
upon a sermon being preached on the wrath
of a holy God against sinners.
And so to make up for the lack,
I'm going to preach today on the doctrine
of the wrath of God because God is
a God who must punish sin.
My King James Bible doesn't say God loves
the sinner.
Rather, it declares God is angry with the
wicked every day.
If he turned not, he will wet his
sword.
He hath bent his bow and made it
ready.
But all we tell folks today, friends, is
John 3, 16, and we fail to warn
them with John 3, 36, which speaks of
God's wrath.
And that's what I'm going to preach on
right now.
And the title of my message is God's
wrath cannot be avenged, but by Christ's blood.
And I'm going to bring you a biblical
message based on a truth that the church
of this hour refuses to preach upon.
And that is the wrath of God.
I don't want you to get out a
pen and paper or your iPads or whatever
you use these days and jot down the
following four Bible verses and keep them in
the margin of your Bibles.
It would be good to memorize them for
use in evangelism.
I will first list them for you and
I will then read them in order.
Here is the list.
Psalm 2, 12, John 3, 36, Romans 1,
18, and Ephesians 5, 6.
And please, friends, pray that preachers in this
country will be bold enough to start preaching
the hard doctrines of the Bible once again
and not be so afraid of losing their
congregations and reputations for doing so if the
full counsel of God is not once again
preached in its purity and proper order.
Oh, we are sunk as a nation because
the one stringed instrument of God loves you
is making false converts and sending folks to
hell.
And after I do that, I'll bring out
some important aspects of this doctrine on the
wrath of God.
I will read you these verses in the
order I gave them to you.
Some of you may not even know these
verses are in your Bibles.
Here now is the word of God.
May the spirit of God attend the reading
of his preached word.
Kiss the son lest he be angry and
ye perish from the way when his wrath
is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust
in him.
He that believeth on the son hath everlasting
life.
And he that believeth not the son shall
not see life but the wrath of God
abideth on him.
For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness who hold
the truth in unrighteousness.
Let no man deceive you with vain words
for because of these things cometh the wrath
of God upon the children of disobedience.
Now the first aspect I want to bring
forth from this doctrine is this.
The doctrine of the wrath of God is
a means which the Holy Spirit can use
to bring conviction to a sinner and awaken
him to his lost condition apart from Christ.
You see, friends, we hinder the work of
the Holy Spirit in your day and mine
because we don't preach the gospel of the
Bible anymore.
We have watered it down so much through
the years and diluted it to make it
more palatable to sinful man that it has
no saving power.
But the Apostle Paul was not ashamed of
the gospel and his gospel had power.
He declared in Romans 1 16.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of
God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
But we are ashamed of it today, friends.
We made a big mistake when the church
in America decided to get on a building
program and expand its campus to such a
degree that we cannot maintain its large operating
cost without adding more bodies to our sanctuaries.
So we tell folks about the love of
God and soft-soak the gospel to get
people to walk and join our church and
pay our bills and go to hell because
nobody's getting saved under this diluted message because
we're not giving the Holy Spirit room to
operate conviction on a poor sinner's heart.
Number two, a lost man stands under the
wrath of a holy God who hates sin
and God's wrath cannot be quenched, but by
Christ's blood.
My Bible declares the soul that sinneth, it
shall die.
If a man dies in his sins, he
will surely go to hell.
My Bible says as a tree falls, so
it shall lie.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust
still, and he which is filthy, let him
be filthy still.
Listen, friends, God is a God who must
punish sin.
It's a theme which runs throughout our Bibles.
Look at the world in Noah's day and
the wicked people whose thoughts were evil continually
and who were drowning in their sins.
God sent a flood to drown them in
their sins and cast them into hell because
God is a God who must punish sin.
Look at the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and
see the wrath of God rain down and
fire upon those wicked cities of the plain.
The smoke rising up from them was like
the smoke of a great furnace because God
is a God who must punish sin, all
sin, every sin, big or little.
God must have satisfaction for sin.
God's wrath cannot be quenched, but by Christ's
blood, friends.
Listen to the true story which illustrates this
point of the utter necessity of having our
sins washed in Christ's blood.
During a cruel and bloody war, a commander
took an oath in the presence of his
troops that he would slaughter the entire population
of a certain town, and in due course,
the bloodhounds of war were let loose on
the defenseless people.
Now it so happened that a fugitive seeking
shelter spied a number of soldiers as they
broke into a house, the inmates of which
they put to the sword.
On leaving it, one of them dipped a
cloth into a pool of blood and splashed
it on the door as a token to
any who might follow of what had taken
place inside.
Quick as his feet could carry him, the
poor fugitive sped away to a large house
in the center of the town where a
number of his friends were concealed, and he
breathlessly told them what he had just seen.
At once it flashed upon them what to
do.
Goat was in the yard.
Immediately it was killed, and its blood splashed
on the door.
Scarcely had they closed the door when a
band of soldiers rushed into their street, but
when they came to the blood-marked door,
they made no attempt to enter.
The sword, so they thought, had already entered
therein and performed its work.
Thus, while the many around them were slain,
all within the blood-marked door were saved.
I like that story, friends, because it reminds
me of the account of the first Passover
as given by Moses in Exodus 12, which
relates a story of how God instructed Moses
to speak to all the congregation of Israel
to take a lamb without blemish and to
kill it in the evening and to take
a bunch of hyssop and dip it in
the blood that is in the basin and
strike the lentil and the two sideposts with
the blood.
And God told them not to go outside
until the morning.
And the text reads, For the Lord will
pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when
he seeth the blood, the Lord will pass
over the door and will not suffer the
destroyer to come in unto your house to
smite you.
You see, friends, the children of Israel were
under the shelter of the blood and they
were in perfect safety from being destroyed.
And you, friend, who perhaps joined the church
by a decision, but you've never experienced transformation
of the new birth through an act of
regeneration, and you sit upon a false bottom
of carnal security.
If you die, you die in your sins.
For the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Let me ask you, friend, are you under
the blood?
Are your sins washed in the blood of
the Lamb, Jesus Christ?
And are you born from above?
If not, you are in grave danger.
For God is a God who must punish
sin.
For the sentencing of the law must be
carried out.
And you're a guilty rebel who's broken the
strict and severe law of God.
And one day you'll be held up against
the strictness of God's law.
And listen, friend, God requires perfection to get
to his heaven.
And you are not perfect.
You will fail that test if you stand
there in your own merits as a lawbreaker.
Listen, friend, I know I'm a sinner, and
I need a remedy for sin in the
person of Jesus Christ.
And so do you, friend.
So do you.
Why?
Because God's wrath cannot be quenched, but by
Christ's blood.
There is power in the blood, friend.
A wonder-working power.
And nothing but the blood can wash my
sins away.
And nothing but the blood can wash your
sins away, friend.
Get under the blood.
Escape from God's wrath upon you.
Flee to your only refuge.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus
Christ before it's too late.
And lastly, the doctrine of the wrath of
God must be preached in this land once
more.
If we ever hope to see another revival.
I've been studying revival for several decades.
I have written several books on revival.
I've preached myself blue in the face on
the subject of revival.
I've prayed for revival for decades, and I
still pray for it to come to this
country and to our churches every single day
of my life.
That God would once again pour out his
effusions of grace upon this sin-soaked land
and unrepentant church.
But until we preachers start being honest with
folks and warn them of their great danger
of dying in their sins and being cast
into a hell of misery.
And we once again preach up the wrath
of a holy God who hates all sin.
Then we'll keep going as we have been
since 1858 in this country, which was the
last time this nation saw a national spiritual
awakening.
It's been that long, friends, that revival was
birthed by prayer, by praying men and women
who still had a fear of God and
who knew full well the wrath of God
against sinful man.
When they prayed, they addressed the Almighty, who
was a God who must punish sin.
But today we address God like he's our
golf buddy.
We put him on our level and shrunken
him down to our size.
So how can we fear a God who's
on our level?
But listen to me, dear friend.
God's wrath cannot be quenched, but by Christ's
blood.
Perhaps some young preacher boy will come along
and pick up his Bible and actually believe
it and begin to preach its straight doctrines
once again.
And just maybe the tops of the mulberry
trees will be stirred and a mighty revival
will sweep this land from coast to coast.
Oh, pray that it will, friends.
Listen, dear friend, if you have not trusted
the blessed Savior, who is the Lord Jesus
Christ, receive him now before it's too late.
Soon he will come in judgment on this
world when his anger shall burn as an
oven and then you shall meet him as
your judge.
I repeat, friend, God's wrath cannot be quenched
but by Christ's blood.
Get under the blood.