Proverbs 16 14 the wrath of a
king is as messengers of death But a wise man will pacify it The wrath of the king is as angels
of death because the king has all authority That's what it
means to be king what you say goes I There's no one to stop
him carrying out his will. And if his will is wrath, then
death is inevitable. With everybody else, there's
a long way between wrath and death. You may be wrathful, but
you better think twice before it comes to death. There's a
long way in between there for us now, and there's consequences.
But not with the king. See, what we see here is sovereignty. The wrath of the king is as angels
of death. That's what that word is there.
It's more often translated angels than it is messengers. With God,
the king of the universe, with Christ, the king of kings and
lord of lords, This is infinitely true. God's wrath upon you, what
does that mean? Does God just get mad at people
like we do? No. God's wrath upon you and
me means that we murdered his son. That's what it means. And
laughed about it. And are still laughing about
it by nature. That's what it means. We killed
the prince of life. Now if you're not a sinner, then
you don't have anything to worry about. But if you are, then you're
dead already. And you just don't know it yet.
Because the wrath of the king, we are by nature the children
of wrath. So we're dead already, but unless, the word unless has
to come into play here. Unless, you see there's that
beautiful word in our text, unless in your case, it's not true in
every case, the king has mercy on whom he
will. But if in your case, for you,
on your behalf, the king is pacified, pacified. So we'll talk more
about that in a minute, but right now, sovereignty, wrath equals
death because of who he is. Who's gonna stop him? If God be for us, who can be
against us? But if God be against us, then
who's gonna help you? He is the sovereign. There's
just one. There's just one king. I say to people, even in earthly
matters of rebellion, you've heard me say this before, even
just in earthly matters, and I say just, but I wouldn't minimize
this if I were you. But even in earthly matters of
rebellion against him, and you see it on every hand, and what
people consider to be innocent things, and little things, according
to the world, But here's the thing, you don't
know who you're dealing with. That's the problem. People, we
don't know who we're dealing with. If you have no interest
in the worship of God, you don't know who you're dealing with.
You don't just ignore him. You don't just shun him. He's the king. You've got no
time for the Lord of glory. And you wonder why your life
is a wreck. Maybe your marriage is falling
apart, I've dealt with this and these are just my observations
of things that people go through and I know about. You wonder why in the world,
you know, my marriage is falling apart and my life is just one
stressful disaster after another. I wouldn't wonder about it. You don't know who you're dealing
with, that's the problem. Now believers deal with the same
things, same troubles in life at times. And it's not God dealing
with us after our sins. You have to be careful about
that, don't you? Remember the disciples asked,
who did sin, this man or his parents? And he was born blind.
The Lord said, it ain't about that. That's really what he said,
isn't it? Because he said, neither. But
he's not saying there that they didn't sin. It's just not about
that. It's not about that. It's about
the glory of God. So you gotta be careful about
that though. If God dealt with us according to our sins, we'd
all be in hell right now. We need to understand that. But
that doesn't change the fact that I don't recommend snubbing
God and having no use for the God that made you and then saying,
God, why is my life a wreck? There's nothing stupider than
that. You don't know who you're dealing
with. Men, you know, men say, I'm my
own man, you know, I've done this and I've done that. Like
the man that said, I'll have to tear down these little barns,
you know, and build bigger barns. Cause just look how successful
I am. The Lord said he was a fool. He's a successful fool. But men, you know, this is again,
just my observations, proud, self-made men, you know, irresponsible
as a husband and a father, failing to raise your family in the fear
and admonition of the Lord. You don't know who you're dealing
with. Women, you've decided you want
to wear the pants in the family. That's an outdated saying, isn't
it? Because everybody wears pants now. That was probably made up
back when women didn't wear pants that much. But they just decide,
I think I'll just be in charge of things and make all the decisions.
Or maybe even worse, so many women these days, to them a family
is more of a hindrance than it is a blessing from the Lord.
It's more of a pain. And they're not shy about hiding
it. Their children are a burden to
them. Really? I'm pretty sure love isn't like
that. And you don't know who you're
dealing with. It's the Lord that gave you that
position as a mother and a father. That's his authority and he gives
it. To whom he will. It's not to
be taken lightly. You may see rebellion against
God manifested in other ways. Those are just things that I've
observed. When I see somebody mowing their grass on the way
to worship. What a picture that is. The people
of God are going to worship the Lord. That's nothing to brag
about, is it? That doesn't say anything about
us, that says something about him. And you're out mowing your grass,
you know. I don't hold any malice for them,
I don't want to. I don't wanna hold any malice
for somebody like that. I just think, how's it gonna
be for them today, much less eternally, living under the wrath
of God? If you've got no use for God,
how's that gonna go for you? Today, much less in eternity. And that's just earthly matters.
And again, I say just, but here's the thing about that. Bowing
to Christ is all or nothing. It's all or nothing. If you bow
to Him, you bow to Him in everything. Bowing to the Son of God and
believing on Him is not a decision that you need to make. Sinners don't know who they're
dealing with When the king says honor my son
he is not saying you have a decision to make That's not what he's
saying We don't know who we're dealing
with And since none of us by nature
ever bow I The old man never bows to God, never, not one time. Rebellion is our nature, Adam
being our father. And so we are by nature the children
of, there's our text, wrath, even as others, wrath. The wrath
of the king, it's certain death. It's all of the angels of heaven
having one task, in your case, to absolutely destroy you. And it wasn't their idea. And
as we've said already now, our rebellion was expressed in murdering
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the apex of our rebellion
against God, is murdering his son. That's the issue. This is the condemnation. There's that other beautiful
word in our text, pacify. The king can and will be pacified. You notice it doesn't say in
the text, a wise man would pacify it, the wrath. It says he will. And that's not a that's not just
a coincidence that it says it that way Pacify in the context
of our scripture verse this word pacify is the opposite of wrath You know what it means We know
what to pacify somebody means to calm them down, you know and In earthly terms but in this that word pacify, if you look
it up, it is translated more than any other way, atonement. To cover, to purge, to make reconciliation,
to atone. And the eternal question is this
though, how can man And that's what has to happen.
Man has got to pacify God. But how do you pacify God for
killing God? How do you make up for that? That's why they said in the book
of Acts, what shall we do? What are we going to do? If we
really killed God, what are we going to do about that? And think about it this way,
how can the Holy God be pacified when everything that
we've ever done has been, is, and will be sin? It will be sin. Everything you're gonna do is
gonna be sin. You haven't ever done a sinless act and you never
will. You've never thought a sinless
thought and you never will. Well, as our text says, it's
gonna take a wise man to do it. A wise man will. We can't. We can't. There's no way we can. Now, you know, if somebody cut
me off in traffic, and then I found out later it
was somebody I knew, you know, and they said, man, was that
you? And I said, yep. You did it. I could forgive that pretty easy,
couldn't you? You know, they were in a hurry, whatever. But
if you killed my son, this nonsense about going down to the jail,
you know, and visiting the person that murdered somebody you love
and saying, I forgive you, you know, forget about that. It ain't
happening. Not gonna happen. And I think it's hypocritical
to do it. I don't think anybody can truly forgive. They just
want to feel good about themselves. You can't do that. Turn to 1 Corinthians 1 with
me. I think the scripture best expounds the scripture. 1st Corinthians 120 1st Corinthians
120 Where is the wise? That's a good question It's going to take a wise person
to pacify the king. Where is, well, show me one. Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? Where is somebody that knows
more than somebody else? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? When God is a wording here God
made it foolish if God makes something foolish. It's foolish That's where the wise is he's
a fool he just thinks he's wise For after that in the wisdom
of God The world by its so-called wisdom, and I'm not trying to
add to the word here. This is just a That's clear,
isn't it? He just said, where is the wise? Well, the world,
by its wisdom, knew not God. And think about that. If you don't know God, what do
you know that matters? What is wisdom? Oh, well, I know lots of stuff.
Do you know God? If not, you're an idiot. You don't know anything that
matters. The world by wisdom knew not
God, but it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them. Now it doesn't say here, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to make men wise. Although the
scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation. But wise
unto salvation is Christ being your wisdom, not you being smart. You see that now? It pleased
him to save them anyway, even though they're idiots. He's gonna save some of us idiots
anyway. He just is, isn't he? Because
that's him. to save them that believe. For
the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews' stumbling block
and unto the Greeks' foolishness. What they call wisdom is foolishness,
and what they call foolishness is the wisdom of God. What a
sad case. but unto them which are called. Wait, I thought it was them that
believed. It is who believes, those that are called. Both Jews and Greek, it doesn't
matter who you are or where you're from, what you've done, Christ, the power of God and
the wisdom of God. It didn't please him to make
you wise by the preaching. It pleased him to make Christ
your wisdom by these means, the preaching of the gospel. The
Lord Jesus Christ has pacified the wrath of God. His wrath against
all of his elect is pacified by Christ the Lord. by him obeying
God for us in everything and in every way that we rebelled and at the cost of his precious
blood. Him who is the wisdom of God
has pacified the wrath of God for us. That's why we're here. Amen. Let's pray.