This sermon was preached on Sunday
evening, May 24, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville,
New Jersey. In our studies in the Word of
God last Lord's Day evening, we completed a series of expositions
based upon, or really growing out of a careful consideration
of the words of God as found in 1 Timothy 2 verses 8 through
15. And now tonight we begin a new
series of studies, a series which will be topical in nature, that
is, we will not be examining one specific portion of the Word
of God in detail, but rather a number of portions of the Word
of God. And the unifying principle of
those portions which we shall be studying tonight and in subsequent
Lord's Day evenings, God willing, is the theme, Some Missing Notes
in Contemporary Gospel Preaching. Some Missing Notes in Contemporary
Gospel Preaching. If we view the gospel under the
figure of a chord of music, there are in that chord certain notes
which God has placed for the full harmony of truth which are
tragically missing in most contemporary proclamations of the gospel.
And it will be our concern tonight and in subsequent Lord's Day
evenings to zero in upon those specific notes. Now, it's important
at the very outset to have underscored how vital this subject is. Why should we concern ourselves
with whether or not there are some missing notes in contemporary
gospel preaching? Well, I would answer that question
by reminding you of the fact that if we accept the testimony
of Scripture, then we agree on the fact that there is but one
divine remedy for sin-sick humanity. And that remedy is the gospel
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the familiar text
in Romans 1, the apostle could say in verse 16, For I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it, it, it and it alone is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. Now because the
gospel is the only divine remedy for sin, Any distortions of,
additions to, or omissions from that gospel are ruinous to the
souls of men. For example, Jude in verse 4
addresses itself to a tragic distortion of the gospel. Jude
speaks of those who pervert the grace of God unto a license for
sin. You see, their problem was not
a denial of many of the fundamental tenets of the gospel. It was
a distortion of the gospel in which they added to those tenets
the logic of the devil. For example, the language of
Romans, where sin abounds, grace does much more abound, to which
some add the devil's logic. Well, then, if grace abounds
where sin abounds, let sin that God's grace may be wonderfully
displayed, to which the Apostle answers, Megenito, God forbid. Furthermore, additions to the
Gospel are condemned in such passages as Galatians 1, 8 and
9. The apostle says, though we or an angel from heaven should
preach any other gospel than that which we have preached unto
you, let him be anathema. Again I say, though we or an
angel from heaven, anyone, preach any other gospel, let him be
anathema. And the problem there in Galatia
was that people came along with their plus signs to the gospel.
The gospel was undergoing a radical alteration by addition. And then, of course, in such
passages as 1 Corinthians chapter 15, subtractions are condemned
in the most vigorous language. There were some at Corinth who
were subtracting from the basic content of the gospel the fact
of the bodily resurrection from the dead. And Paul shows by a
close line of reasoning that to deny that tenet of the gospel
is to leave us with no gospel, it is to leave us in our sins,
it is to leave us with a vain faith. So when I assert that
any distortions of, additions to, or omissions from the gospel
are ruinous to the souls of men, that is not a projection of human
opinion. That is simply echoing the mentality
of the scriptures themselves. If then we have any concern for
the well-being of our own souls, If we have any genuine compassion
for the souls of others, then each one of us must be deeply
concerned with this issue of the content of the gospel of
Christ. And if we believe that distortions,
additions, or omissions result in tragedy for the souls of men,
then the theme of our studies in these Lord's Day evenings
will be of burning concern to us missing notes in contemporary
gospel preaching. Tonight, and God willing again
next Lord's Day evening, we take up the first of several of these
notes which are tragically missing in most contemporary presentations
of the gospel, namely the note of the wrath of God. And as we begin our study tonight,
I believe I can give no better introduction to this subject
than to quote a paragraph that is found in Dr. J. I. Packer's
classic work entitled Knowing God. And in his chapter on this
subject of the wrath of God, he writes, Wrath is an old English
word defined in my dictionary as deep intense anger and indignation. Anger is defined as stirring
of resentful displeasure and strong antagonism by a sense
of injury or insult. Indignation is defined as righteous
anger aroused by injustice and baseness. Such is wrath. And wrath, the Bible tells us,
is an attribute of God. The modern habit throughout the
Christian Church is to play down this subject. Those who still
believe in the wrath of God, not all do, say little about
it. Perhaps they do not think much
about it. To an age which has unashamedly
sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, The
church mumbles on about God's kindness, but says virtually
nothing about His judgment. How often during the past year
did you hear, or if you are a minister, did you preach a sermon on the
wrath of God? How long is it, I wonder, since
a Christian spoke straight on this subject on radio or television,
or in one of those half-column sermonettes that appear in some
national newspapers and magazines, And if a man did so, how long
would it be before he would be asked to speak or write again?
The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo
in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the
taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter." Dr. Packer has wisely and very
poignantly introduced the subject, and as we take our Bibles in
hand, we shall approach it first of all considering tonight the
prominence of the wrath of God in New Testament preaching and
teaching, and if we complete that study, then God willing,
next Lord's Day evening, the profound illustrations of the
wrath of God in Old Testament history. So you see the two major
channels by which this subject will be opened up to us. First
of all, then, the prominence of the wrath of God in New Testament
preaching and teaching. Now, why do I begin with the
New Testament? That's a fair question, and it
deserves an intelligent answer. My answer is, there are two reasons
for setting the framework for a consideration of the wrath
of God from the teaching and preaching of the New Testament.
The first is the misconception spawned by liberal theology. The misconception spawned by
liberal theology. Several generations ago, the
notion was made popular that the God of the Old Testament
was one God and the God of the New Testament was quite another
God. You see, men began to view the
Bible not as a divinely inspired revelation of God concerning
himself, but basically a human document in which men reflected
their own growing consciousness and understanding of God. You see the difference? If the
Bible is God revealing himself through human authors, Its content
will have a basic unity, for God is the God who says, I am
the Lord, I change not. But if the Bible is simply a
record of the religious consciousness of men, that consciousness grows,
develops, and many times undergoes radical changes. Well, liberal
theology spawned the notion, you see, that in the Old Testament,
in more primitive days, people conceived of God as a tribal
God, a God whose heart was narrow and constricted, a God whose
heart focused upon the concerns of the tribe with which he identified
himself. In this case, of course, it was
the nation of Israel. And so when we turn to the Old
Testament and we read the account of this God going before the
armies of Israel, bathing, as it were, His sword of vengeance
in blood upon the necks of the Canaanites, we are to look upon
that as a concept of God which men in the nineteenth and twentieth
century have of necessity outgrown. The God of the Old Testament
is the God of a narrow heart. He is the God of wrath. the God
of blood and of vengeance. But, they told their generation,
in the New Testament we find a different picture of God. Here we have the God who has
an expansive universal benevolence, a God of all love, of all pity,
and of all mercy. And this God is supremely reflected
in the teaching and the ministry of Jesus Christ. Now this notion,
spawned by liberal theology several generations ago, is not dead. Varying degrees remain with us
to this very day, and so lest any hide behind that misconception,
I will establish the case for the prominence of the wrath of
God from the New Testament documents. And then I have a second reason
for doing that, And that pertains to the biblical concept of progressive
revelation. Now there's a world of difference
between the liberal concept of man's so-called growing religious
consciousness and the biblical doctrine of progressive revelation. Now that doctrine is most clearly
stated in a passage such as Hebrews chapter 1 and verses 1 and 2. Hebrews chapter 1 verses one
and two. God, having of old time spoken
unto the fathers and the prophets by diverse portions and in diverse
manners, has at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son. Now, you see, this verse teaches
on the very surface of it that there is a progression of divine
revelation. It is the one God who speaks
But this God spoke in former ages by bits and pieces and in
diverse, that is, in divergent, differing manners unto the fathers
through the prophets. But now all of His speaking has
come to a climactic expression in the person of His own dear
Son. So that God's many words to His
people through the ages have culminated in His final word
to His people in His own beloved Son. so that any revelation which
God has made of His character comes to its fullest expression
in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the
inspired apostolic commentary upon His person and His work. Now, this is so much the case
that John can use radical language in his first chapter when he
says, No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten who
is in the bosom of the Father, He has literally exegeted Him. He has revealed Him. What do
we do when we seek to exegete a passage of Scripture? We seek
to bring out of the text what God put into it. Nothing more,
nothing less. Jesus Christ has fully exegeted
the Godhead. He could say, He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father. And so, because the New Testament
contains that climactic revelation of the character and nature of
God, particularly in the revelation made in Jesus Christ, Any consideration
of any attribute of God is not the clearest consideration unless
it finds its at least dominant and most clear material in the
New Testament. And so, for those two reasons,
I set the case before you from the New Testament, because of
the misconceptions spawned by liberal theology and because
of the biblical concept of progressive revelation. Now, then, let us
come to the New Testament teaching. Is it proper to assert that if
the wrath of God is not a dominant note in the presentation of the
gospel, there is something fundamentally lacking in that presentation?
That's my thesis. Does it warrant serious consideration? Well, let's begin with the first
preaching that confronts us in the New Testament. And we will
examine the wrath of God in the preaching of John the Baptist. If you will turn to Mark 1 and
verse 1, you will notice a very vital principle with respect
to the ministry of John the Baptist. He stood at a unique place in
the history of God's dealings with men. John was the final
prophet of the old dispensation, and in a sense, the first prophet
of the new, because he was the forerunner of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So that Mark begins his gospel
with these words, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. And then notice his first subject
is John the Baptist. Even as it is written in Isaiah
the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who
shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, make his path
straight. John came, who baptized in the
wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance unto remission
of sin. And here, then, John's peculiar,
John's unique place in redemptive history is underscored by Mark
at the very beginning of his gospel. The beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ occurs with the presence of this strange
man preaching in the wilderness of Judea crying out in the language
of Isaiah the prophet, prepare ye the way of the Lord. And John's great ministry was
to turn the attention of men to the coming of the King of
Grace, to tell men what they could expect in the person and
work of this One who was coming as promised by the ancient prophets. Well, what were the dominant
notes then of John's ministry? As he pointed towards Christ,
what did he say people could expect of Christ? What should
they seek to discover in Christ? What should they anticipate receiving
from Christ? Well, as you compare the four
gospel records, all of which contain some insights and references
to the ministry of John, you will discern that there were
four prominent notes in the preaching of John the Baptist. The most
prominent, of course, was his clarion call to thorough repentance. We saw it here in Mark 1 and
verse 4. We find it again in Luke 3 and
verse 3, and now if you'll turn please to Matthew chapter 3,
and we see it there in verse 2. John the Baptist came preaching
in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand. And so one of the dominant notes
of John's ministry was this summons to a thorough repentance in the
light of the coming of the King. But then there was a second note
which dominated his preaching, and that is found and is the
unique contribution of John's gospel in John chapter 1 and
verse 29. John 1 and verse 29. On the morrow, he, that is, John
the Baptist, seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the
Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." John points
people to the Messiah and says, in him, everything typified by
every sacrificial lamb under the old economy, that piercing
cry when the knife went into the breast or cut the throat
of that lamb that would be offered up in sacrifice. Every cry of
every lamb slain before every Jewish altar through the centuries
was but a prefiguring of that final perfect lamb who would
die as God's appointed sacrifice for sinners, even the Lord Jesus. And so He pointed men not only
to the necessity of a thoroughgoing repentance in the light of the
coming of the kingdom in the person of the King, but He pointed
to that King as the sacrificial lamb, the sin-bearer for men. And he said that the sin-bearer,
the Lamb of God, was none other, verse 34, than God's unique Son. And I have seen and have borne
witness that this is the Son of God. And so John not only
called men to a thorough repentance, but he summoned them to faith
in the Lamb of God, his work, who is to be recognized as the
Son of God in his person. But then there was a third strand
in John's preaching, and this is found in three of the Gospel
or four of the Gospel writers. It was the promise that this
Messiah, this Lamb of God, this Son of God, would be the one
who would dispense the Spirit upon his people. Again, Matthew
chapter 3 and verse 11. I indeed baptize you in water
unto repentance, but he that comes after me is mightier than
I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you
in the Holy Spirit and in fire. And as surely as pointing to
him and saying, Behold the Lamb of God, underscored the work
he accomplished in the days of his humiliation, pointing to
Him and saying, He is the one who will baptize with the Spirit,
was underscoring the ministry of the Lord Jesus in His state
of exaltation, so that on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit
was sent forth with power, Peter could say, He, Jesus Christ,
exalted to the right hand of the Father, made Lord in Christ,
He has shed forth this which you now see and hear. Now put
all of that together. And what do we understand from
the message of John? If you were there in the wilderness
of Judea, listening to John preach day after day, what would you
glean from his preaching as being the dominant notes? What were
you to think with respect to the coming of Messiah? Well,
you would know at least these things if you were listening
with any discernment, that whatever Christ demands, there must be
a deep, pervasive, thorough change of mind, of heart, and of life,
We don't play games with this Messiah. There must be a repentance,
even though we stand in that favored nation, the nation of
Israel, with the Scriptures in our hands, with a revealed way
of approaching God, with an appointed priesthood in the temple. John
is telling us that in the presence of this coming King, we need
a deep and radical alteration of our entire inner and outer
life. We must repent in the light of
the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God. You would also understand
if you would listen to John day after day that you were to see
in this one God's appointed sacrifice for sinners. you were to understand
that He was God's Lamb who alone could bear away the sin of the
world, and that He was well able to do it because He was no mere
man, no matter what your eyes might tell you. He had all of
the features of true humanity, but that true humanity was joined
to essential and undiminished deity. He was Son of God, God
the Son. And if you listen to John, you
would understand that this is why he is able to bear away the
world's sin, because he is no mere man. He will die as the
Lamb in all the virtue and worth of his uniqueness as God the
Son. But then there was a third thing
you would understand, even though you perhaps would not be able
to sort out all of the pieces and how they would fit together.
Whoever this coming one was, from him and from him alone,
you would receive this mighty effusion of the Holy Spirit. He, in a unique way, would usher
in the age of the Holy Spirit. That age promised by the prophets
of old would be an age initiated by the Lord Jesus. But may I
say, if that's all you understood, you would have missed one of
the dominant notes in John's preaching. And that fourth note
is this missing note in contemporary gospel preaching. It is the note
of the wrath of Almighty God. Notice in Matthew 3, verse 7, But when he saw many
of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said
unto them, You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee? not from the wrath that is to
be cancelled in this new revelation of God to be made by the Messiah. He did not point to Jesus as
the one who would introduce a radically new concept of God and set the
God of the New Testament in opposition to the God of the Old. No, no.
He said, in the light of the coming of this One, There is
an even greater dimension of divine wrath, and he says, Who
has warned you to flee from the coming wrath? And he describes
that wrath as something that is already breaking in the direction
of these impenitent scribes and Pharisees. Furthermore, he goes
on to say in verse ten, And even now the axe is laid at the root
of the trees, Every tree, therefore, that does not bring forth good
fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." Vivid imagery. It
is as though the husbandman comes and he sees a tree in the time
of fruit bearing that is nothing but a pile of well-arranged sticks. And John says already, the axe
has come and has struck the root and it is only a matter of time
until it will cut clean through. And then you will have firewood.
Now who's going to do that? You look now at verse 12. Speaking
of this one who shall baptize in the Holy Spirit, verse 12,
whose fan is in his hand, now notice he's pointing to Christ.
He will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather
his wheat to the carter, but the chaff will he burn up with
unquenchable fire." Now, what is he talking about when he talks
about the fan in his hand? Now, if we lived in Bible times,
we would understand immediately. Those people who heard John preach,
they knew exactly what he was referring to. That was before
the days of combines that would harvest and bundle the grain.
when the reapers would go out and cut it down with their sickle
or their scythe, and then they would bring it, first of all,
to the threshing floor, and there, by various instruments, sometimes
just oxen, trampling on the grain, there would be a separation of
the head from the stalk, the actual kernel from what we would
call the straw or the hay. But once that was separated then
there had to be a further separation from the outside hull or chaff
and the actual kernel which later on would be ground. So in the
evening time you find an allusion to this in the book of Ruth that
Boaz went out at evening to the threshing floor and when the
cool evening breezes would come The farmer, the man who was responsible,
would go to his threshing floor, and there he would take a broad
paddle-like rake or fork made of wood, much like some of our
bamboo rakes would probably be the closest picture that we have
in our day, and he would lift up that which had been trampled
upon by the oxen or by a kind of sled that at times was pulled
over it, and you find allusions to this in the Old Testament,
and he would throw it up into the face of the wind. And the
chaff, being lighter than the grain than the kernel, would
be blown off some feet away from the pile of grain that would
increasingly rise as his rake, which was called his fang, was
placed into this mixture of chaff and wheat that was thrown up
into the air, the chaff blown to one side, and when the farmer
then would gather his wheat into his barn, he would take his chaff
and consume it with fire. Now that's the picture that we
have here. And John says, whatever you think of this coming one,
this one in whose presence there must be deep and thorough repentance,
whose claims are so radical, so pervasive that no mere adjustment
of a few externals will do, you must repent in the presence of
the coming one. The kingdom is at hand in the
person of the king. You must not only think of Him
in that light, but see Him as the Lamb. If you are ever to
know your sins forgiven, you must see in Him the one true
sacrifice for sins which avails before God. And furthermore,
you must see Him not dying as a martyr, but dying as the Son
of God who lays down His life for the sheep. You must see Him
as the One who will shed forth the Spirit in plenitude of power
and grace. But all my listeners, John says,
you have not rightly understood the one whom I preach unless
you see him as the Christ with the winnowing fan in his hand. He will thoroughly purge his
threshing floor. He will gather the wheat into
the garner, but the chaff will he burn up with unquenchable
fire. John did not preach a Jesus who
negated or neutralized the concept of the wrath of God. John preached
a Jesus who would not only have nail prints in His hands and
His feet as the Lamb, who would not only have a crown when He
is exalted and is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on
high to send forth the Spirit, John says you must think of Him
and know Him and respond to Him as the impaled lamb, yes, the
exalted Lord, yes, but you must ever think of Him with the winnowing
fan in His hand. And if you are chaffed, He'll
burn you with unquenchable fire. That's the Jesus John preached. And any other Jesus is a figment
of men's imagination. A Jesus stripped of his winnowing
fand is an idol who is as powerless to save as any stone idol before
which an idolater bows in heathen ignorance. And yet how often
in gospel preaching today is our blessed Lord presented in
some manner As the Lamb, yes. As the Exalted One who gives
the Spirit, yes. But, oh, the solemn note of the
Jesus with the winnowing fan in His hand is so sorely lacking,
so that instead of the gospel being good news that ravishes
the hearts of men and women and boys and girls, trembling at
the thought that natively they are nothing but chaff. In Adam
they are sinful chaff, sick for nothing to be blown away and
consumed in the fires of hell. Instead of the gospel coming
to such as glorious good news, causing the heart to well up
with a sense of wonder and amazement falling prostrate at the feet
of the Lamb of God, who is the Son of God, the Giver of the
Spirit, in deep and thorough repentance. There is, at best,
a kind of dickering with Jesus, a kind of negotiation with Jesus,
in which I agree to give Him a little trust and a little decision
in exchange for a little assurance that I will be all right when
I die. And then people go merrily on
their way, living lives basically no different from those who do
not claim any saving interest in the work of Christ. You see,
the Jesus whom John preached is the Jesus who has the fan
in his hand. But now we move on to consider,
and I'm sure now we'll only get to this next point, the wrath
of God. in the preaching of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The wrath of God in the preaching of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And here again, I can only be
selective and suggestive and make no efforts at being exhausted.
The materials are so many in the New Testament It would take
a series of Sunday night studies just to read and briefly to comment
upon all of the allusions to the wrath of God recorded in
the four Gospels. In fact, it may shock some of
you, and I hope it will shock you enough to study your Bible
on the matter to prove me wrong. There are more references recorded
in the sayings of our Lord to hell and judgment than to heaven
and to divine love. Oh, you say, come off it, preacher.
Go to your Bible with paper and pencil and columns and seek to
prove me wrong. In the Gospel of Matthew alone,
there are no fewer than thirty distinct references to the wrath
of God, to the judgment of God, to hell and to eternal punishment. And they all come from the lips
of the Lord Jesus. How can that be? I thought the
Bible said God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son. Is not the presence of the incarnate
Son a manifestation of the love of God? How is it then that there
is this constant reference to the wrath of God in the teaching
of our Lord? Oh, the connection is very simple,
my friend. It is only when the love of God is viewed in the
context of the reality and magnitude of the wrath of God that that
love is understood for what it really is. And apart from that,
it is nothing but divine indulgence and some kind of saccharine sentiment
and not the love of an infinitely holy and an infinitely pure God. Well, where should we go? to
see these demonstrations. Well, let's start where a lot
of people would think the wrath of God surely would not be found
in that lovely, lovely portion, the Sermon on the Mount. You
hear people say, well, you know, I'm not much for this doctrine
business. I'm just a simple person. I just love the simple religion
of Jesus as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. And what
they mean by that is they've got a notion that somewhere in
the Sermon on the Mount there's something that probably says
God helps those that help themselves, and do unto others as you would
they should do unto you, and that's the beginning, middle,
and end of their religion. One phrase is taken from the Sermon
on the Mount, the other's not found anywhere in the Bible.
Even though I've been told it was there, it isn't. But now
will you notice, in the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord begins
by describing the characteristics of the sons and daughters of
the kingdom. And in the first 11, 12 verses, we have a description,
a marvelous, comprehensive description of the character traits of the
sons and daughters of the kingdom. Then in verses 13 to 16, we have
a description as well as a statement of their function. With those
character traits, how do they function in the midst of a lost
and degenerate world and in a corrupt society? Then there is a transition,
beginning with verse 17, in which our Lord articulates the nature
of His mission. And he says, do not think that
I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I came not to destroy,
but to fulfill. In describing my people in this
way, I have not negated nor canceled in any way what you should be
led to believe from your reading of the Old Testament, he says
to those in his day. But you see, the official teachers
had so corrupted the pure teaching of the Word of God that what
people thought was the Word of God was nothing but the tradition
of their religious teachers. You remember, Jesus said, In
vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the traditions
of men, and they have made void the Word of God. So what our
Lord does after enunciating that truth, that He's not come to
teach something new, not to destroy the law and the prophets, but
to fill them to the full, He begins to fill them to the full
by restoring the law of God, the moral aspects of the law,
to their original intention in terms of what God meant when
He said, Thou shalt not Thou shalt, thou shalt not. And the
first commandment with which he does this is found in verse
21. You have heard that it was said
to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall
kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you,
not in contradiction to Moses, But in contradiction to the tradition
that has so encrusted Moses that you don't understand the mind
of God is revealed in that precept, you think that as long as you
don't pull the trigger or plunge the dagger into a man's breast,
you've kept that commandment. Jesus said no. Its intention
was never merely to touch upon the externals of a man's conduct. I say unto you, Everyone who
is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.
Whosoever shall say to his brother, Rekha – it's a term of derision
– shall be in danger of the counsel, now notice. And whosoever shall
say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire. Who introduces these words into
the New Testament? the Gehenna of fire. These are not words pressed into
the text by medieval theologians. They are the words of truth incarnate. And when he would impress upon
men the seriousness of violating God's holy law in all of its
breadth, in all of its spirituality, he hangs over their heads the
threat of the hell of fire to every lawbreaker. You say, that's
not my Jesus. Well, if he isn't, you better
get rid of your Jesus. This is the Jesus who said, I
came not to destroy. but to fulfill. What does he
do with the next commandment? The same thing. Verse 27. You
have heard that it was said, thou shalt not commit adultery. And your religious leaders have
said, as long as you don't bed down with your neighbor's wife,
you've kept that commandment. Oh, you can sit on your porch
and watch her as she go by and undress her in your mind and
go to bed with her in your intention. But if you don't actually commit
the act, you've kept the law. You can sit in the privacy of
some secret place and flip through the pages of a girly magazine,
that's all right. So long as you don't violate
the marriage bed with another woman, that's what your religious
leaders tell you. But I say unto you, everyone
that looks on a woman to lust after her, looking with an intention
to lust, has committed adultery with her already in his heart. It's as though our Lord anticipates
an objection of someone saying, hey, wait a minute, if God's
law touches the first springs of lustful intention, why, how
can a man live, how can a woman live and keep that commandment?
Why, every day our eyes see that which provokes intention to lust.
And when we're in close proximity to those of the opposite sex
and feel the warmth of the flesh, certainly if we do not actually
commit the act, there cannot help but be the stirring of the
desire. How can we ever take that commandment seriously? Listen
to Jesus' retort to that anticipated objection. And if thy right eye
causes thee to stumble, pluck it out. and cast it from thee,
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
The meek and gentle Jesus is going to uphold and enforce the
sanctity of the seventh commandment that touches moral purity between
the sexes, and He says it touches the deepest springs of the conscious,
volitional attitude of the heart. And he says, if your complaint
is, well, I can't help but lust, I've got two eyes. He said, if
it were necessary and it would help, pluck your eye out rather
than go to hell as a lawbreaker. That's what Jesus said. I didn't
say it. He said it. And he went on to say in verse
30, And if thy right hand causes you to stumble, that hand with
which you touch that warm flesh, Touching that warm flesh you
cannot help but think the lecherous thought. He said if the only
way you can keep the hand from triggering the lust is to cut
it off and cast it from you. He said it's better to do this
than one of our members should perish and not that thy whole
body go into hell. The idea that the body will be
resurrected at the last day, and that the body with the soul
will be cast into hell under the wrath of God, that is not
a concept buried in the antiquated notions of the Old Testament.
It is a concept thrust to the center in the enforcement of
the strictness of divine law by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now who is this Jesus of modern
evangelicalism, who not only permits promiscuity between consenting
adults, but who even puts his approval
upon committed homosexual relationships, so that there are evangelical
gay churches throughout the country? Who is that Jesus? Not this one. Not this one. He doesn't accept
the excuse. Well, I was programmed by my
genes, by my upbringing, by my inclinations to be drawn to those
of the same sex. I do not naturally have heterosexual
desires and all the other excuses. Jesus said whatever steps must
be taken to avoid anything that is a violation of the sanctity
of the sexual norms of the Word of God, those steps must be taken
or we'll burn My dear people, how can we treat lightly such
language? And why did Jesus speak so graphically
of it? Well, my own conviction is because
if hell is a place prepared for the devil and his angels, and
Christ is the creator of all things, he's made that place
and he knows the horror of it. And that's why he didn't play
games, but here in the Sermon on the Mount, There is no sweet
saccharine, just be loving, nice, and everything will turn out
all right. Here is the great lawgiver saying that in my kingdom,
my subjects who are marked by poverty of spirit, mourning for
sin, meekness of heart, hunger and thirst for righteousness,
merciful in temperament, pure in heart, peacemakers, and yet
in spite of that, persecuted and abused by an unsympathetic
world, My people are those who take my holy law seriously. And when they are tempted to
take it lightly, they remember what I have told them. Take my
law lightly, and you will burn in the flames of everlasting
hell. The Sermon on the Mount closes
with this theme once more, coming to the fore from the lips of
our Lord in chapter 7. as he's bringing the sermon to
a conclusion. His second to the last point,
his last point being the necessity of obedience to his word, verses
24 to 27. But the next to the last point
is this, verse 19. Every tree that does not bring
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Therefore,
by their fruits he shall know them. Not everyone that says
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but
he that is doing the will of my Father who is in heaven, many,
many, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we
not prophesy in thy name? In thy name cast out demons,
and by thy name do many mighty works. Now notice. Then will
I profess unto them, not the God of the Old Testament, whom
I have come to replace. No, no. Then will I profess to
them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work
iniquity." And then we turn over to the
parables very quickly, because again, people say, well, I love
the simple religion of Jesus. He told lovely stories. He just
made religious truths so down to earth. I mean, these preachers
are all the time dabbling in doctrine. I mean, let's just
be simple. Jesus of the Bible is the parable
telling Jesus. Well, let's turn to that collection
of parables in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13. These parables of
the kingdom. What place does the wrath of
God, if any, have in these nice, lovely little religious stories,
or stories with a religious meaning? Well, when he had given the parables,
he turned aside with his disciples, verse 36 of Matthew 13, and I
read, Then he left the multitudes and went into the house, and
his disciples came unto him, saying, Explain unto us the parable
of the tares of the field. And he answered and said, He
that sowed the good seed is the son of man, and the field is
the world, and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom,
and the tares are the sons of the evil one. And the enemy that
sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the
world, and the reapers are angels. As therefore the tares are gathered
up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the world."
Now notice the clear emphasis of verse 41. The Son of Man,
not the antiquated God of the Old Testament, but the Lord Jesus
Himself. The Son of Man shall send forth
His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things
that cause stumbling in them that do iniquity, and shall cast
them into the furnace of fire." Now notice, these words come
not from some deranged religious maniac standing on a street corner
trying to scare people into religion. They come from the Lord Jesus. cast them into a furnace of fire,
there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth." That
would get an R rating for gruesomeness and brutality. And yet it is the one of whom
it is said they marveled at the words of grace that proceeded
from his lips. This is the Jesus who says, furnace
of fire, wailing, gnashing of teeth. And again, verses 27, I'm sorry,
verse 47. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of
every kind, which, when it was filled, they drew up into the
beach, and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels,
but the bad they cast away. So shall it be in the end of
the world. The angels will come forth and
sever the wicked from among the righteous, and shall cast them
into the furnace of fire. There shall be the weeping and
the gnashing of teeth. We could go right through the
Gospel of Matthew. We come to chapter 11, the gracious
invitation of Jesus, verse 28. Come unto me all you who labor. I will give you rest. Do you
know what precedes that invitation? The woes of the verses just immediately
before the invitation. Woe unto you, Chorazin! Woe unto
you, Bethsaida! And listen to what he says. It
will be more tolerable in the day of Sodom and Gomorrah than
for you. Jesus is saying that the wrath
of God is not lessened because He has come, it is increased.
You see His point? More tolerable for Sodom and
Gomorrah, the great standing historical monument of divine
wrath, when hell rained down out of heaven. And yet Jesus
said they'll be better off in the day of judgment than for
people who live after the coming of Christ. who hear the message
of Christ, who know of the word and the works of Christ. The
New Testament does not tone down the wrath of God. It augments
it and intensifies it. For to whom much is given, of
him shall much be required. My friend, I want to close on
this note. The fullest revelation of wrath
comes not in these graphic words of our Lord. not even in the
frightening descriptions of gnashing of teeth and weeping and wailing
in outer darkness. But the greatest revelation of
divine wrath comes in those frightening hours of darkness upon Golgotha,
when hell was literally poured into the bosom of the Son of
God. And in the pangs of a felt abandonment, He cried out, My
God, my God, why have you forsaken There was no bumper sticker staring
him in the face that day. Smile, Jesus. God loves you.
He became abhorred and hated of God with a pure and holy hatred
at the very point that he was never more loved. For as his
obedience reached its zenith in his self-giving upon the cross,
he was never more loved. Therefore, doth my Father love
me? And yet he was never more abhorred
when he was made sin for us, and the wrath of God broke upon
his holy head and sunk into the depths of his holy soul. My friend,
that cross will never become precious until you begin to take
seriously the wrath of God against you in your sin. God is angry
with the wicked. He is angry with those who break
his law, who flaunt the rules by which he has determined to
govern us. His anger burns to the impenitent. And I say to every impenitent
sinner within the sound of my voice, you better take seriously
the doctrine of the wrath of God, because it's not an antiquated
doctrine that we've outgrown or has been replaced. We've established
thus far from the New Testament in the teaching and preaching
of John the Baptist, and we've only touched on a little bit
of the teaching of our Lord, that the wrath of God is a dominant
note in the preaching and teaching of the New Testament. Is it a
dominant note in your understanding of the gospel? If not, adjust
your thinking to the word of God at any cost, lest you come
under the very wrath of which we've spoken tonight. Let us
pray. Father, we say with the psalmist,
who knoweth the power of thy wrath? O Lord, sober us, write
your truth upon our hearts, and may we flee from the coming wrath
as we find refuge in the Son of God who loved us and gave
himself for us. We ask in his name. Hey.