We began what will be a relatively brief
series of messages entitled, Simple Signposts to the
Celestial City.
It's been my very clearly stated purpose in
this series of studies to direct your attention
to texts of scripture in which the great
and fundamental concerns of the soul are addressed
in a very forthright, explicit, and powerful way.
The issues of how to be right with
God, how to have our sins forgiven, how
to be ready to die, and to go
to judgment.
And my purpose in bringing this series has
been twofold.
First, that God in His mercy might bless
the preaching of this more concentrated gospel truth
to bring some of you to repentance and
faith.
That whereas you may have picked up in
your home, in your Sunday school class, in
the ordinary ministries of the Word, various strands
of gospel truth, that by these concentrated concerns
with respect to those truths, God might be
pleased to make the gospel the power of
God unto even your salvation.
And then my second purpose has been to
further equip you, the people of God, for
the work of service, even that of bearing
witness to your faith in Christ, seeking to
point others to Christ, consistent with your particular
gifts and opportunities.
For according to Ephesians chapter four, this is
one of the primary purposes for which Christ
gives pastors and teachers to His church, namely
that they might equip the saints unto service
work.
And surely to have a working knowledge of
these basic gospel texts is to be better
equipped for the wonderful service of bearing witness
to the truth of the gospel.
Now, the five previous signposts that we have
considered have been primarily positive statements encouraging us
to look to the Lord Jesus as the
way, the truth, and the life, to believe
on the Lord Jesus in the confidence that
so believing we shall be saved.
We have looked at texts that have set
forth the wonderful truths that for sinners who
need Christ, Christ is a suitable and an
accessible Savior and that God commands you to
repent and to believe the gospel.
However, tonight I want us to look at
a very sobering signpost that is not positive
in its overall thrust, but rather is heavy.
It is foreboding.
It is sobering.
And yet, nonetheless, it is one of those
signposts which God has placed in His word
and the scriptures and Christian experience both join
in witnessing to the fact that many of
God's people were initially nudged or even driven
into the way of seeking salvation in earnest,
not by the beauty of Christ, not by
the glories of gospel privileges, but by the
fear and dread of the wrath of God.
And it is right that that subject then
should occupy our minds as we further develop
some of these simple signposts to the celestial
city.
And the one that we will be considering
tonight is found in the book of the
Revelation, chapter 6, and it is the closing
words of the paragraph which begins in 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 casteth her
unripe figs when she 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.
And they say to the mountains and to
the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us
from the face of him that sitteth upon
the throne, and from the wrath of the
Lamb.
For the great day of their wrath is
come, and who is able to stand?
And as we consider this sixth signpost to
the celestial city, I want us to envision
it as a signpost with these bold letters
engraven upon it.
For the great day of their wrath is
come, and who is able to stand?
The great day of their wrath is come.
The there refers to the living God and
to the Lamb who shares His throne.
The great day of their wrath is come,
and who is able to stand?
And as we think of the signpost etched
with those letters, bold and clear to our
eyes, as we draw closer to the signpost,
I want us to see four simple statements
engraved beneath the major words of the signpost.
For the great day of their wrath is
come, and who is able to stand?
And the first of those four simple statements
is this.
A unique day of God's wrath is surely
coming.
A unique day of God's wrath is surely
coming.
In our signpost itself, we read, for the
great day of their wrath is come.
According to the Scriptures, God's wrath has been
displayed in times past in most terrifying ways.
How anyone can read his Bible and say,
God is love, all love and nothing but
love, and the very thought of God having
a pure and a holy wrath expressed in
taking vengeance upon sinners because of their sin
is abhorrent and foreign to the God of
the Bible.
How anyone can state that and so unashamedly
display his ignorance is beyond my understanding.
For according to the Scriptures, God's wrath has
been displayed in times past in terrifying ways.
I remind you of just a couple of
them.
Remember the ancient flood when God spared one
man and his family and tens and hundreds
of thousands, possibly millions, were blotted out in
one horrible stroke of the unleashed fury of
the wrath of Almighty God.
Think of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities
of the plains when in one day God
rained hell out of heaven and consumed those
cities in his wrath and anger against them
for their horrible perversions, for their wretched abandonment
to bestiality and to every form of sexual
deviation and carnal indulgence of their flesh and
the smoke of those cities God himself says
is to be a constant reminder of a
day of coming and future wrath.
Think of the wrath of God as we
have heard it described times without number in
our reading through the prophets when God speaks
of his fury to be let loose upon
his people, a fury manifested in their going
into captivity under horrible circumstances, when God speaks
of mothers eating the flesh of their own
children in the midst of their starvation, people
drinking their own refuse and eating their own
dung.
Horrible manifestations of the wrath of God upon
a nation that turned away from the God
of the covenant.
According to the Scriptures, God's wrath has not
only been displayed in times past in terrifying
ways, but God's wrath is being presently displayed
in undeniable ways.
We heard a few weeks ago in the
exposition brought to us by Pastor Pezzino in
Romans chapter 1, the very clear teaching that
God's wrath is being presently displayed in undeniable
ways.
The wrath of God, Romans 1 18, is
revealed, not it shall be in the future,
but is presently being revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hinder,
who suppress, who hold down the truth in
unrighteousness.
And that wrath is manifested specifically in this
context by God giving men over to the
vile passions of their hearts.
And when we find ourselves unable to turn
on a radio and even to get the
weather without hearing the most sordid details of
the most sickening manifestations of moral perversion, surely
we see Romans 1 being lived out undeniably
before our very eyes.
The wrath of God presently displayed in undeniable
ways.
However, there is yet a climactic, awesome, final
and utterly unique day of wrath that is
yet to come.
And I want you to look with me
at several texts that clearly point to this
climactic, awesome, final and utterly unique day of
coming wrath.
In Romans chapter 2 and in verse 5,
the apostles speaking to those who despise the
riches of God's goodness and forbearance, who misread
God's forbearance as His indulgence, not knowing that
the goodness of God is intended to lead
them to repentance.
And so by going on under the canopy
of God's goodness, mistaking it for God's indifference
to sin, what do they do?
Verse 5, But after thy hardness and impenitent
heart, treasurest up for thyself wrath in the
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous
judgment of God.
He says that such people, those of you
who sit among us this very night, who
bask under the continual manifestations of the goodness
and long suffering of God, and rather than
be humbled and broken and seek God in
penitence, you become harder and harder in your
sins, thinking that God's forbearance is an unprincipled
indulgence.
And every day you thus live, God says
you're putting money in the bank and you
will get it with interest.
And it is in the bank of God's
righteous anger and wrath.
And He says you are heaping up a
treasure.
But it is a treasure of wrath that
will be meted out in the day of
wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment
of God.
Here the language is clear that though God's
wrath has been manifested in terrible ways in
the past in biblical history, though it is
being presently manifested as God gives men over
to their rejection of the light of His
truth and He abandons them to base and
vile passions, yet there is a distinctive, unique,
awesome, final day of wrath to come described
in Romans 2 and verse 5 as the
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous
judgment of God.
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, here the apostle
describes it using a little different terminology, describing
the conversion of the Thessalonians in verse 9,
1 Thessalonians 1 in verse 9, how that
they turned to God from their idols to
serve the living and true God and to
wait for His Son from heaven, whom He
raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth
us from the wrath to come.
Jesus delivers from the wrath to come.
And that terminology, the wrath to come, is
a distinct reference to that climactic, awesome, final
and utterly unique day in which God will
mete out wrath upon sinners in their sin.
One other text, Ephesians chapter 5.
Ephesians chapter 5, Paul is exhorting the people
of God to a life of holiness, positively
in the opening two verses, negatively beginning in
verse 3, and then as though he anticipates
someone saying, but it's not necessary to take
this call seriously, is it?
Can I not be a Christian and still
dabble in moral filth?
Notice what he says in verse 5, for
this know of a surety, that no fornicator,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is
an idolater have any inheritance in the kingdom
of Christ and God.
Let no man deceive you with empty words,
for because of these things cometh the wrath
of God upon the sons of disobedience.
As surely as the people of God have
a future inheritance in the kingdom of Christ
and of God, those who live in a
lifestyle characterized by fornication, uncleanness, or covetousness, or
idolatry, have no inheritance in that kingdom.
Let no one persuade you otherwise.
Such people are slated to experience the coming
wrath of God that shall break upon the
head of all the sons of disobedience.
So then, as we consider this signpost to
the celestial city that says, for their great
day of wrath is come, and who shall
be able to stand, that there is a
unique day of God's wrath is so certain
that by prophetic utterance John is able to
write, for their great day of wrath is
come.
It is as certain as the dawning of
this day is a certain reality, a matter
that is past in our own history, yet
by prophetic utterance he can write and say,
their great day of wrath is coming.
Say what you will.
Think what you will.
It matters not.
Your mind, your perceptions, your ideas of what
is right or proper or what is possible
or likable is not the measure of reality.
The measure of reality is the word of
the God who cannot lie, and that God
has declared that a unique day of His
wrath is coming.
Now look with me at the second statement
under the large letters, and it is this.
Each one of us by nature is a
legitimate candidate for that coming wrath.
Each one of us in this building from
the youngest to the oldest, the youngest to
the oldest, each one of us by nature
is a legitimate candidate for that coming wrath.
Now while the Bible teaches that there will
be intensified measures of wrath for certain aggravated
sins, Jesus said it will be more tolerable
for certain ones in the day of judgment
than for others.
The Bible speaks of those who will be
beaten with many stripes and those beaten with
few.
stripes, and I'm fully aware of the biblical
doctrine of degrees of punishment in the day
of God's wrath.
Yet our Bibles teach us that each and
every one of us is by nature a
legitimate candidate for the wrath of Almighty God.
And you say, where is this taught?
There is no passage which teaches it with
greater clarity than Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1
through 3.
The Apostle speaking to all of the believers
at Ephesus, drawn from a broad spectrum of
backgrounds, both ethnically, religiously, morally, he writes to
all of them and says, And you, did
he make a lie when you were dead
through your trespasses and sins?
He describes them in their former pre-converted
state as those who were spiritually dead in
the realm of their trespasses and their sins.
But they were the walking dead, the active
dead.
For in verse 2 he says, Wherein, that
is, in your trespasses and sins, you once
walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of
the air, of the spirit that now worketh
in the sons of disobedience.
Now notice, he moves from speaking to them
in terms of you were dead, you once
walked, verse 3, among whom we also all
once lived in the lust of our flesh,
doing the desires of the flesh and of
the mind, and were by nature, we were
naturally children of wrath, even as the rest.
Words could not be more all-encompassing than
these words of the Apostle.
He speaks of people who are children of
wrath, that is, people who are the just
objects of God's settled righteous indignation and the
determination to execute upon them appropriate punishment.
To be a child of wrath is to
be such a person, one who is an
object of God's settled righteous indignation and his
determination to execute appropriate punishment upon the sinner.
Now he says that we were all such
and we were such by nature.
We were naturally, as surely as natural human
beings, we were born to walk on our
two feet, to accomplish our tasks with our
two hands, to look at objects with our
two eyes and to hear with our ears.
We were by nature, creatures of two feet,
two hands, two eyes, two ears.
So in the same way, simply by being
born into this world, we were by nature,
children of wrath.
We were naturally the objects of God's settled
righteous indignation and the determination to execute appropriate
punishment upon us.
And remember, Paul includes himself, though he was
morally upright, touching the external demands of the
law, he said, I was blameless, I was
a Pharisee of the Pharisees, I was marked
by knowledge and by zeal, and no one
could point the finger at my life and
accuse me of outwardly breaking the commandments of
God, and yet he puts himself here saying,
we, we were by nature, children of wrath.
And then he says, this is true of
all others, even as the rest.
So there is this universality of candidacy for
the coming wrath of God.
And if you ask the question, well, why
should that be so?
When a little one conceived in the womb
and brought forth from that womb as an
innocent little child, what has it done to
be by nature, a child of wrath?
To be one who is the object of
God's settled righteous indignation and determination to execute
appropriate punishment.
And the answer of the Bible is because
of our sin in Adam, we are by
nature, children of wrath, because by nature, each
of us is conceived, sustaining a relationship to
that which Adam did when he sinned in
his first transgression.
This is fully developed in Romans 5, verses
12 to the end of the chapter.
And the truth is epitomized in these words,
wherefore, as through one man, sin entered into
the world and death by sin, and so
death passed upon all men for that all
sinned.
And when did all sin?
We all sinned in our first father, Adam.
But to object and say, but Pastor Martin,
I did not ask that Adam should represent
me, that he should act on my behalf.
I did not find myself consulted as to
whether or not I agreed with this arrangement.
No, you didn't.
Nor was I consulted.
But facts are facts.
And almighty God who made Adam and almighty
God who purposed that at a given point
in human history, you would be conceived and
developed in your mother's womb and born and
be sitting here.
That God decreed such an arrangement.
And the word of God says, as in
Adam, all die.
And whether you like it, whether you can
figure out how it is fair and just
and right is not an issue of concern.
My friend, don't bang your head on facts.
Bow your heart to reveal reality in the
Scriptures.
You were by nature.
I was by nature a child of wrath,
a legitimate candidate for that coming wrath of
God.
Because I was in Adam and I sinned
in Adam and Adam's sin is my sin.
But furthermore, we are by nature children of
wrath because of our own individual violations of
the law of God.
The Scripture says that we go astray from
the womb speaking lies.
And when we indulge in those sins that
are violations of God's law, we read in
Ephesians chapter five, for which things say comes
the wrath of God upon the sons of
what disobedience.
We are sons of disobedience as well as
sons of wrath.
And we are sons of wrath because we
are sons of disobedience.
When God says, thou shalt, we say, I
will not.
And when God says, thou shalt not, we
say, I will.
And disobedience is the disposition of our hearts
by nature.
For the carnal mind is enmity against God.
It is not subject to the law of
God.
Neither, indeed, can it be.
You see, all God needs to do to
show us what we're made of is to
place His law close to our conscience and
exercise His authority and say, thou shalt.
And everything within us by nature rises up
and says, I will not.
And God says, thou shalt not.
And everything within us says, I will.
And so we are, by nature, children of
wrath because of our sin in Adam, because
of our own individual violations of the law.
And thirdly, because of the wicked sin of
unbelief, John three thirty six very clearly states
that the wrath of God abides upon all
who do not believe the son.
He that believes on the son hath eternal
life, but he that obeyeth not, that is,
he that goes on in a course of
resolute, determined unbelief which perpetuates that lifestyle of
disobedience.
This one shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abides upon him.
It hangs over him awaiting the coming day
of wrath.
And if he still lives in unbelief, he
lives under the canopy of that wrath, which
in the day of wrath shall break down
upon his head.
As we look at this signpost together for
their great day of wrath is come and
who shall be able to stand, see written
beneath the bold letters.
This first statement, a unique day of God's
wrath is coming.
Secondly, each one of us by nature is
a legitimate candidate for that coming wrath.
I ask you, has that truth of the
second statement ever ever become a haunting, pressing,
wearisome burden?
That's exactly how Bunyan describes Christian leaving the
city of destruction, that burden upon his back,
that burden which he knew would press him
down to hell.
Did he remain in the city of destruction?
He could no longer work without being distracted
by it.
He could no longer enjoy the legitimate pleasures
of his wife and his family.
And the picture Bunyan gives of Christian is
this, that the issue of his being a
candidate for the coming wrath was an all
-absorbing, unshakably pressing concern.
Isn't that the description we were given in
Acts chapter two of those who came together
for a festive Jewish holiday?
They never expected to have their hearts stabbed
as with a dagger.
But under the preaching of Peter, it says,
they were stabbed in their hearts.
And suddenly there was only one concern.
And they cried out, men and brethren, what
shall we do?
Nothing else matters.
Forget the next course in the feast.
Forget the friends.
Forget the concerns back home.
We have murdered the Son of God.
We're exposed to the wrath of God.
Men and brethren, what shall we do?
This is what the old writers called an
anxious as opposed to a complacent soul.
They spoke about sleeping sinners and they spoke
about awakened sinners.
This is the terminology they were using to
underscore this biblical reality.
And I ask you, children, young people, teenagers,
adults, older men and women, have these realities
that grow out of the clear teaching of
the Word of God, have they gripped you?
Have they so taken hold of you?
That like Bunyan's Christian, the things in which
you would normally find legitimate repose or delight
and diversion, suddenly they've lost all their savor
to you.
One thing gnaws at you day and night,
night and day, in the bedroom, in the
bathroom, in the workroom, in the social concourse,
at the mall.
It matters not wherever you are.
It's this truth.
A day of wrath is coming.
And I, by nature, am a legitimate candidate
for that coming wrath.
But then look closely at the signpost and
see a third statement etched beneath the larger
words.
And it is this that Jesus Christ alone
can deliver us from the coming wrath that
Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from the
coming wrath.
Turn again, please, to the Thessalonians passage.
First Thessalonians chapter one.
And here is the apostle gives the account
of what happened when he would go out
in his missionary endeavors and begin to open
his mouth to say how the gospel had
triumphed at Thessalonica.
He said, we don't need to speak anything.
The last phrase of verse eight, verse nine,
for they themselves report concerning us what manner
of entering in we had unto you, how
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, who delivereth us from the wrath
to come.
Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to
come.
Could language be more simple?
Could language be more clear?
Who delivers from that climactic, that final, that
frightening revelation of the wrath of God?
It is Jesus himself.
It is Jesus alone.
It is the Jesus of biblical witness who
died and was raised from the dead and
who will come again in glory and in
power for verse 10 says they are waiting
for his son from heaven.
It is that Jesus who himself and who
alone can deliver us from the coming wrath.
And how does he do this?
Well, turn over to chapter five of the
same epistle.
And the answer again is set before us
in the plainest of language.
Verse nine of chapter five.
For God appointed us not unto wrath, there's
our language again, but unto the obtaining of
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died
for us.
There it is, all in simple, plain, clear
language.
How does Christ deliver us from the coming
wrath?
He delivers us by bringing us to partake
of his salvation, the focal point of which
is his death upon the cross on our
behalf.
Dear people, don't go into hell in the
face of the clear light of such simple
declarations.
God has appointed us, the apostle says, not
unto wrath.
That's what we deserved by nature.
I told the Ephesians I, like the rest,
was liable to that wrath of God and
to the frightening day of wrath.
But God appointed us as believers, not unto
wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation, a
salvation that comes exclusively through our Lord Jesus
Christ and that focuses upon the work that
he did when he died for us, the
just for the unjust, when he underwent vicarious,
that is, substitutionary wrath bearing for us.
All of the wrath, the pure, holy, righteous
antagonism of God's being against sin and all
that it will produce in what Paul describes
in Romans 2 as tribulation and anguish upon
every soul of him who works evil, all
that that wrath would be to us, he
bore it in our room and in our
stead.
He bore it on our behalf.
In the words of Rabbi Duncan, it was
damnation, vicariously born, and he bore it lovingly.
It was damnation born on behalf of sinners
and he bore it lovingly.
Could language be more clear, dear boys and
girls, men and women, as surely as these
passages we've looked at tell us that a
unique day of wrath is coming, that each
and every one of us by nature is
a legitimate candidate for that wrath.
They tell us with equal clarity Jesus Christ
alone can deliver us from the coming wrath.
You see, denying that you deserve wrath won't
deliver you.
It makes a mockery of the work of
Christ.
You see, to sit there and say, well,
I'm not so bad that I deserve the
fury and the unleashed anger of God upon
me that would crush me and press me
into hell where there is weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth, I don't deserve that.
Now, I'm not perfect and I know I've
said some bad things and I've done a
few bad things and to have God give
me a few frowns or a few whacks
on the behind, that's fair.
But the notion that God would cast me
into hell and make me an eternal monument
of his holy wrath, I don't deserve that.
My friend, the way to be delivered from
the wrath of God is not to deny
that you deserve the wrath of God.
It's your own sinfulness that blinds you to
the horror of your sinfulness.
Can you imagine a leprous man whose face
is an ugly mass of open, running, putrefying
sores, whose leprosy has made him blind, standing
in front of a mirror saying, I don't
look so bad.
Hey folks, look at me.
You think I look too bad?
And you turn away and disgust.
That's what you are, sinner.
When you say you're not so bad as
to deserve the anger and the fury and
the wrath of God, you're like a leprous
man without eyesight, looking in a mirror saying
you don't look so bad.
Your sin has blinded you to the ugly,
open sores of your moral degeneracy.
The marred image of God in the stench
of your sin is accurate in the nostrils
of God.
Oh, my friend, the way of deliverance from
the coming wrath is not to try to
convince yourself that you're not so bad as
to deserve wrath.
And surely it is not to deny that
there is a coming day of wrath.
Many are doing that in our day.
Reasoning around the scriptures, they will have to
take their penknife and cut out our text
that is the signpost for their great day
of wrath is come.
They'll have to rewrite it and reprogram the
Word of God and say what men once
thought was a day of wrath will never
in reality come.
No, the way of escaping the coming wrath
is not to convince yourself or attempt to
that you're not so bad as to deserve
that wrath or deny that there is any
such thing as wrath.
But to do what Psalm 2 tells you
to do.
What a beautiful directive coming from the very
lips of the living God with respect to
His Son.
Chapter 2 of the book of Psalms, verse
10.
Now, therefore, be wise, O ye kings.
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
God says, I'll take in the great ones,
the kings who exercise authority over others and
judges who make pronouncements and evaluations of others.
And by speaking to the great ones of
the earth, God includes all lesser ones.
Be wise, O kings.
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with
trembling.
Kiss the Son.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and
ye perish in the way.
For His wrath will soon be kindled.
Blessed are they that take refuge in Him.
Kiss Him.
Take refuge in Him.
Embrace Him for what He is.
Jesus, Son of God.
Jesus, substitutionary sin bearer.
Jesus, risen from the dead in power, mighty
to save, mighty to deliver from the coming
wrath.
Kiss Him.
Fall at His feet and say, O Lord
Jesus, if you delight to receive sinners, then
there's hope for me.
Lord Jesus, I take the posture of a
penitent sinner who owns His wrath deservingness and
who now embraces You as His only hope
of mercy.
I kiss You.
I take refuge in You.
Lord Jesus, be to me my city of
refuge from the avenger of blood, and I
shall be safe from the wrath of God.
Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from the
coming wrath.
And then the fourth simple statement underneath the
bold large letters is this.
When the day of wrath arrives, and it
will, 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.
Turn back, please, to the Revelation 6 passage
and see the graphic language that is used.
Let it sink deeply into your ears and
into your hearts.
As John is given to see these visions
in which there is a cyclical unfolding of
the history of the people of God from
that point in which John lived to the
end, and there are these repeated cycles of
the unfolding of the purposes of God.
Here we have a picture of the end
in this opening of the sixth seal.
There was a great earthquake, and the sun
became black as sackcloth of hair, and the
moon became as blood.
As John sees this in vision, what he
sees happening in the cosmic realm indicates tremendous
disruption of the order of things.
A great earthquake, the sun becoming as black
as sackcloth, giving forth no light, the moon
becoming as blood.
The stars of the heavens falling to the
earth as a fig tree casts her unripe
figs when she is shaken of a great
wind.
The heaven was removed as a scroll when
it is rolled up.
We have not seen that, many of us,
but there the scroll is rolled up and
removed.
He said, so the heavens as we know
them in vision were rolled up and taken
away, and every mountain and island were moved
out of their places.
Think of those ranges in which we find
mountains like McKinley and the Matterhorn and the
mighty Alps and the Pyrenees and the Cascades.
Think of them being moved out of their
places.
And now notice as people come into the
picture, and the kings of the earth, those
who have the power and the wealth and
the influence and the prestige of a true
kingdom and all that that involves, and the
princes, the heir apparent, and the chief captains,
and the rich and the strong.
You see the concentration upon the important ones,
the wealthy ones, the influential ones, the people
who have power and money and influence and
can amass protection to themselves, and with their
influence and power can usually find a way
to cut a conduit to accomplish what they
desire to do along with every bondman, that
is, every slave and every free man.
Hid themselves in the caves and in the
rocks of the mountains.
What a picture.
Kings who get up in the morning and
their servants place their shoes upon their feet,
and their servants kowtow to every need and
every glance of the eye and every wave
of the hand and every pointing of the
finger, crawling on their hands and knees to
find a little hole in the side of
a rock.
Shivering, quivering, blanched white with fear, they hid
themselves in the caves and in the rocks
of the mountains.
And now kings who could command armies start
praying to mountains, and they say to the
mountains and to the rocks, fall on us,
fall on us.
Don't merely be a refuge to us.
Break up and disintegrate and bury us.
And what is it that's caused such terror
that will cause the kings and the great
ones of the earth to be so utterly
torn to pieces emotionally and psychologically?
Look at the language.
Fall on us and hide us from the
face of Him that sits on the throne,
and from the wrath of hide us from
His face.
His face we cannot bear to look upon.
That face bespeaks His coming forth with the
resolute determination of all of the Godhead to
crush His enemies.
We've seen the face of determined generals in
the field of battle.
We've seen the set jaw of mighty kings
in conflict, but never, never have we seen
a face like that.
Hide us from the face of Him that
sits upon the throne, and from that which
that face tells us is about to be
unleashed from the wrath of the Lamb, for
the great day of their wrath is come.
And who, who, who is able to stand?
Who can stand before the face of the
Lamb when He comes in the holy, righteous
fury of God to crush His enemies?
You gonna stand?
You gonna puff up your chest and say,
I'll take you on Jesus.
I'll prove that I don't deserve your wrath.
I'll prove to you, I'll get right in
your face, and I'll prove to you that
I was not by nature a child of
wrath.
You gonna do that?
You gonna do that, kids?
How about it, teenager?
Defy your mom and dad?
Set your jaw, go in your room, and
cuss them under your breath?
Is that what you're gonna do to the
Son of God when He comes to tread
the winepress of the wrath of God, unmixed,
as it's described in the book of the
Revelation, chapter 14?
Is that what you're going to do?
No, you won't, my friend.
Young or old, you will not get in
His face and defy Him.
There'll be no room into which you can
retire and shut the door and mumble and
cuss under your breath at Him.
You'll cry out, who is able to stand?
And the answer is, none shall be able
to stand except those who are clothed in
the virtue of the perfect life in the
substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus, who have
come to repent of their sins and believe
on the Lord Jesus, who have kissed the
Son and taken refuge in Him, have become
His willing bond slaves and follow Him where
'er He goes.
They shall say with Count Zinzendorf, bold shall
I stand in that great day, for who
ought to my charge shall lay, fully absolved
from these I am, from sin and fear
and death and shame.
When the day of wrath arrives, only penitent,
believing, converted people will be delivered from its
fury.
All others, the great ones and the lesser
ones, it matters not.
This is why John, in preaching to the
religious leaders of his day, said these words
in Matthew 3 and verse 7.
Here were a people who thought they could
escape the coming day of wrath by religious
formalism, by religious activity, by external morality and
civility.
And when John saw a batch of these
Pharisees coming to his baptism, Matthew 3, 7,
he said to them, you offspring of vipers,
who warned you to flee from the wrath
to come.
Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance.
Who's warned you to think that you can
escape the wrath to come by going through
forms and rituals and immersing yourself in the
traditions of men, but your hearts are unchanged
and you know nothing of true repentance.
Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance and don't
think to say within yourselves, we have Abraham
to our father.
We've got godly bloodlines.
We've got a godly heritage.
We have all the benefits of being reared
in the covenant community.
Don't say that!
It will not do!
Who shall be able to stand?
Only the truly penitent, believing, converted men and
women will stand in that day.
And that's why Paul could say as he
did to the Thessalonians, those of whom he
wrote in verse 10, Jesus who delivers us
from the wrath to come, he said of
them in verse 9, they report concerning us
our manner of entering in 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 from heaven.
He describes them as a converted people and
he says of such, Jesus delivers them from
the coming wrath.
Therefore, as we stand by this sixth simple
signpost to the celestial city, look at it,
look at it, look at it long and
let its words sink into your heart for
their great day of wrath is come.
And who shall be able to stand?
Look at the four simple statements etched in
smaller letters beneath that signpost.
See what they tell us that there is
a climactic, final, unique day of coming wrath.
Secondly, each one of us by nature is
liable to that coming wrath.
Thirdly, Jesus Christ alone can deliver us from
that coming wrath.
Fourth, when the day of wrath arrives, only
penitent, believing, converted people will be delivered from
its fury.
Dear people, I say in all honesty, I
don't know how to make it more simple.
I don't know how if God would give
me the tongue of an angel to make
it more simple and plain, I would do
it in God's name.
Why, why, why will you sit through another
service and stand by a signpost that points
you away from the hell and the wrath
of God and to heaven and life and
forgiveness and hug death to your breast?
Oh, the madness of sin.
And if you're tempted to take it lightly
and say, well, that's just the preacher doing
his thing.
He's got to earn his pay.
You go home and meditate on some further
passages that I've not touched upon.
You meditate on Revelation 14, 10 and following
a portion which speaks of the smoke of
their torment ascending up forever and forever.
They have no rest day nor night.
Read the word of God in Romans 2,
which speaks of tribulation and anguish upon every
soul of him that does evil.
Read Luke 16, the rich man who died
and in hell lifted up his eyes being
in torment.
Dear people, we're not trafficking in myths.
There is a coming day of wrath.
All of us by nature is a candidate
for it.
Christ alone can deliver us from it.
And when that day arrives, only penitent, believing,
converted people will be delivered from its fury.
Are you such a person?
A penitent, believing, converted man or woman, boy
or girl?
Then that day holds no fury, no fear,
no terror for you.
But that will be the day, according to
2 Thessalonians 1, of the full manifestation of
the glory of the sons of God.
Romans 8 and 2 Thessalonians 1 and other
passages make it plain that in that day,
everyone that thought we were a little bit
shy of a few bricks for a full
load and a bit fanatical and all the
rest.
Because as penitent, believing sinners, we were attached
to Christ in faith and obedience, and we
lived a radical, alternate Christian lifestyle that exposed
their sin and made them feel uncomfortable.
Oh, in that day will they wonder and
marvel when they see what we are.
We will be resplendent with the glory of
our exalted Lord when every last stain of
sin having been removed from our spirits at
our death or at his coming and all
the vestiges of sin's influence upon the body
forever replaced by the dynamics of a resurrection
body like unto his own.
Those who sneered and mocked will stand with
wide-eyed wonder, and we, by the grace
of God, will be the object of the
admiration of all the intelligent creatures in the
universe as they see what Jesus Christ did
to wrath-deserving sinners.
Thank God I'll be one of them.
Will you?
For the great day of their wrath is
come, and who shall be able to stand?
Let us pray.
Our Father, as we have sought to lay
out simply and honestly the teaching of your
word concerning that unique, that singular coming day
of wrath, we pray that the Holy Spirit
would own the preaching of the word and
cause some sitting in this building this very
hour to cry out in their hearts, Son
of David, have mercy upon me.
Oh, God, bring sinners to repentance and faith
this night in this place by the mighty
power of your spirit working by and with
the word.
And, oh Lord, for those of us who
once remember how we were haunted day and
night with fears of death and foreboding thoughts
of judgment and how we tried to scrub
from our minds these realities and could not,
how we thank you for the peace that
you have given us through the blood of
the cross of your dear Son.
We thank you.
We worship you.
We praise you.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for bearing the
wrath that was due to us.
And we pray that you will help us
in loving gratitude so to live that others
will see that indeed we belong to you.
Seal then your word to the encouragement and
to the strengthening of the faith and usefulness
of your own and to the bringing in
of others to the knowledge of your dear
son.
We pray that the seed sown will not
be plucked away by that wicked one, for
we know that he is present wherever the
gospel seed is sown, like birds who follow
the one who sows seed, just waiting to
snatch away the seed.
Oh God, bind that foul fiend of hell
and cause your word to sink deeply into
the subsoil of every heart and there to
germinate and bring forth fruit to your glory
and to our good.
Hear our prayer we plead in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.