Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

The sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, was first preached by Jonathan Edwards on July 8th in the year 1741 at Enfield, Connecticut. It is often referred to as one of the most famous of all sermons preached in recent history. Halfway through his delivery, many in the congregation were caused to tremble and soon cried out for mercy from God.

History records that the night before the sermon was preached, a number of godly and devoted women who lived in the area prayed that God would soon demonstrate His power. History also records that approximately 500 people were converted as a result of this sermon and the faithful prayers of God's people. This sermon was used by God to help ignite one of the greatest revivals ever known in America, the Great Awakening.

It is my prayer that God would use this updated version of the sermon to bless and ignite a revival in the hearts and minds of all who hear it.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God.

Our text comes from the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 35. Listen to what the God of the universe has to say about unbelieving mankind. It is mine to avenge. I will repay. In due time their foot will slip. Their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.

In this verse we find God threatening the wicked unbelieving Israelites with His wrath. These wicked unbelievers were part of God's chosen people and they lived under the benefits of God's grace. But despite all of the wonderful things that God did for them, they remain foolish in their hearts. After all the careful planting and watering by heaven to help them grow into a fruitful people, they brought forth only bitter and poisonous fruit.

The portion of the verse that I would like us to focus on is this, in due time, their foot will slip. This statement from God, which relates to the punishment that these wicked Israelites were exposed to, teaches us a number of things about God's judgment on all unbelieving and rebellious people.

First, unbelievers are continually exposed to the danger of falling into ruin, falling into the fires of hell, just like the person that stands or walks on slippery surfaces is always in the danger of falling. We see this implied in the kind of destruction coming upon them, which is represented by their foot slipping. The same idea is expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 73. Listen as I read. Surely God places them on slippery ground. God throws them down to ruin.

Secondly, it implies that they were continually exposed to sudden, unexpected destruction, just like the person who walks on slippery surfaces is liable to fall at any moment. He doesn't know from one moment to the next whether he will stand or fall, and when he does fall, He falls suddenly and without warning, which is also expressed in Psalm 73, how suddenly they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors.

Further, it is implied that they are likely to fall completely by themselves without being thrown down by the hand of another. A person that stands or walks on slippery surfaces needs nothing but his own weight to cause him to fall. You know, the only reason why unbelievers have not already fallen into hell and don't fall now is that God's appointed time has not yet come. For it is said that when that appointed time comes, their foot will slip. Then they will be left to fall, as they are inclined to do anyway, because of their own weight of sin. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but he will let them go. And then, at that very instant, they will fall into hell, just like the person on a slippery descending surface on the edge of a pit. He cannot stand alone. And when he is let go of, then he immediately falls and is eternally lost.

Now what can we make of all of this? Simply that there is nothing that presently keeps wicked men and wicked women out of hell but the sovereign will of God. Let me say that again. There is nothing that presently keeps wicked men and wicked women out of hell but the sovereign will of God.

God is not obligated to restrain His will, nor is He hindered by any difficulty. The truth of this appears in the following. First, there is no lack of power in God. There is no lack of power to throw wicked men and wicked women into hell at any moment. There is no lack of power in God. There is no lack of power to throw wicked men and wicked women into hell at any moment. No man or woman can be strong when God rises up against them. The strongest man or woman has no power to resist God, nor can anyone save them from his hands.

God is not only able to throw wicked men and women into hell, but he can do so most easily. Now, sometimes an earthly prince encounters a great deal of difficulty trying to subdue a rebel, a rebel who has found ways to fortify himself. and has made himself strong by the mere numbers of his followers. But this is not the case with God. There is no fortress that can provide any defense against the power of God. Though hand join in hand and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken into pieces. They are like piles of dry hay standing before the tornado or before devouring flames. We find it easy in our lives to step on and crush a bug that we see crawling on the ground. Likewise, it is easy for us to cut a thin thread that anything hangs by. Therefore, it is easy for God, whenever He chooses, to throw his enemies down into hell.

Who are we that we would think that we can stand before God, at whose rebuke the earth trembles and before whom the mountains collapse? In addition, wicked men and wicked women deserve to be thrown into hell, and divine justice will never stand in the way It makes no objection against God using His power at any moment to destroy them. Wicked men and wicked women deserve to be thrown into hell, and divine justice will never stand in the way. It makes no objection against God using His power at any moment to destroy them. Yes, on the contrary. justice calls out loud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, cut it down. Why should it use up the soil? Continually, the sword of divine justice is waved over their heads, and it is nothing, nothing but the hand of elective mercy and God's sovereign will that holds the sword of his judgment back.

Moreover, unbelieving men and unbelieving women are presently under a sentence of eternal torment in hell. Unbelieving men and unbelieving women are presently under a sentence of eternal torment in hell. They not only justly deserve to be thrown into hell, but the sentence of God's law, that eternal and unchangeable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, that sentence has gone out against them, and it stands against them, so that they are, even now, condemned to the fires of hell. The Bible says, whoever does not believe stands condemned already. So we can see that every unconverted man and woman rightly belongs in hell. That is their place. From there they have their origin. They are from below and they are headed for there. It is the place that justice and God's word and the sentence of his unchangeable law assigned to them.

Furthermore, they are presently the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason why they don't go down to hell this very moment is not because God, in whose power they are under, is not intensely angry with them as he is with the multitude of humans presently being tormented in hell where they feel and bear the fierceness of God's wrath. Yes, God is a great deal more angry with the large numbers that are now on earth. Yes, doubtless with the many that are now listening to this sermon who feel completely at ease than he is with those who are now in the flames of hell. It is not because God is not aware of and offended by their wickedness that he does not let loose his hand and destroy them. God is not like them, though they imagine that he is. The wrath of God burns against the unconverted. Their damnation does not sleep. The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot and ready to receive them. The flames now rage and glow, the glittering sword is sharpened and held over them, and the pit has opened its mouth under them. They hang over the pit of hell by only a slender thread of God's temporary mercy. Furthermore, the devil stands ready to overthrow them and to seize them as his own, at whatever moment God will allow him. The wicked belong to the devil. He has their souls in his possession and under his dominion. The scripture depicts them as his possessions. The demons watch them. They are right next to them. They stand waiting for them. like greedy hungry lions that see their prey and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand by which the demons are restrained, they would in one moment rush upon their poor wicked souls. The old serpent is reaching out for them. Hell opens its mouth wide to receive them. And if God should allow it, they would rapidly be swallowed up and lost. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power as he does the raging waves of the tossing sea, saying, this far you may come and no farther. But if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon sweep away everything in his path Sin is the ruin and the misery of the soul. It is destructive in its nature, and if God did not restrain it, every soul would become utterly wretched. Wicked men and wicked women cannot find even a moment's security in the fact that death does not appear to be at hand. They cannot find a moment's security in the fact that death does not appear to be at hand. The unbelieving man has no security in the fact that he is healthy and that he cannot perceive of any accident taking him out of the world and that there is no visible danger in any of his circumstances. The continual experience of the world through the ages shows that man lives on the very brink of eternity and that the next step he takes may well be into another world. The unseen, unthought of ways and means of persons suddenly being taken out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men and women walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are countless places in this covering so weak that it will not bear their weight, and these places are not visible. Every day the invisible arrows of death fly all around us. The sharpest eyesight cannot see them. God has so many unsearchable ways of taking wicked men and wicked women out of the world and sending them to hell that there is nothing that indicates that God needs to use a miracle or go out of the ordinary course of his providence to destroy any wicked man or woman at any moment. All the options of taking sinners out of the world are in God's hands. and so absolutely subject to his power and determination that it depends merely upon the will of God whether sinners will at any moment go into hell. The care taken by unbelievers to preserve their own lives, or the caring concern of others to preserve them, does not give them a moment's security To this divine providence and universal experience also bears testimony. There is clear evidence that men's own wisdom is no security to them from death. Otherwise, we would expect to see some difference between the wise of the world and the foolish with regard to their vulnerability to an early and unexpected death. The Bible declares that like the fool, the wise man too must die. All the efforts of the wicked which they use to escape hell while they continue to reject Christ and so remain wicked does not secure them from hell for one moment. Almost every unbeliever that hears of hell flatters himself that he will escape it He depends on himself for his own security. He flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Everyone determines in his own mind how he will avoid damnation and convinces himself that his strategies will not fail. They surely hear the biblical truth that only a few are saved. and that the overwhelming majority of mankind that have died throughout the ages have gone into hell, but each one imagines that he has a better plan for his own escape, a better plan than others have come up with. He does not intend to come to that place of torment. He says to himself that he intends to take special care and to come up with a plan that will not fail. But these foolish men and women delude themselves in their own schemes and in the confidence of their own strength and wisdom. They trust in nothing but a shadow. The majority of those who have lived under the patient grace of God and are now dead have surely gone into the fires of hell. The fact that they are in torment is not because they were not as wise as those who are still alive, nor is it because they did not determine for themselves how to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them and ask them, one by one, whether they expected, when they were alive, when they used to hear about hell, ever to be the subjects of that misery, we doubtless should hear every one reply, No, I never intended to end up in hell. I had determined otherwise in my mind. I thought I had a good plan. I thought my strategy was good. I intended to take special care, but it came upon me so unexpectedly. I didn't expect it at that time and in that way. It came like a thief. Death outwitted me. God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness. I was flattering myself and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do after my life on earth. And when I was saying to myself, peace and safety, then suddenly death came upon me. Let it be known that God has put himself under no obligation. He has made no promise to keep any unbelieving man or unbelieving woman out of hell for one second. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life or of any deliverance from eternal death, but only what is contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ Jesus, in whom all the promises are true. But surely, my friend, those who are not the children of God have no interest in the promises of the covenant of grace. They do not believe in any of the promises and they have no interest in the mediator of the covenant, Jesus Christ. So it is plain and simple that whatever efforts an unsaved man or unsaved woman makes in religion Whatever prayers they recite, until they believe in Jesus Christ, God is under no obligation to keep them out of the eternal torments of hell for even one second. Therefore, unbelieving men and unbelieving women are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell. They deserve the fiery pit and they are sentenced to it God is dreadfully provoked, and his anger is as great towards them as it is to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in the fires of hell. They have done nothing to appease or lessen God's anger, nor is God under any obligation or bound by any promise to hold them up for one moment.

The devil is waiting for them. Hell's mouth is open wide for them. The flames gather and flash around them and are eager to grab them. And these unbelievers do not have a mediator to help them. There are no means within reach that can be of any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to grab hold of, All that keeps them from being thrown into hell at any moment is the finite patience of an incensed God.

Now, my dear listeners, what do we do with the truths I have just shared concerning the awful judgments awaiting the unsaved? The use of this dreadful subject may be for the salvation of unconverted people listening to this sermon. All the judgments I have just preached upon will certainly come to pass to every one of you that are without Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning fire is stretched out wide below you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God. There is hell's wide open mouth and you have nothing to stand on. nothing to grab onto. There is nothing between you and hell but the air, and it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up. You are probably not aware of this. You observe that you are kept out of hell, but you don't see the hand of God in it. Instead, you look at other things, things like your good health, or the way that you take care of your life. But in fact, these things are nothing. If God removes his hand, they would no more keep you from falling than thin air would prevent you from striking the ground after falling off of a cliff. Your wickedness makes you as heavy as lead and adds a downward tendency with great weight and pressure towards hell. And if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless pit. And your good health and your best plans for salvation and all your self-righteousness would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock.

Were it not for the sovereign will of God, The earth would not tolerate you for one second, for you are a burden to it. The creation groans because of you. The animals are unwillingly made subject to the bondage of your corruption. The sun does not willingly shine on you to give you light to serve sin and Satan. The earth does not willingly yield her fruits to satisfy your lust, nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon. The air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life within your body while you spend your life in the service of God's enemies. Truly, the world would spit you out were it not for the sovereign hand of God.

Black clouds of God's wrath are hanging directly over your heads. Full of the dreadful storm and big with thunder, And were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign will of God for the present holds back his destroying wind. Otherwise it would come with fury and your destruction would come like a tornado and you would be like the dry dust of the summer swept away in a moment. The wrath of God is like a great river that is dammed up for the present. The waters increase more and more and rise higher and higher till an outlet is given. And the longer the river is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course when it is finally let loose. It is true that judgment against your evil works has not been executed before. The floods of God's vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly, constantly increasing, and every day you are storing up more wrath. The waters are constantly rising and growing more and more mighty, and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back. Water that is unwilling to be stopped, and pushes hard to go forward. If God would only withdraw his hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury and would come upon you with omnipotent power. And if your strength were 10,000 times greater than it is, Yes, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the strongest, most powerful demon in hell, it would never, never be able to withstand or endure God's wrath.

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow is made ready on the string, and justice points the arrow at your heart. and strains the bow, and it is nothing, it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God and that of an angry God, an angry God who is not restrained by any promise or obligation to you that keeps the arrow one second from being made drunk with your blood. Thus, every one of you that has never had the great change of heart by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit of God acting on your souls, all of you that have never been born again and made new creations in Christ and raised from being dead in sin to a new state and never have experienced light in life, all of you, yes, all of you are in the hands of an angry God.

Now, some of you may have reformed your life in many ways, and may have had religious experiences, and may keep up a form of religion in your life and at home and in your churches. Yet for all your own self-righteousness, it is nothing but God's sovereign will that keeps you from being instantly swallowed up in everlasting misery and torment. You may still be unconvinced of the truths that I have been preaching on, but in time you will be fully convinced of them all. Those that were in comparable circumstances as you are, are now gone and death came suddenly on most of them. When they expected nothing to happen and while they were saying peace and safety, Now they see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, just like one who might hold a spider or some hideous insect over a fire, detests you and is greatly provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks on you as being worthy of nothing else but to be thrown into the fire. His eyes are too pure than to bear to have you in His sight, and you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous snake is in ours.

You have infinitely offended Him with your sin, and yet it is nothing. nothing but His hand that keeps you from falling into the fires of torment at any moment. It is only because of His sovereign will that you did not die in your sleep last night and go into hell. It is only because of His sovereign will that you were allowed to wake up this morning in this world. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you woke up this morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell this morning as you have sat here in this church, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful, wicked manner of attending his solemn worship.

Yes, There is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell. O sinner, consider the fearful danger that you are in. It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath that you are held over by the hand of God. God's wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath burning all around it and ready every moment to singe it and burn it through. And you, you have no hope of any mediator and nothing to grab hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep away the flames of wrath, nothing of your own Nothing that you've ever done, nothing that you can do to persuade God to spare you for one moment.

Now, consider whose wrath it is. Consider whose wrath it is. It is the wrath of an infinite God. Consider whose wrath it is. It is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, though it were the most powerful dictator on earth, it would be comparatively little to be concerned with. The wrath of wicked leaders is very much dreaded, especially absolute dictators who have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will.

The Bible says, A king's wrath is like the roar of a lion. He who angers him forfeits his life. The person that enrages a wicked dictator is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that humans can invent or human power can inflict. But the most powerful of all earthly rulers, when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison to the great and almighty creator and king of heaven and earth. In comparison to God, all the kings of the earth are like grasshoppers. They are nothing and less than nothing. Both their love and their hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great king of kings is much more dreadful than theirs, just as his majesty is much greater than theirs. Jesus, the King of Kings, tells us, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him. It is the fury of God's wrath that you are exposed to. It is the fury of God's wrath that you are exposed to.

We often read of the fury of God as we find in the book of Isaiah. Listen. According to what they have done, so will God repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes. The Lord is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind. He will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. Also in the book of Revelation we read of the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

These words are extremely terrible. If it had only said the wrath of God, The words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful. But it is the fury of the wrath of God, the fury of God, the fierceness of Jehovah. Oh, how dreadful that must be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions truly mean?

But it is also the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. which would imply that there would be a very great display of his almighty power in what the fury of his wrath will inflict. God's omnipotence, unlimited strength and power will be enraged and exerted on the sinner. Oh, what will be the consequence then? What will become of the man or woman that will have to suffer it? What man or woman would have the strength to endure God's wrath? Oh, what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery will the man or woman experience who will be the subject of God's almighty wrath.

Now consider this, you that are still alive and that are still not converted, The fact that God will execute the fury of his anger implies that he will inflict wrath without any pity on you when you are thrown into hell. When God looks on you in hell and sees that your torment is so vastly disproportional to your strength, and when he sees how your soul is crushed and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite bloom, he will have no compassion on you. He will not withhold the executions of his wrath or in the least lighten his hand. There will be no moderation or mercy. He will have no regard for your welfare, nor will he be at all careful for fear that you should suffer too much in any other sense than only that you will not suffer beyond what his strict justice requires. Nothing will be withheld from you. Nothing will be withheld simply because it is too intense for you to bear.

The living God declares in his word, I will deal with them in anger. I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.

My dear friends, today, Today God stands ready to have pity on you. This is a day of mercy. Right now you can cry out to Jesus Christ with the assurance of obtaining mercy. But when the day of mercy has passed, then your most pitiful and sorrowful cries and shrieks will be in vain. You will be totally lost and thrown away by God, and He will have no regard for your welfare. God will have no other use for you but for you to suffer misery. You will have no other purpose for your body will be a body of wrath designed for destruction. And there will be no other use of your body but to be filled full of wrath. God will not have pity on you when you cry to him. The Bible says that he will only laugh and mock. Listen now, listen to God's own voice before it is too late. Listen to his own words as he declared in the Bible, listen. Since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster. I will mock when calamity overtakes you. When calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you, then you will call to me, but I will not answer. You will look for me, but you will not find me. Since you hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since you would not accept my advice and spurn my rebuke, You will eat the fruit of your ways and be filled with the fruit of your schemes.

Oh, how dreadful are those words that are found in the book of Isaiah. Listen, I have trodden the wine press alone. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath. Their blood spattered my garments and I stained all my clothing. It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that declare more graphically than these three things, contempt, hatred, and fury of wrath. In hell, if you should cry out to God to pity you and have mercy on you, he will refuse you pity or mercy, nor will he show you the least regard or favor. Instead, he will only tread you underfoot And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading on you, yet he will not regard that. But he will crush you under his feet without mercy. He will crush out your blood and make it fly. It will be sprinkled on his garments so as to stain all of his clothes.

God will not only hate you, but he will hold you in the utmost contempt No place will be thought fit for you but under his feet to be trodden down as nothing but filth. The misery which God will inflict on you will show what the wrath of Jehovah is. God has had it on his heart to show both to angels and to men, both how great his love is and also how terrible his wrath is. Sometimes earthly rulers have a mind to show how terrible their wrath is by the extreme punishments they would execute on those that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and arrogant king of the Chaldean Empire, was willing to show his wrath when enraged with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He gave the order that the burning fiery furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it was before. Without a doubt, it was raised to the utmost degree of fury that human anger could raise it.

And the great God of the universe is also willing to put His wrath on display and magnify his dreadful majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of his enemies. The Apostle Paul speaks to us in the book of Romans, saying, What if God, choosing to show his wrath and making his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath, prepared for destruction? My friends, it is part of God's plan and what He has determined to show how terrible the unrestrained wrath, fury, and fierceness of Jehovah is. There will be something accomplished and brought to pass that will be a dreadful witness. When the great and angry God has risen up and executed His awful vengeance on the wicked sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of God's anger, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it.

Listen to God's own voice. The people will be burned as if to lime. Like cut thorn bushes they will be set ablaze. You who are far away, hear what I have done. and you who are near acknowledge my power.

Thus it will be with you, you that are still unconverted, if you continue in your unbelief. The infinite might and majesty and dreadfulness of the omnipotent God will be magnified on you in the inexpressible strength of your torments. You will be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb of God. And while you are in this state of suffering, the glorious saints of heaven, the redeemed, will go out and look on this awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is. And when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty.

Listen to the word of God. All mankind will come and bow down before me, says the Lord, and they will go out and look upon the dead bodies, the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me. Their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.

It is also an everlasting wrath It is also an everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God for one second, but you must suffer it for all of eternity. There will be no end, no end to this extreme, horrible misery. When you look forward, you will see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts and stagger your soul, and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will certainly know that you will endure millions and millions of years in wrestling and clashing with this almighty merciless vengeance. And then when you have done so, when many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a drop in the ocean, the ocean of wrath that remains. Your punishment will indeed be infinite.

Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is? All that we can possibly say about it gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it. It is inexpressible and inconceivable, for who knows the power of God's anger? How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery. But this is the depressing case of every soul that has not yet been born again by the blood of Jesus Christ, however moral and strict, sober and religious that they may otherwise be.

Oh, that you would consider this, whether you are young or old. There is every reason to believe that there are many now listening to this sermon that will actually be the subjects of this very misery for all of eternity. We do not know who they are or what thoughts they may now have. It may be that they are contented with their lives and hear all of these things without much conviction and are even flattering themselves that they are not the persons and assuring themselves that they will somehow escape God's wrath.

If we knew that there was one person, and only one here today, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing it would be to think of. If we knew who it was, what an awful sight it would be to see such a person. How might all the rest of the congregation lift up a mournful and bitter cry over that person? But to my sorrow, I fear that there is more than one of you who will remember this sermon in hell. And some of you, some of you that are now listening to this sermon will be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is over. And would it be any wonder if some of you that are now listening who are healthy and feel very secure should be in hell before tomorrow morning?

Those of you that continue to live in your unsaved condition, who will live longer than others, will eventually be there before long. Your damnation does not slumber. It will come swiftly, and in all probability, very suddenly upon many of you. You have good reason to wonder why you are not already in hell. Without a doubt there are some people whom you have seen and known who have sinned less than you and were healthier than you and by all rights should still be alive now as you are. But their case is beyond all hope. They are presently crying in the extreme misery and complete despair of the awful torments in hell.

But here you are. Here you are in the land of the living. and have an opportunity to obtain salvation? Oh, what would those poor, damned, hopeless souls give, give for one day's opportunity such as you now enjoy? And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day where Christ has thrown open the door of mercy, wide open, and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners. a day where many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south. Many that were recently in the same miserable condition that you are in are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God.

How awful it would be to be left behind on such a day, to see so many others feasting while you are suffering grief and perishing, to see so many rejoicing and singing for joy in their hearts while you are mourning because of the sorrow of your heart and crying because of the dreadful fear of your spirit. How can you rest one moment in such a condition Aren't your souls as precious as the souls of the people in the other cities and other countries of the world where they are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Many of you have lived a long time in the world and still are not born again. And so you are aliens from the people of God. And you have done nothing ever since you have lived but store up God's wrath for the day of God's judgment against your sins. Oh, my friends, your case, in a special way, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Don't you see how persons your age are passed over and left without receiving God's mercy? You need to wake up out of your sleep. You will not be able to bear the fierceness and wrath of an infinite God.

Young men and young women, will you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy when so many others of your age are renouncing all the sins of youth and are flocking to Christ? You especially now have an extraordinary opportunity. But if you neglect it, you will soon be like those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin and have now gone into hell. because of the blindness and hardness of their hearts.

And you children, children who are unconverted, don't you know that you are going down to hell? You are going to hell to bear the dreadful wrath of that God who is now angry with you every day and every night. Will you be content to be the children of the devil when so many other children in the land are converted? and have become the holy and happy children of the King of Kings?

And let everyone, everyone that is still without Christ and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they are old men and old women or middle-aged or young people or little children, now listen to the loud calls of God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord A day of such great favor to some will surely be a day of remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases quickly on such a day as this if they neglect their souls. And never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind.

God now seems to be quickly gathering in His elect from all parts of the land, and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever will be saved will be brought in now in a little while. It will be as it was on the great outpouring of the Spirit poured out upon the Jews in the apostles' days. The elect will be saved and the rest will be blinded. If this should be your case, You will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that you were born to see such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it.

Now, without a doubt, it is just like it was in the days of John the Baptist. The axe is laid at the roots of the trees. so that every tree which does not bring forth good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, let everyone that is without Christ now wake up and flee from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now, without a doubt, hanging over many of you that are listening to this message. Let each person run away from Sodom, the city of sin, Flee for your lives, don't look back, and don't stop anywhere. Run to the loving Savior, Jesus Christ, or you will be swept away, swept away into the burning torment forever, forever, and forever. Amen.