The king's wrath is as the roaring
of a lion, but his favor is as dew upon the grass. The king's wrath and the king's
favor. The last one that you want to
make angry at you is the one with all authority. The one that
does what he wants. No checks, no balances, no restraints. He's the king. He does as he pleases. You don't
want him mad at you. Remember what our Savior said
in Luke 12, four. Let me read this to you. He's
speaking to his disciples in Luke 12, four. He says, I say
unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the
body. And after that have no more that they can do. Their
ability, their power is limited. But I will forewarn you whom
you shall fear, fear him which after he hath killed hath power,
hath authority, the king. In other words, he has the authority
to cast you into hell Yea, I say unto you, fear him. So you see our text in that the king's wrath
is as the roaring of a lion. The lion is called the king of
beasts because nothing wants to mess with a lion. Acts chapter
five, turn with me please to Acts chapter five, verse 26. Acts 5, 26, then went the captain
with the officers and brought them without violence for they
feared the people lest they should have been stoned. So the authorities
have taken the disciples for preaching the gospel. They took
them without harming them because they were afraid of the people.
The people were impressed with the miracles they were able to
do and with the authority of the word. Verse 27, when they
had brought them, they set them before the council and the high
priest asked them, saying, did not we straightly command you
that you should not teach in this name? And behold, you have
filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's
blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles
answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. I'd rather make you mad than
to make God mad. It's pretty plain. The God of
our fathers raised up Jesus whom you slew and hanged on a tree.
Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and
a savior. He's the king of the Jews as
was written over his head on the cross for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins. He has the authority as
king, as prince, as potentate, to give repentance, to give faith, to give life,
forgiveness of sins. He said, I have power on earth
to forgive sins, and he did, he does. Verse 32, and we are
his witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost
whom God hath given to them, that obey him. And when they
heard that, they were cut to the heart and took counsel to
slay them. Then stood thereupon in the council
a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, having reputation
among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little
space, and said unto them, so he said, we don't want them to
hear this, but I need to talk to you authorities. You men of Israel, take heed,
to yourselves what you intend to do as touching these men,
for before these days rose up Thutis, boasting himself to be
somebody, to whom a number of men, about 400, joined themselves,
who was slain, and all as many as obeyed him were scattered
and brought to naught. After this man rose up Judas
of Galilee in the days of the taxing and drew away much people
after him. He also perished. and all, even
as many as obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say unto you, refrain
from these men and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work
be of men, it will come to naught. But if it be of God, you can't overthrow it. Blessed happily ye be found,
I like this word even, You want to even fight against God? You must have to even be found to
fight against God. So the message of the first part
of our verse this morning is understand who you're dealing
with. Understand that he is the king. The government is on his shoulders. He is the king of kings. People
bow to kings, kings bow to him. So understand who you're dealing
with, and it's amazing how blind we are. I've said this to you
so many times before, people don't pay any heed whatsoever
to the word of God. He's God. They don't have any concern for
his honor. They refuse to render under God
the glory that is due unto him alone. When they knew God, they
glorified him not as God, Romans chapter one. And then they're
shocked, and they're hurt, and they play the victim when their
life turns out to be a miserable shipwreck. Isn't that amazing? Understand
this. May God give us grace to understand
this. The one that you have snubbed
is on the throne. The one you dishonor calls all
the shots. He calls all of them. Every aspect
of your life, every relationship, every circumstance, every turn
of fortune is perfectly controlled by the one that you have no use
for. Don't be surprised when things
don't turn your way. Don't be shocked and hurt and
play the victim when your life is a wreck You have spit in the
face of God's Son. He's on the throne. He decides
what happens to you today. He decides what happens to you
tomorrow. The one that you have no use
for, to whom you owe every respect and worship, What do you think
is going to happen if you thumb your nose at him? Do you think
your relationships are going to turn out to be a fairy tale or a disaster? You think your fortunes in this
life are going to be blessed? They could be. The worst thing
that God can do to an ungodly, Christ-hating rebel is give him
good things in this life, because they'll just serve to take him
farther and farther away from the gospel. But that's not really
usually the case. I've got a lot of people I know
that I care about, and their lives are an absolute shipwreck. and they have no use for God,
who is the weaver of lives. He is the determiner of fortunes. And how can you not just shrug
your shoulders and say, no wonder, no wonder. God holds me responsible to warn
you. What do you think's gonna happen?
Is Lady Luck gonna smile on you and that'll carry you through?
Are your lucky stars gonna make things okay if you spit in God's
face every moment of every day? Don't
be shocked. Don't be surprised. Expect a
life of misery and heartache and failure and then hell. If
you bow up your back against God Almighty, expect it. God
holds me accountable to warn you about it. By nature, we are the children
of his wrath, the wrath of the king. It's like the roaring of
a lion. You may encounter a lion and
it may see you and not want to not be in the mood or be satisfied and go on about his
day. He's roaring at you, it's time
to leave. When I suggest that because of
your sin, God is angry with you, That's according to scripture.
It is your sins that have separated between you and your God. And being separated from God
is cold and dark and not good. But when I suggest that, I'm
not suggesting that by doing better, you can turn away his
anger. Don't get that idea. Don't miss what I'm saying. Don't hear me wrong. I'm not
saying that if you clean up your life and start going to church
and you know, tithe and read your Bible and pray, that that's gonna turn away his anger.
Look at the last part of our verse for a minute. In his favor,
his favor is like the dew. Upon the grass and we know all
through this book that God's favor is not gained by the words
of the law It don't matter how good you are or more to the point
how good you think you are Even your righteousnesses are
as filthy wreck turn it over a new leaf is not the answer
God's favor is in Christ and Romans 839, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God, give me the courage and
the wisdom to state plainly the truth concerning God's love.
We've seen in the news I hear recently the display of man's
evil on a level that we don't often see it. In the random slaughter of babies
and children and old people and helpless, innocent, as far as this situation is concerned,
innocent people. And it crossed my mind that A person that can do, oh, I say
person. We don't even know what to call
them. People say, well, they're not
humans. Well, that is what a human is. Call them animals if you
want to. Humans are animals. God said
we're like a beast, like an ox, like a dumb ox, but even the
ox is smarter than we are. And I wanna say to everybody
that preaches the universal love lie, that God loves everybody. If you think God loves those
animals and has a wonderful plan for their lives, you need to
rethink. He loves them as much as his
sheep. That's the result of God's love
for a sinner is that they're just uninhibited in their evil. I don't think so. I don't think
so. I don't think God loves somebody
like that. If he does, he'll do something
about it, I know that. He'll do something about it. But I don't think we see God's
love in that. We don't see it in the scripture that way. We see that God's love is in
Christ. It's in Christ. Outside the ark,
there is no mercy. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. God's favor, his blessing
is in Christ. According as he has chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace. wherein he hath made us accepted,
accepted in the beloved. You know what that word accepted
means? It means to compass with favor. In his favor, his favor, his
acceptance of you, not your acceptance of him, his acceptance of you
is life. His favor is like the dew on
the grass. What is the dew to the grass?
Life. The water comes down from heaven,
just like grace from the throne of grace. God has clearly illustrated
the one by the other. Life, it's interesting that God's
judgment was by water, wasn't it? the most remarkable, I guess,
display of the judgment of God. Yeah, he rained fire down on
Sodom and Gomorrah, so fire was a tragic and violent display
of God's wrath. But everybody died when the water
fell. Everybody, except eight souls. Everybody, everybody, by water. And yet his grace is pictured
by the water, the dew, the small drops that fall from heaven. It's the
same holiness which killed everybody outside of Christ on the day
of judgment at Noah's time. It's that same holiness which
in Christ is our life-giving necessity. It's God's holy nature, which
because of Christ assures our salvation. God must save us. He must reward
us. He must bless us. He must accept
us in the beloved. Because of Christ and what he
did for me, because of my substitute, that same holiness that condemned
me now, pardons, justifies, saves. Nobody can lay anything to my
charge because it's Christ that died. And like that dew that
falls, remember the analogy? He said, my word is like that.
It won't return into me void, but it will accomplish the purpose
whereto I sent it. And his word is indeed unto us
all which he's purposed for us in this life, our comfort, our
confidence, our hope. He that magnified his word above
all his name has made that word unto us life. From that time,
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the 12, will you also go away? And then
Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? I know you're familiar with that
passage. I know you've heard it hundreds of times maybe in
your life, but think about those words. To whom shall we go? That's a pretty good question.
Are you gonna go to this world? Are you gonna go to yourself?
Are you your own go-to? You trust yourself? You trust
this world? You trust the religion of this
world? To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. What the Lord Jesus called that
good part in all of this world of evil and bad and tragedy and
heartache and misery, That good part is sitting at his feet and
hearing his word. And the Lord said that can't
be taken away once he gives us that. Once he brings us to his
feet to hear and to know that his word is
life. It will never be taken away from
her or us. Thank the Lord for the dew from
heaven. Our Lord Jesus Christ, let's
pray.