A man of great wrath shall suffer
punishment. For if thou deliver him, yet
thou must do it again. A few heavy, weighty thoughts in this
verse. We know this is the nature of
man. The Lord says he that is often reproved and stiffeneth
his neck shall be destroyed, and that without remedy. shall
be suddenly destroyed. That's the nature of man. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. But as in all these proverbs,
we're given glimpses of things that we witness in life, that
we experience, that we know in terms of earthly behavior. for the purpose of teaching us
spiritual things. This man of great wrath is representative
of all of us by nature toward God. Natural man enmity, hardening
our neck, often reproved and yet hardening our neck against
God. And that's a picture of us, of
course, by nature. But as in the earthly, We've
all known somebody that's characterized this way. All of us have it in
us. But there are some that are just
angry all the time. And our text acknowledges that.
For me, it was a kid that I knew very well. It was the first remembrance
of that type of thing, way back when we were in elementary and
middle school together. And we were pretty good friends,
really, just because we lived close. played together quite a bit,
but he was just angry all the time. No, no good thing ever
came out of his mouth. And it was always, it was always
just raging against everything. And he never had a good word
about anything to anybody, fought a lot, always fighting. And as
he got older, of course, it got worse and worse until eventually
he ended up in prison. It's a wonder we don't all end
up in prison. Not long before he was arrested,
his mother spoke to me crying because she said, he's just in
trouble all the time, Chris. Is there anything you can do
to help him? Is there something you could say to him? I told
her I would try, but what are you going to do? What are you
going to do about that? I think what needed to be done
should have been done long before I came to know him. We've all experienced that. And as in our text, it was a
constant cycle. You see that? If you care enough
about somebody like that to save them, you're gonna have to do
it again. It's a constant cycle of wrath and trouble, and then
I'm sorry, it'll never happen again, and then more trouble.
It always does happen again. The pattern, when a man abuses
his wife, or vice versa, the abuse is always separated by
periods of, oh, I'm so sorry, I love you so much, honey, I'll
get some help, I'll never do it again. But it always does
happen again. That's the picture in our text. That's an earthly example of
our nature and our enmity against God. Because in the end, ultimately,
all of our wrath is against God. We just can't get to God, so
we take it out on other people. When his son, when God sent his
son, you remember the parable where he said, I'll send my son,
they'll honor him. But we didn't, did we? When we could get to God, we
spit on him, tortured him, and nailed him to a cross and mocked
him while he died. That's us. and also in spiritual terms,
how many times has God saved you? It's not just a one-time thing,
is it? It is in a sense. It is in a sense, and we'll talk
about that, Lord, well in here. But our rage against God, our
enmity, the enmity of our old nature doesn't go away when God
saves us in our experience. It's warred against by the new
man, and greatly restrained in believers, but there is a thing
called the perseverance of the saints, and the saints know it
would better be called the preservation of the saints. Because the reason we persevere
is because God keeps us, preserves us. And that's the only reason. That's
the only reason. Now, we're not saved and lost
and saved and lost. That's not the teaching here. But we are saved all the time,
aren't we? All the time. It's got to be done again. Today,
I need grace, like I did yesterday. The word wrath in our text is
heat, anger, rage, indignation, and venom. and the spiritual
words used in Romans 8, 7, as I've already quoted, because
the carnal mind is enmity, hateful hostility against God. For it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. You're
not capable of rising above that. And your old man still isn't.
That's why Paul said, so, with such anguish in Romans chapter
7. How to find that which is good,
I don't find it, I know not. And also the word venom is mentioned
in our text, in the definition of that word in our text, and
in Romans 3.13 it says the poison of asps is under our lips. We're
given a glimpse of our old nature, in Galatians 5.19. I should have
you turn there. Let's look at Galatians 5. We're
familiar with this, with what's dealt with here, but as far as Galatians 519, now the works
of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Strife, hatred, wrath. That's our flesh. And that's
what's brought out in our text. Now, all of us have all of these
things mentioned in Galatians 5. It's the nature of our heart. But some of them are more prominent
in different individuals and others more prominent in others.
As our text indicates, the man that's full of wrath, the man
that's That's all of us, but you see it more. The Lord restrains
it to different degrees in us by nature, as far as earthly
things are concerned. But also, as our text says, even though the new man loves
God, we're never gonna be done with the old in this life. That's
why Paul cried there in Romans 7, who shall save me from the
body of this death? And he acknowledged that it's
the Lord Jesus Christ, only the Savior can deliver us from this endless cycle of expressions
of our enmity. And from the nature itself, from
which it springs, And as our text says, we've got
to be saved again and again and again. Not that we're ever lost as believing
children of God. As I said, we're not saved and
then lost and then saved again. Some believe that. That's foolishness. If you read the Bible, it's foolishness. But we are perpetually saved. You remember the dog. that I
don't like to talk about in Proverbs 26, 11 and what he does. It makes you sick just reading
it, and not only because of the earthly image that it invokes,
but because of the nature of us that it so vividly describes. As a dog returns to his vomit,
A fool returneth to his folly. That's us. Or are you better
than that? Have you risen above that or
before God now this morning? Is that a used to be for you? But thank God and bless his name.
There is one difference in our text. When it comes to the spiritual,
reality of this, the natural man whose wrath is not restrained
by God will be punished. That's an imperative in the language
of our text. Must happen. They'll be punished. Whereas God's children were not punished because the
Lord Jesus Christ was punished in our place. We must be punished,
and yet God, ordained from eternity, because of his love for us, he purposed that it will not
be, we won't be punished, because the punishment is everlasting
death and hell and torment and punishment. And God, having loved his own
and loving them to the end, he's not going to let that happen
to us. He already has stood in our place and taken our punishment
for us. And so we in this life are chastised,
aren't we? He dealeth with us as with children,
and we're thankful for that. But the inevitability in our
text that you say, well, I'm this, I'm that man. And it says
I shall be punished. The inevitability of the punishment
is equivalent to what Paul preached in the synagogues for the believer. There is an imperative. There
is a necessity for punishment. But listen to what Paul said
about that in Acts 17 too. Paul, as his manner was, went
in unto them Three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the
scriptures opening and alleging that Christ must needs Have suffered Why must Christ suffer well one
reason is because of our text Sin shall be punished The wrathful
man shall be punished But praise his holy name, our
Savior took our punishment. He took our place under the wrath
of God, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. There is
a necessity for punishment, but we won't bear it because of the love of our Savior.
And that's the other reason that he must needs have suffered is
because he loved us so, that he gave himself for us. He suffered for sins once. The just for the unjust. He doesn't
need to save us again in that sense. Let me make that clear
again. Hebrews 10, 12, but this man, the son of God, after he
had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the
right hand of God. Just like he rested when he was
done with this universe, He rested when he had finished that pertaining
to the new creation, the salvation, the redemption
of all of his elect. He sat down from henceforth expecting
till his enemies be made his footstool for by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. In that
sense, we're saved by his one sacrifice for sins. It's only in our experience in
the body of this death that we do say, Lord, I need your mercy
again today. Save me now. I need to be saved
as bad as I did the day I was saved. That makes sense to a
believer. Save me from myself today. Keep me from the evil today,
not just that of the world and the devil, but my own evil. Forgive me of my sins today.
He taught us to pray that way. And so you see the message of
our text. He just keeps saving us. Though
we again and again. I love that song that I sing every
once in a while. Thou hast not left me, though
I oft left thee. Oft. And so we're continually praying
that the Lord would keep us and thanking him for doing so. Amen. Let's pray.