Sometimes we'll talk about, we were talking about this earlier
in the back before we started here, about hell, fire, and brimstone
preaching. You've heard that term. People
say, well, he's a hellfire preacher or something like that. And usually
we get in our minds some idea of a real fiery preacher who
just really comes down on people, trying to get you afraid of hell
and all of that. And of course, you know, hellfire
and brimstone, you know where that comes from, the idea of brimfire and
brimstone, that came from Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, God rained
fire and brimstone down upon those people, and those are elements,
those are metaphors for judgment. God's judgment against sin. But
the issue of, if you want to talk about hellfire and brimstone
preaching, the issue of that is not simply to make people
afraid of hell. I mean, certainly, hell is a
place we don't want to go there. It's a place of torment, the
scripture says. But that's not the issue. The
issue of any preaching of the wrath of God is intended to point
sinners who deserve nothing else, and that's us by nature, to point
sinners to flee from that wrath and the only one in whom we can
be sheltered, shielded, saved from that wrath, and that's the
Lord Jesus Christ. So I always say the summation
of hellfire and brimstone preaching ought to be what is stated in
John chapter 3 and verse 36. Let me just read that to you
before we get into the lesson. He says, Well, let me read verse
35. This is John 3, 35 and 36. It
says, The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into
his hand. And verse 36 says, He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. Now that's the joy, isn't it?
That's the peace. And he says, And he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him." And over here in Revelation 14, when we're talking about
the harvest of the Lord, you actually see two harvests here
where the Lord himself, as the supreme judge of all things,
is separating the wheat from the chaff. The wheat being God's
elect, God's chosen people. Those who Christ died for and
those whom Christ stood as surety under the wrath of God for the
sins of His people charged accounted to Him. And therefore, based
on the merits of His blood, have His righteousness charged to
them. So that they stand before God,
and it's described here in verse 13 of Revelation 14. It says,
and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Blessed are the
dead which die in the Lord. They stand before God in Christ. They're washed in his blood.
They're clothed in his righteousness. They stand before, as Paul said,
that I may know Him and be found in Him. In other words, when
I stand before God at judgment, I want to be found in Christ. I don't want to stand there like
those in Matthew 7 who said, oh, haven't I done this? Haven't
I done that? Oh, all of it. I did it in your
name. They have that codicil to all of it. Oh, I'm giving
God the credit. If you'll notice in Luke 18,
the Pharisee who went away unjustified, you know how his prayer started
out? It wasn't look at me. His prayer
was look at me. But do you remember how he started
out? What did he say? Anybody know? I thank God. So he was thinking all the time,
he's giving God the credit for these things. I thank God that
I'm not like other men. Now, and I always, whenever I
refer to that, I'm always careful to listen. We all say that in
a certain context. I mean, we know what we are as
sinners. The Lord has shown us, if we're
his children, the Lord at some point in our lives, he will show
us something of what we're capable of as far as sin. And this is
a hard pill to swallow, but by conviction of the Holy Spirit,
here's what we have to understand. That apart from the grace and
the goodness and the power of God, we're capable of any known
sin. We're capable of a lot worse.
And so we know that God restrains us. And so when I read in the
newspaper or see on the news of these horrible crimes, I do
say, but for the grace of God, there go I. Do you say that too? That's essentially what the Pharisee
was saying. I thank God that I'm not like
other men. Here's the difference though, and here's the main difference.
The fact that God restrains me from going the full swing of
my depravity and sin makes up no part of my righteousness before
God. And that's what the Pharisee
was pleading. We have to be like the publican. God be merciful,
which literally means propitious. I need a substitute. I need a
righteousness I can't produce. So here's the issue. Go to Revelation
14. Look at verse 17. Now he's talked
about the harvest of the church already. Bringing the people
of God into glory. That's what this is about. He's
harvested the wheat. Now in verse 17 it says, And
another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven, he
also having a sharp sickle. Here's another messenger from
the Lord. He comes out of the temple. The
temple in heaven is the dwelling place of God in his glory. You can't contain God in physical
buildings. You know the scripture teaches
us that. You know Christ spoke of that. The presence of God,
he is omnipresent everywhere in that sense. But the temple
here can symbolize the church as the witness of the Lord on
earth. We preach the wrath of God against
the sins of sinners to whom the Lord imputes sin. That's the
issue, isn't it? We're all sinners. If God ever
gave any of us what we deserve or what we've earned, what would
it be? Wrath, indignation, even hatred. That's what the scripture
teaches. So our only hope is to be found
before God, not having sins charged to our account, imputed to our
account. Now how can that be? God being
a just God, God being a righteous God, God being a God of truth. Let God be true, every man a
liar. Paul wrote in Romans chapter two, he says, the judgments of
God are according to truth. He never lies, he doesn't pretend. When it comes to the salvation
of his people, God does not lie, he does not pretend, he does
not fake it. When it comes to the damnation
of sinners, God does not lie, he does not pretend, he does
not fake it. It's always truth, truth, truth,
and it's always honoring to Him. So how is it possible? You see,
that's the question of questions. That's the issue that people
are so ignorant of today, even those who call themselves Christian.
This angel comes out of the temple. Now that temple is the place
of God's Shekinah glory. That is the greatest manifestation
of His glory. And here's what it says, just
like what I read in John 3.36. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
hath not seen life. The wrath of God abides on him.
Now that's the message of the temple. That's the message of
God through this angel. And what he's about to show,
he has a sharp sickle, that's a metaphor, that's a symbol of
God's judgment upon the world. He's separating his people out
from the ungodly. And notice it says here that
this angel, look at verse 17 again, it says in verse 18, another
angel came out from the altar which had power over fire. Now, fire symbolizes, again,
God's judgment. Remember in Hebrews 12, our God
is a consuming fire. To whom? To anyone who's found
without Christ, without being washed in his blood, without
being clothed in his righteousness. And this angel has power over
fire. This is the altar of judgment against sin. What's the difference
then between the people of God, the wheat, and those who are
without God, the chaff? Well, this judgment is the same
as far as God's judgment against sin, but the difference is Christ
as our representative, Christ as our substitute, Christ as
our surety, Christ having our sins imputed to him as he was
made sin took the full measure of God's wrath, God's fire in
the place of his people. We have a substitute. We have
a righteousness that equals fully the demands of God's justice
here. And Christ, here's the glory
of it. It says our God is a consuming
fire. The fire of God's wrath consumed
him, but in consuming him, he consumed it. And you say, well,
I can't understand all the ins and outs of that. Well, don't
worry about that. Here's the point. The Bible says in Daniel
chapter 9 and verse 24, he made an end of sin. In other words,
sin didn't make an end of him. In other words, if we don't have
Christ, if we don't have his blood to wash away our sins,
if we don't have his righteousness imputed to us, sin will make
an end of us. That's what James said. And it's
eternal damnation. But having Christ, he made an
end of sin. He finished the transgression.
Without Christ, the transgression will finish us. But he finished
it, you see. So that's what that altered.
Now, in other words, here's what's happening now on this judgment. And I'm gonna begin a little
series today on righteous judgment. We're gonna talk about that in
several messages. And here's what the issue is.
It all begins, centers around Christ as he is identified and
distinguished in the gospel. All judgment has to do with that. Turn over to Romans chapter 2. Let me show you something. Romans
chapter 2 you know what he's talking about in Romans 2 you
know in Romans You know he says the gospel is the power of God
and salvation over in Romans 1 All right to everyone that
believe it the Jew first Greek off for therein is the righteousness
of God Revealed now that word righteousness as you know can
often be translated judgment justice the justice of God But
justice of God for his people is revealed in the substitutionary
work of Christ, standing in our place, taking the full measure
of his wrath for our sins imputed. The justice of God is seen in
the salvation of his people as he saves us, blesses us, receives
us, justifies us, based on what? Not our sincerity, not our decision,
but based on the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. All
right? And there's the righteousness
of God. See, the righteousness of God is Christ, for Christ
is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
All right? Well, beginning at Romans 1.18, he begins to show
why we need the righteousness of God. We don't need the righteousness
of man. Man has no righteousness. None
righteous, no not one. But in verse 18 of Romans 1,
he begins, and then he goes to, really it's kind of like a general
revelation of God's justice against the sins of all people without
exception, in the sense of what we deserve and what we earn.
And then beginning Romans 2, he goes to even the Jews, the
religious Jews who had the law. And he tells them, he said, look,
you're just as deserving of the wrath of God as the Gentiles
who didn't have the law. Your religion will not save you.
Your religion will not wash away your sins. Your religion will
not make you righteous before God. And so he tells them that. But look at verse 15 of Romans
2. He talks about those who have
not the law, the Gentiles, but he says they're not totally without
responsibility. He says, he talks about they
have a law unto themselves, verse 15, which show the work of the
law written in their hearts, their conscience. also bearing
witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing
one another." And then look at verse 16, he says, in the day
when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according
to my gospel. Now what does that mean? That
means this, it's really essentially exactly the same as what he revealed
in Acts 17 31, when he talks about how Paul was saying that
God has commanded all men everywhere to repent because he hath appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance
unto all men and that he hath raised him from the dead. He's
not saying here that everybody's gonna hear the gospel and be
judged on whether or not they believe it. That's not what that
means. We've talked about this, how
God has given enough revelation in creation, he's given enough
revelation in conscience to hold all men accountable, and the
Bible seems to indicate that those who hear the gospel and
refuse to believe it will be given the greater condemnation.
We don't know exactly what all that means, and I'm not getting
into that this morning. Here's what he's saying. The standard
of judgment is Christ as he's revealed in the gospel. In other
words, what kind of righteousness do I need to pass the test of
judgment? Well, I'll do the best I can.
Well, that's the religion of Cain. It goes all the way back
to Cain. I'll bring the best that I can
to offer to God. You know, Christ said, and I'm
going to bring this out in the message, He said in Matthew 5.20,
He said, Accept your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case or no wise enter
the kingdom of heaven. And you know what most people
when they look at that, they say, well the scribes and the
Pharisees, now they all had horns in the tail and carried pitchforks
around, didn't they? Some of them were just out for
money, like these false preachers today who are just wanting to
get your money. Well, some of them probably were. But I want
to tell you something. Some of those scribes and Pharisees
were sincere, dedicated, generous, kind people. Take Nicodemus,
for example. And here's what people do. They
say, well, except your righteousness exceed. Well, they say, well,
they weren't sincere. They weren't more. I'm going
to be sincere more. Is that what you think? I'll
tell you how I know that's not what it's teaching. Because right
after that, in verse 21 of Matthew 5, what does Christ start doing?
He shows them the reality of the law of God. And here's the
reality, folks. It's not just a sin to go out
and kill somebody. It's a sin to think it. It's not just a sin to go out
and commit adultery. It's a sin to think it. Now,
if you can just apply that principle only to the scribes and the Pharisees,
then you may have a point. But can you apply that principle
only to the scribes and the Pharisees? I'll tell you who that principle
applies to. Every one of us. Now how can I, who am a sinner,
have a righteousness that exceeds them or anybody? And of course, it's only by the
grace of God in Christ. So that's what he's saying. This
is the judgment back in Revelation 14. This angel came from out
the altar. This is the altar of judgment.
Christ took our judgment if we're in Him. But if we don't have
Him, He says, which had power over fire, the judgment of God,
verse 18, and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp
sickle, saying, thrust in thy sharp sickle, gather the clusters
of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. Now
what that's simply saying is the full measure of time that
God has appointed before the foundation of the world for the
gathering in of his people and the judgment of all who are without
Christ has come." Here comes again the full measure of God's
wrath without mixture. The time has come. We're going to read in John 7
this morning where Christ, you know, he tells his half-brothers,
he says, they say, let's go to Jerusalem. He said, well, it's
not time for me to go yet. And then you see him going there.
Everything is according to God's clock. God declares the end from
the beginning. God's working everything after
the counsel of his own will. There's nothing out of step.
And I'll tell you, this is mind-boggling now, for us anyway, isn't it? You say, I can't explain all
this. Well, join the club. We'll all get badges and we'll
wear them. Yeah, we'll get badgers and say, I can't explain everything
about God. Now that's obvious, we don't
need badges for that. It shouldn't amaze us that we
worship a God that we cannot fathom in the depths of his nature
and his purpose. I just know this, outside of
Christ, wrath. In Christ, salvation. Now that's
what I know. And I know this, God's on the
throne, he's working all things after the counts of his own will,
this world is going according to his time clock, and right
here he says, here's the, and this, now listen again, this
angel is not commanding God to do anything when he says thrust
in thy sharp sickle. Nobody commands God. But this
angel is just announcing. Here it is, it's time, it's come. the judgment of this world. Her
grapes are fully ripe. You've heard that song, The Grapes
of Wrath. You know, what is that song?
What is that? Glory, glory, hallelujah. Then
talk about the grapes of wrath. That's where this comes, that's
where that phrase comes from right there. Her grapes are fully
ripe. That's the grapes of wrath. Aren't
you glad? that the grapes of wrath have
already been fully satisfied for we who are his people. You say, well, when I stand there
that day, certainly the wrath of God cannot come upon me. Well, how do you know that? How
can you be assured of that? Is it possible? You know, there
are people who claim to be Christian who think it's not possible to
know For sure. Now we'll just have to wait till
the end to find out whether or not we're under God's wrath or
under God's mercy. But what does the scripture say
about that? You know, I... The Lord has really burdened
me. You know, moving down here, back
down here last year and being able to write these books, and
I've heard a lot of positive response, not on the style of
writing or anything like that, but on people who say that, you
know, it's caused me to think about things that I hadn't thought
about before. Yeah, and it's, you know, I just
pray and hope that in the preaching, in the ministry, the preaching
that the men do here when I'm gone, and in our internet, and
our TV, that people will be urged and driven to get back to the
Word of God. Because that's what this is all
about. This is not about our opinions, and our philosophies,
and our worldviews, and our felt needs. That's what everybody's
going for today, and then they call that Christian? No, that's
not Christian. There's nothing Christian about
that. You know, somebody said, well, I read that verse and it
spoke to me. Well, what did it say to you? Tell me what it said to you.
Because if it says to you that you're okay if you are sincere
or you made the right decision, That wasn't God speaking to you.
Isn't that right? That's somebody else. How do you know? How can you
make a judgment? How can you make a judgment like that? This
word. Get back to the Word of God.
What does God's Word say? Because in this booklet that
I'm writing now on Rightly Divided, one of the rules is the rule
of simplicity. And here's the way I put the
rule of simplicity. There's two aspects of it. The
first aspect of it is this. If God says it, it's true. Settled. Now, we may not understand
fully everything about it, and many people may deny it, but
that doesn't change. It's simple truth. If God says
it, it's true. You preach the doctrine of election. Why do I preach the doctrine
of election? It's true. And why is it true? God said
it. And some preach, well, if I preach
that, it'll run people off. If God says it, it's true. And
if what God says runs you off, bye-bye. Now, I don't like that. I don't enjoy seeing people leave.
Don't get me wrong. I mean, it breaks my heart. But
if God says it, it's true. And that's what this is all about.
Look at verse 19 now of Revelation 14. It says, And the angel thrust
in his sickle into the earth, gathered the vine of the earth
and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God." Now that's
how we know he's talking about the unsaved, the non-elect, the
reprobates here. You see, when God gathers his
people, the grapes of mercy you might say, he's not going to
cast them into the winepress of the wrath of God. Now, why
is that? Because Christ, as our surety
and substitute, has already walked the winepress of the wrath of
God for us. You see that? He's already taken
it. There's no wrath of God upon
God's people, folks. I hear people talk about today,
say, well, before we believed, we were under the wrath of God.
Well, you know what my response to that is? Define the wrath
of God for me. and do it scripturally. Here's
the wrath of God. The wrath of God has to be defined
by what the Lord himself went through on the cross as our surety
and substitute. Would you agree to that? If we're going to say He took
the wrath of God. That's how it has to be defined.
Now, people can go around saying, well, we're partially under the
wrath of God, or we're under a lesser degree. The Bible doesn't
teach that. No, here's the wrath of God.
Yeah, hellfire and brimstone, whatever they want to say. But
here's the point, you see. Go back to verse 13. Right blessed
are the dead which die in the Lord. That's our hope, to die
in the Lord. Look at verse 20, he says, and
the winepress was trodden without the city, and I believe what
he's talking about without the heavenly city. In other words,
these are not citizens of the heavenly kingdom. What he's talking
about, the wrath of God will fall upon all who are without
the city. Remember when Christ, it's described
in the book of Hebrews, I think chapter 13, how Christ, when
he suffered under the wrath of God, for our sins imputed to
him, he was taken outside the city. Because that's where the
wrath of God, inside the city, inside heavenly Jerusalem. That's
those who are in Christ, that's the citizens of the kingdom.
And blood came out of the winepress, Without the shedding of blood,
no remission. Well, the shedding of this blood
here, there's not gonna be any remission. Just eternal damnation. Why in the shedding of Christ's
blood is there remission? Because that's the blood of God
in human flesh. We're gonna celebrate that in
the memorial supper today. This is my blood, which was shed
for you. His blood cleanses us from all
sin. Our blood can't cleanse anybody,
not even ourselves. And he says, even unto the horse
bridles. The reason I believe he uses
that kind of metaphor is this. You know, back then, men thought
of horses as power. Power to defeat the enemy. All right? It's like today, we
think about atomic bombs. We think about tanks and guns
and all that to fight the enemy. Well, sin is the enemy of all
people. Sin is the enemy. And it doesn't matter how powerful
men and women become, they cannot defeat sin. And he says it'll
come up even to the horse bridles. You won't even be able to ride
the horse. You won't even be able to guide the horse. This
is how bad it's going to be. He said by a space of a thousand
and six hundred furlongs. Now, what does that mean? Well,
I've got in your lesson here this thousand and six hundred
furlongs. It may be a symbolic reference
to the physical measure of the land of Israel, which was about
200 miles. And so, therefore, the Jews thought
that that was an invincible and protected place. Alright? The Hebrews used the number thousand
to symbolize an infinite measure of things. People, time, whatever. But here's what I wrote. This
probably sets, that should be sets forth, not forty. So change
that. It's in your last part of your
lesson. This probably sets forth symbolically the full extent
of God's wrath over the whole earth and in every place. You
know Jerusalem was called the holy city. People today think,
you know, they say, well, we're going to visit the Holy Land.
There's nothing holy about it now. It was a place that God
did set apart for a little while, but what happened was it caused
the Jews to think, well, this, you know, anybody here, they're
not going to be touched, you know. But here's the point of
it. Now, whether you agree with me or disagree on the symbolism
of the actual numbers or not, here's the point that he's making
here. When the wrath of God comes in
the end, there will be no place of safety. All right? If you're not in Christ, blessed
are those who die in the Lord, Christ is the only place of safety.
Christ is the only refuge. Christ is the only rock. And
if you don't have Christ, if you're not washed in his blood
and clothed in his righteousness, there is absolutely no place
of safety. All right.