It’s a bit difficult to find a lot of hymns that specifically refer to the wrath of God. And of course, that one is a good one. And I think a long time ago, we shared a little bit of the history of that song with the Gettys. And that’s a beautiful song. And they wanted to put it in a hymnal. I want to say that the United Methodist Church wanted to use that. But they didn’t like that phrase, bore the wrath. And so they talked to the Gettys and said, if you’ll let us change that and bore the love, or they had some kind of, you know, other word they were going to put in that. And the Gettys, probably through some of the counsel of Alistair Begg, I think was one of his counselors, and there were some others, but the Gettys said no. And it would have been a very lucrative deal for them with the number of hymns and everything that would have been sold. But some things you do not change, and that was one of them. And of course, while he may have lost money on that one, he gained the respect of so many others that I’m sure they’re doing okay.

This evening, we come to an interesting topic. Stephen even just said that he was looking forward to this. It’s not a topic that many people cover. The wrath of God. And I have heard different ones throughout my time in growing the church that, you know, preachers don’t preach on it. Churches don’t don’t have sermons on it or they don’t say they believe in it as much. And that’s all true. But when you actually delve into this a little bit, that’s not just a more recent Phenomenon. Because you see, there can be other reasons why. Just, it may not be that people don’t believe it. It’s that they really do. And in the words of John Frame, Dr. John Frame, who was one of my professors in my doctoral program, this is a terrifying subject. And it does make you want to pull away from it if you properly understand it. However, our God is a consuming fire and we don’t shrink away from preaching about him. If you’re going to shrink away, you might not want to read Isaiah of chapter 53, which we’ll probably touch on tonight. And so it is a difficult, a terrifying topic. It even says, with respect to God’s people, we tremble before a holy God. We worship our God in the beauty of holiness, but when you understand holiness, you better tremble. And so there’s some different reasons for that.

The men’s Bible study that we have on every other Tuesday throughout this past fall. We’ve been talking about the battle for truth and creation and so forth and one of John MacArthur’s books and one chapter in there really emphasizes astronomy and so forth and some of the things that are going on.

And it just caused me to just tap on a couple of extra follows for at least a while of astronomers and I’ve come across this one that talks about the intellectual mind And it’s got a young astrologer on there. And his two favorite scientists are Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan. Well, those are not deep theologians, but they were really smart guys. Carl Sagan was a little bit out there, but they’re no longer alive. But he really respects them.

But he gives a lot of information that just makes you feel so small, like that the universe has something of at least and I went back just to get this down, has at least 400 trillion galaxies, some bigger and smaller than the Milky Way and what we have now. And he said, although I don’t know quite how to calculate it, the universe may be infinite, or it at least is so infinite, we will never get to the end of it. Well, that is true. It’s just out there and so forth.

And so I had college physics and we studied all these things. The theory of relativity, the theory of light travel and how that all works and could we have time travel And he says, mathematically, we could, but then you could never come back and report what you found in the future because the past would have gone along so long that everybody you knew would be dead. And that’s all in theory.

And so whenever I see those things and hear those things and having gone to a secular university, I sometimes really hold suspect some of these things. But tonight, I want to share something with you that He was teaching on and he shared he said there is an exoplanet that is called HD 189733 B and the galaxy of Vulpecula it is 64 light-years away now a light-years the distance that you travel that light travels in a year So that means it’s further away than California. It’s really far away. 64 light years away. Its surface temperature is 1,000 degrees Celsius. Melt metal, everything. On its appearance, it looks a lot like Earth. Blue, sways. You’ve seen those pictures from the space shuttle and the like. It’s blue and looks gorgeous.

But the scientists say, and I’ll just take it that they’re accurate in this, but it’s interesting what they do with this, that they said that it is covered with silicon and microscopic pieces of glass that the winds are blowing faster than the speed of sound. And that is a reflection of that particular exoplanet’s sun. And it looks like water, but it’s actually and through the high-speed winds and everything is the shifting glass that if anything was ever to land on it would immediately just be shredded into non-existence. That there are sections of just like a volcanic flow of heat but with this glass it reflects blue. And then he goes on to say The reason why we know this planet and the reason that we study, and these are his words, this terrifying and almost repulsive kind of environment, but the reason why we study it is because we do not want anyone ever to go there.

I thought, you know, that’s why we study hell. That’s why we’re studying the wrath of God. Because the wrath of God is real. And we have been considering the wrath of God, I’m sorry, we’ve been considering God by way of study through the attributes that are revealed, that he has revealed in his holy, inerrant, inspired word that is sufficient. It is not complete. But to the degree that we have, we do use what’s called a biblical theology, which then forms into a systematic theology, trying to figure out just how to rightly think about what does the Bible tell us about God. And we have considered this in different ways. And I follow Burkoff, actually, in his division and other theologians, too, who Study the attributes or characteristics of God, what God is like by way of communicable and incommunicable attributes. Those that are communicable, those that we have that we can kind of understand a little bit more. And I always like to quickly go to love. We all think we all know what love is and that sort of thing or goodness. I think last week was good or a couple of weeks ago was good and last week was love. And those are communicable to some degree. They’re also known as moral attributes. And then there are those attributes that are called incommunicable. And incommunicable attributes are those that we can have some, he has revealed it, so we can have some knowledge of, yeah, but not really.

Such as God’s spirituality, that God is spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So if you’re going to worship, you got to know some things. The fact that God is not physical and that affects, you know, that’s why idolatry is so wrong, for example.

And so the incommunicable attributes, those that are. I don’t want to say existential, but I guess it might. That might be it. A truly metaphysical. Although that’s not probably the best word for that either. but they’re incommunicable and they’re about his existence, his very name, Yahweh. I am that I am, and so forth, that God is, and he is total reality, that God is omnipresent. Well, we have a concept of that, but not really. How can he be here and in heaven, seated at the, and our savior, you know, it just gets, Trinity, we can put together facts, Well, there’s three, but yet there’s only one hero. Israel, the Lord, our God is one. But there’s the father, son and Holy Spirit. And these things we take by faith. We have to.

And so we have those a sea, a sea type of. Attributes of God about his simpleness and and then yet he’s truly profound. It’s moral attributes. And now we come to this one. And this one actually is a little bit different. One, you know, when you sit down and you start going through your systematic theologies, it is amazing how many theologians do not have a separate chapter on the wrath of God, like they have on the goodness of God or the sovereignty of God or the love of God. It is found in other places. They’re not denying it. These are great theologians, but it is handled differently, even Karl Nock and the in his two-volume set, he handles it differently.

And it’s always been my idea of, I wonder why, is it because the nature of the topic? I was kidding a little bit with Stephen about the philosophical aspect of it. One night down in Haiti, I might have shared this, but it definitely applies here, that it was about 10.30 at night, and TV down there, you didn’t have anything else to do. We were reading and thinking and praying and all that. And I went over to the room of Dr. Alan Monroe. Many of you know him, know that I struck up a good friendship with him. And I knocked on his door because I saw his light was on. He said, Come in. And I go in. I said, I got a question. He said, OK, sit down, young man. And I asked him about what was the eternal expression of God’s wrath in eternity past. And he told me to go back to my room and go to sleep. He said, stop thinking. He said, you think too much.

Well, I come to find out even today. That that was a question that Dr. John Frame was asking, but only in another realm. You see, this goes to the philosophical thing. We can understand, if you remember last week, the love of God. Well, love has to have an expression, but it has to have an object. Well, there’s a trinity. God, the father loves the son and spirit, spirit. You know, and they and the love could exist. But before Genesis 1-1, before there was, God is, because he was present tense existing. And he could love, and he was still sovereign. Nobody moved him to start creating. And some of those attributes, he was still omnipresent in whatever, I guess, before existence from what’s revealed, but he was everywhere there was to be. And that really is where that sentence needs to end. And so you have those thoughts.

But what was the eternal past representation of the wrath of God before there was sin? And John Frame discussed the fact that sometimes even how we define grace, what is grace? Grace is unmerited favor. Grace is given to those who don’t deserve it. Well, why do we not deserve it? It’s because of sin. But before sin existed, could grace exist? And now you’re getting philosophical. And you’re dwelling in things, and that’s when you’ve got to say, stop. And say, I’m in unknown territory. and one must stop.

So as per what Dr. Monroe said to me, just get out of here, you think too much. But it was interesting, and I say all of that, not to bring about any sense of doubt or to get you to thinking too much in areas that there’s no answer to some of this anyways, but it’s this. One reason why good men of other years They believe and they will preach, but it’s not equal to some like the love of God in that is because the wrath of God is perceived by some. And again, this is just the way that we organize theology. Is perceived by some as a subset.

Now, what do I mean by that? That it is a subset of God’s justice. God is a just God. God has always been a just God. Justice and the justness of God is eternal, is real. And the wrath of God in its expression, and that’s usually what it is, it’s a response to sin. That’s what makes it, but it’s a subset. Okay. But it’s also known as a subset of his righteousness. You see, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. So it is an expression of something. Of a lack of righteousness, but when there was no unrighteousness, what was his expression? Don’t know, don’t have an answer, and nobody else does either. That’s one reason why the wrath of God is not always been given. I’ll put it a primary equality to some of his other attributes. And that could be the reason why some people back off of it a little bit.

But also the wrath of God is a subset, not only of his righteousness and of his justice, it is a subset of his holiness. Now we’ve got two moral or ethical realm attributes, but his holiness, that’s really an incommunicable. And and so you see, God is holy. And those that approach him and the only righteousness that he accepts is an alien righteousness, another kind of holiness, because God is holy. And we have that picture in Isaiah six.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. And everyone bows and all this. And those who do not bow. And I say this not to be lighthearted, but to be accurate, but also for sake of point. Those who refuse to bow, burn. And they burn for eternity. You see, the wrath of God is necessary if the love of God is real. Now, you may say you see the liberals, they say, because God is love, the wrath of God cannot exist. We must say because the love of God exists, so must also the wrath. And they won’t get that. And so some also believe that even the wrath of God. Is a subset of the love of God. So you see, it doesn’t it’s not a primary. And again, words. They kind of convey, but it’s difficult. The wrath of God is not a primary attribute, but it’s a real attribute. It is the this is how I wrote down a definition, the wrath of the wrath of God. Wrath is a holy God’s righteous and just response to sin. Wrath executes punishment. It is organized under the attributes of holiness, love, justice, righteousness, and jealousy. It’s classified as an ethical or moral attribute. It’s not only moral, it’s more of an ethical thing.

It comes out like, for example, someone breaks into your house and is going to harm a family member. and those non-combatant people and those that are just love, love, love, they would not take a gun and protect their loved one. They says because killing a robber or a soon-to-be murderer, that’s not a loving act. Well, do you have a problem with your ethics of life with that? I hope you do. Because you see, what is love? They say that’s not love to that person. Well, excuse me. What is that to your wife? If she survives and you do too, you’re soon to go see Jesus because she is going to be really upset. You would not stand up for her that you didn’t kill him, blah, blah, blah. You see, love has an object.

And that’s where they say that this is. somehow subset or like the other side of or connected with the doctrine of love. What is the object of love? For God so loved the world. Praise God. We got originator, we got love, we got the object. But you see, that’s not the whole verse. The liberals tend to forget the second part. The second part goes on to say that whosoever or that the one who believes should not what? Perish. Well, what does that mean? They’re going to go underneath the wrath of God. Because you see, it is a subset of so loved. Jacob, have I loved Esau, I have Because you see, if God is a holy God and God is a righteous God, then sin must be judged. And the wrath of God falls from heaven directly against all unrighteousness and sin.

We are all sinners. And now you know exactly where I’m going to go. If you don’t get the wrath of God, you don’t get what Jesus was doing. You don’t get the gospel. You don’t understand that love and wrath go together. And technically, I’m convinced that a lot of Christians don’t know how much God really loves them because he was willing to have pour out his wrath upon his own son, which obviously is going to be a place where we’re going to go and end up before this sermon is over. So we must. come to this terrifying doctrine of the wrath of God.

There are so many wrong views of God. Some have a simplistic view of God. He’s just got the thing started and that’s it. And just watching to see what’s going on. We tend to have a humanistic view or a dummy down sense of God. That’s what they hope for. People tend to make God in their image rather than we are made in His image. They want a user-friendly God.

Some just have the sense that God of the Old Testament is the God of wrath and the New Testament is the God of love. Well, wait a minute, when did God change? I thought He said He didn’t change and that’s why we weren’t consumed. You can’t you can’t. These are all bad views of God. We have the almost idolistic kind of view of God that they they make God into the image of what they want.

Some view God as a great big Santa Claus in heaven. All they do is pray, gimme, gimme, gimme or do do do and think that we can change a sovereign, ultimate God. They view him as a great fix it man, the great nice grandpa in heaven. And this is one that a lot of Christians jump on, and it’s just so wrong because it defies man. God is my co-pilot. Well, I am not co to God. I am the recipient of his eternal mercy and grace. And and I understand why they do that, but they’re not really thinking this through of who God is.

Some believe that the wrath of God, if they believe in a personable, a personal God, that the wrath of God is only an impersonal, an impersonal force. And yet the Bible is quite clear that there is a person behind this wrath and it is God. There are five Hebrew words that refer to the wrath of God in different forms to Greek. And we must properly understand God, to understand God, we must have at least a basic understanding of God’s wrath.

Now, there is beauty and balance in God. And that’s what since we’re going to be on the what some would refer to as the dark side, we need to understand certain things. Psalm 96. is one that really puts together a balance of God. You can just listen as I read and listen to what the psalm writer says.

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord and bless his name. Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among the people. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. The Lord He is to be feared above all gods. You see, beauty and grace. Fear and love. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all the gods. For all the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord glory. Do his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Tremble, tremble before him, all the earth. Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. The world also is firmly established. It shall not be moved. He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad. Let the sea roar in all its fullness. Let the fields be joyful and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord for he is coming, for he is coming Praise God to judge the earth, his justice. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with his truth.

Now that shows a beauty in balance as we approach our God. Our God is good. And brethren, the more I see of sin in this world, The future coming eschatological wrath of God is a good wrath. This earth deserves it. I mean, in God’s creation, in total rebellion against him, he who is just must judge if he is to maintain his justice, his righteousness, his holiness, and even his love. Because how, and I’ll say this in humanistic terms, how could he look at Jesus in the face after what the father did to the son if he let the sin of this world go unjudged? You see, so it’s now, hopefully I’ve argued it enough to you that logically you can see the wrath of God is absolutely necessary. That’s true. But when we come to this and we know that it’s a subset of these other attributes, it should not surprise us now that, well, there are different expressions of God’s wrath.

And so tonight, just very, very quickly as we go through this, and I typed up these verses so that we could cover a lot of this very quickly, but tonight, In Jeremiah chapter nine, verses 23 and 24, this is what the word of God says. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, and I’ll repeat the verb, exercising judgment and exercising righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord.

So. If we’re going to properly understand God, this is one of those whether you want to call it an attribute, subset, attribute, whatever, we must understand his wrath? Well, there’s at least seven different divisions or expressions of God’s wrath. Let me just read them and we’ll mention them. And a lot of these we can do just even in concept.

The first one is this, that the wrath of God is demonstrated very early in the book of Genesis with what has been called catastrophic or catamystic kind of wrath. It is worldwide or it is sudden and it’s big. For example, the flood. God comes down, you remember, and he sees that all the ways and actions and intents of the heart of mankind is of evil only continually and or but Moses found grace. Not Moses. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And that presupposes his wrath is coming. And when God poured out his wrath by way of water and he wiped out. The creation that he said was good, except for what he sovereignly chose to in grace redeem in behalf of and put on the ark. And so, again, that was love. That’s goodness. But he pours out his wrath. We sometimes we know that we hear that story is, you know, from just a childhood. But do we always do we understand? Children died and drowned. Babies, pregnant women. Young people, teenagers. Of all the entire world, there were millions. We don’t know. But the devastation of the wrath of God because their hearts were so sinful that God demonstrated his wrath just catastrophically and poured out his wrath.

That was also in a sense, although not to that kind of degree at the Tower of Babel, but at Sodom and Gomorrah, for example. Now there are those that want to interpret the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as that of a lack of hospitality. I will just say, if that is how you interpret that, You need a good lesson in hermeneutics. See what the New Testament has to say about it. And then come to the conclusion that God does not accept that kind of lifestyle. And he catastrophically, with fire and brimstone, poured out his wrath. It was catastrophic. And again, against all kinds of people. But there are other catastrophic kinds of judgment in the Bible as God demonstrates his wrath. Lot is being delivered and is told, tell your family and everyone you take out, don’t look back. Well, the wife looked back. Catastrophic, the wrath of God fell on her, she turned to a pillar of salt. You see, if you don’t believe that God can have wrath. You will try and write those things out of the Bible. And that’s what liberal theology tried to do. The catastrophic, the judgments and everything. That’s what they thought would happen. We change because we want homosexuality today, that we’re going to change the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. That’s not how you do this. The word of God reveals truth and we’re to believe it. We don’t reinterpret and make God into our image.

So there’s the catastrophic or cataclysmic wrath of God. Not only that, there’s another one. And this one. This one is just scary. Now, in the past, I’ve preached a message on this, too, and I remember the first time I read this here and almost being sick at my stomach. If you really get what this verse says. This is found in Hosea chapter four and verse 17. And God is talking about how to give warnings and what he’s doing in Hosea’s life and coming judgments and all of that. And he’s talking about, you know, how captivity is coming in and typical Old Testament minor prophet prophesying.

But in Hosea chapter four and verse 17, we read this Ephraim. the tribe is joined to idols. God be happy about that. Absolutely not. Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone. That is called abandonment, wrath. Abandonment, wrath, as found. In the Old Testament. You want your sin? You want your idols? Okay. And you just back off.

Any sinner who wants to continue in sin that they know what the truth is and that it’s wrong. And we don’t know when this happens. We know it does. God will back off. You want your sin? Go ahead. Take it until my wrath falls upon you.

I was going to say this earlier, but I’ll say it here. It was R.C. Sproul. He was just known for being so blunt. A lot of people didn’t like him for that, but it was extremely refreshing. He said, you know what salvation is and it’s great to be saved, but what are we saved from? We sometimes, oh, you’re safe from your sins. You know, you’re safe to a new life. And he says, no, we are saved from God. By God, for God. We’re safe from the wrath of God. And the only one who can save us from his wrath is him. And he does it not just for us. He does it for him. And that’s the gospel story.

But this is abandonment wrath. Some people just love their sins so much that he can just say he’ll withdraw and back off. Psalm 81 verses 11 and 12 says, but my people would not heed my voice and Israel would not have none of me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart to walk in their own councils. That’s kind of like turning your stomach. You want you want to continue your sin? OK. I’m a God of God, of mercy and of grace, and he could redeem us from that. But he can say no and back off.

We’ll be then. Proverbs 1, because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded. Because you disdained all my counsel and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh. And keep in mind, this is God. I will also laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your terror comes. Now, that’s communicate. We can talk about parts of speech and what that’s all. I don’t want to be there. That’s why today is the day of salvation. Don’t put it off. The offer of the gospel is always there, but you won’t always hear it. And when God closes the year, see, that’s what makes sense of those Old Testament passages, like in Isaiah. I want you to go and preach, but they’re not going to listen. I want you to preach repentance, but they won’t. But that doesn’t mean we don’t preach it.

Now, that’s all Old Testament. What about the New Testament? Well, abandonment wrath is in Romans chapter one, and God gave him over to a reprobate mind to do that which is unseemly. How is it that you can have people who follow an alternative lifestyle and still call themselves Christians. They are totally deceived. And they can get saved, not many, but they can. But there does come a time that God simply abandons them and cuts the rope and lets the ship drift until the hurricane comes and judgment falls. That’s really scary stuff. God gave them over. Well, there’s another kind of wrath. There’s the cataclysmic wrath that is just big and generally worldwide. And God really judges. There is the abandonment wrath that God just backs off. There’s a wrath that we really don’t because we don’t feel it and see it always that we forget that it exists. And some people call this a present wrath.

For example, chapter the Gospel of John, chapter three. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already. because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds are exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light and his deeds may be clearly be seen that they have been done in God. He who believes in the sun has everlasting life. and he who does not believe in the Son of God shall not see life, but, and you know the rest, the wrath of God abides, present tense, on him.

We were all under the wrath of God one time. God in mercy and grace called us with an effectual calling, and we were saved by his sovereign grace and mercy. But all those outside of Christ are currently underneath the wrath of God. And that’s a terrible place to be.

John chapter 10 verses 25 to 30. Jesus answered and told them, I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my father’s name. They bear witness of me. But you don’t believe because you’re not of my sheep. As I said to you, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”

The current wrath of God of all those that are not seen in him, but is also seen in Romans chapter 1. Verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress or hold down the truth in unrighteousness. And it goes on is that they were not thankful. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into corruptible things. God gave them over. That’s actually part of their judgment.

John MacArthur and others made comments a couple of years ago that If we don’t change in the United States, our voting, some have said that if we don’t change our voting, God’s wrath is gonna come underneath or that the United States of America is gonna come underneath the wrath of God. And John MacArthur spoke up along with others and said, no, that is our judgment. He has given us over and that is our judgment that we would put those leaders. He’ll give us what we deserve. How terrible, that’s the present wrath of God, the abandonment wrath of God, the cataclysmic wrath of God.

And then there is the wrath of God in the last days. That’s seen in several places, but especially in the book of the Revelation. Go with me. Well, let’s turn to these. This is all in the book of the Revelation, but Revelation, Chapter six. I always these are interesting passages when people want to say, that the wrath of God is in the Old Testament, not the new. You just wonder, are you reading the whole Bible? Revelation, Chapter six, and we’ll pick it up at verse 15. We can’t read all of these, but I want to pick it up at verse 12. And I looked when he opened the sixth seal and behold, there was a great earthquake and the sun became black, a sackcloth of hair and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth. A fig tree dropped its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded in a scroll when it was rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.

And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave, every free man, hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains. That’s why we sang that first song, The Cleft of the Rock. And he said to the mountains and to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne. And from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand.

I don’t think that’s happened yet. That’s still future last day real in that particular way. Look at chapter 14. Let’s go back to 14. Chapter 14 and verse 14. Revelation 14, 14. And when I looked and behold a white cloud and on the clouds that one like the son of man having on his head a golden crown, his hands with sharp sickle.

And another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice of him who sat on the cloud thrust in your sickle and reap for the time has come for you reap for the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped and another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven and he also having a sharp sickle and the angel another angel came out of the altar who had the power over fire and cried with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle saying thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vines of the earth for her grapes are fully ripe for the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and it threw a great wine press and here’s the explanation of this the winepress of the wrath of God.

And the winepress was trampled outside the city and blood came out of the winepress up to the horse’s bridles for one thousand six hundred furlongs. You know, we can all say there is colorful language and interpretation in this eschatological statement and all that. This is still the wrath of God that’s bloody because of judgment against the sin of mankind.

Look at chapter 16. And then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go and pour out the bowls of wrath of God on the earth. So this is, again, the last day’s wrath. So the first went out and poured out the bowl on the earth and a foul, loathsome sore came upon men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. I’m going into what all that is, but there was judgment.

And the second angel poured out his bowl in the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man. And every living creature in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out the bowl of the rivers and the springs of the water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the Lord say, so this is a wrath, people dying, agonizing everywhere. And what do the angels say? You are righteous, O Lord. The wrath of God in future coming demonstration of wrath on this earth is a righteous wrath. It’s right. It’s holy. It’s good. The one who is and was and who is to be because you have judged these things. That’s the justice of God. For they have shed the blood of the saints and the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for it is their just due. God wouldn’t be just if he doesn’t pour out his wrath. And all of these rafts, these judgment rafts that are seen here and we could go on and on. And what is the response? Verse 11. They blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pain and their sores. And they did not repent of their deeds. You might say. Wrong response. Because they hate God.

The soul that’s in it, it shall die. and be judged of a righteous God. Well, it goes on at the very end, verse 21. And great hail from the from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great. Well, guess what? This world. Needs that. So last day’s judgment, it’s going to be bad.

There’s also redemptive wrath. I very cautiously have you turn to Isaiah 53. Isaiah chapter 53 read in light of the wrath of God. Second Corinthians chapter five verses 2021 is that one about he who knew no sin was made sin for us. And in Isaiah, we’ll pick it up. We can’t read all of this for sake to finish off the sermon tonight. But Isaiah 53, we’ll pick it up at verse four. Surely he, the Lord Jesus, has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken. Now, what does that mean? Well, he tells us what it means. In light of the sovereign, holy, just. Wrath of God. He was smitten by God. And afflicted. He was bruised or wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised. For our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes. We are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Drop down to verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord. To bruise him. To crush him. To obliterate him. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. God the Father, he has put him, Jesus, to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor, the travail of his soul, the agonizing soul of the eternal Son of God, he shall see that. and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servants shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. That is called the redemptive wrath of God.

What does that look like in history? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Behold your mother, behold your son. I thirst. Today you will be with me in paradise. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me as the wrath of God falls on Jesus? I thirst to tell a stye It is finished. As it were, and as stated in other places, he took the bowls, all of it, the whole wrath of God, subset, full set, whatever you want to call it, and he drank, and he drank as only the eternal Son of God can, all of the dregs, every drip, He suffered the wrath of God for me and for all those who would ever trust in him.

All that the Father has given to me will come to me and I will in no wise cast out. He bore the wrath of God redemptively. How could he do that? Well, may I just suggest He’s the only one who could. Because, you see, if he didn’t. We would all suffer the eternal wrath of God, and not one soul ever would have been saved if Jesus didn’t take the wrath of God in behalf of others. There’s no other escape. Redemptive wrath. Well, there’s two more we could say there is. The sovereign wrath of God, Nahum 1.6 says something about who can stand before the wrath of God. No one can, no one. There’s the sovereign wrath of God, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Why does he have wrath on some and not wrath for all? Or why doesn’t he just love all and take the wrath of God for all? Because he’s sovereign, he can choose to do that or not to do that. And apparently he chose not to. And he has every right to do so. And who are we the dirt to respond to the creator? It is a sovereign wrath.

But then this all emanates into. The last kind of wrath, the seventh kind of wrath, and that is this. There is what is called the eternal wrath of God. John the Baptist warned about it in Matthew, chapter three and verse seven. that Jesus had come. And repent for the wrath of God and the kingdom of God. And here’s Jesus Christ, and it was to come. Jesus described the wrath of God by way of fire, chapter Matthew three, unquenchable fire, a furnace of fire, five and 13. It says in Revelation, chapter 20, that those would be tormented with fire. Revelation 20 and several verses there. It is the place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Jesus warned of it as eternal punishment. That’s why that is part of the definition that there was destruction and agony and weeping and gnashing of teeth. And especially demonstrated at the Great White Throat Judgment and everyone whose name is not. Found in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Now, how did that affect the ministry of Jesus? I’ll tell you how. Don’t fear man who after they kill the body. And that’s all they can do. How about you? But I think, yeah, that’s a lot. But rather. Fear him. Who has the power to cast the soul into the eternal wrath of God, hell, the lake of fire, the great white throne judgment. You see, the eternal abode of all those outside of Christ is not the place of the absence of God. Rather, it is the place of the very present and very real eternal wrath of God. Where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.

We cannot know nor fully understand God’s love, nor His holiness, nor His goodness, nor His justice. We cannot fully know His righteousness if we don’t understand at least in part that the wrath of God is real and He’s made a way of escape, one way. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved from the wrath of God, from God himself.

What is our response? Well, there’s a five-fold response. Number one, tremble. That’s the reason why in that Psalm, Psalm 96 and others, there’s plenty of places, that when we see and read and have contemplation, over the greatness of our God that should humble us. But the wrath of God. Should cause us to tremble. He is a. He is white hot. Searingly powerful. Wrathful against all sin. And so how many sins you do today? Yeah, it should make you tremble a little bit. It should also then make you understand that much more. Our response is to trust him and to repent. To view sin as God does. Oh, it’s just a little sin, really. Does God think that? Did Jesus think that as he was dying upon the cross? He bore our iniquities. The wrath of God demonstrated. It’s good to go to the cross and look at just how terrible that is. It’s good to go to the Garden of Gethsemane and to see Jesus’ sweat drops of blood because it is so terrifying even to him. Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass. Nevertheless, if they’re going to be saved, this is the only way I will be done. So tremble, trust.

Well then that obviously, it says in the Psalms a lot of times, to praise him, thank him for your great deliverance, my deliverance from the wrath of God. To take the escape of forgiveness because of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sin. And then finally, talk. I don’t, do this all the time, but tremble, trust, thank, take, and talk. Talk about it. You don’t fully give the story of the gospel if you don’t mention the wrath of God and that we need to flee the wrath to come. That was the story of John the Baptist. It should be our still. There’s only one place to flee. And it’s found in Jesus Christ, our Savior.

We have a great God. He is a holy God. He’s a sovereign God. He’s a just God. He’s a merciful God, a God full of grace. But don’t forget, he’s a God of wrath against all ungodliness.

Let’s live for his glory. Stand with me tonight as we close. Our Father in heaven, we are humbled. We are warned. We are moved to shake. We are moved to fall prostrate. We are moved to tell others so they can escape. Use us for your glory. Father, Thank you. And we praise you tonight for the way of escape found alone in Jesus Christ, our Savior. We praise you and thank you tonight for so great a salvation. As we pray this in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen.