In the first epistle of Paul
to the Thessalonians in chapter 1 from verse 5, Paul has this
to say of the gospel. Our gospel came not unto you
in word only but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in
much assurance as ye know what manner of men we were among you
for your sake. And ye became followers of us,
and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction,
with joy of the Holy Ghost. So that ye were on samples to
all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded
out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia,
but also in every place your faith to God was spread abroad. So that we need not to speak
anything, For they themselves show of us what manner of entering
in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve
the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come. to wait for His Son from heaven,
whom He received from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come. Oh, what a salvation! What a
deliverance Christ wrought! To deliver us, to deliver His
people from the wrath to come. No wonder there's such power
in such a gospel that declares unto fallen rebels like you and
I, those who've gone forth from the day they're born shaking
their fist in God's face, heaping up sin and corruption. and putting
upon their heads coals which will burn forevermore as God's
judgment and wrath will pour down upon them. We earn every
day God's judgment. We deserve his wrath. Our sins
have multiplied like the waters in the oceans. We're buried beneath
them. They've gone over our heads.
and God's wrath burns from heaven against those sins, then what a gospel that declares
that there is one gone forth into this world to deliver sinners
from the wrath to come. The wrath to come. What wrath God's wrath. God's wrath against sin. God's
wrath against our transgressions. God's wrath against your iniquity. God's wrath against your proud
heart. Against your pride. Against your
rebellion. God's wrath against your selfish
self-glory. God's wrath against your carelessness. God's wrath against your anger. God's wrath against your filthy
mind. God's wrath against your self-righteous
religion and your works and your free will and your hypocrisy
as you paint a picture before others. that you are so white
and pure when you know that inside your mind your thoughts and your
affections are utterly corrupt. There is wrath that burns from
heaven above against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. God's
wrath. As Paul says in Romans where
he speaks of the gospel, and speaks of its power, and begins
to open up that gospel, he says in Romans 1.18, the wrath of
God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. There is wrath. It burns from heaven. And it
burns not just against those sins that you do, that you know
are sins. Not just against those filthy
deeds. Not just against that anger you
have against the innocent. Not just against that filthy
communication that goes forth from your mouth. not just against
your defrauding your brother, not just against your adultery,
not just against your murderous heart, but that wrath burns against
your false religion and your veneer of righteousness and your
pretending to be right before a holy God when the reality is
anything but. Wrath. For there is wrath. There is the wrath of God. It
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men and against those who hold the truth, hold it back
in unrighteousness. There is wrath. There is judgment. for our sin and our sins, which
you cannot deny you have, and which you cannot deny you have
done. Our sin and our sins have a consequence. Judgment. God will judge the
secrets of all men by his gospel, fairly and justly. There comes a day There is coming
a day when all will stand before Him, you and I included, and
when all will be called to answer for all that they have fought
and done. And when God's books, which have
recorded every deed of every man, woman and child in all history,
will be opened up, will be opened up. and will be read out and
where the penalty of the law will be declared against every
misdemeanor, every crime, every guilt, every rebellion and God's
penalty will be exacted and those without an answer will be sent
away into outer darkness and a place called hell where the
wrath and the fires of God burn forevermore. Now that judgment, and that last
day of judgment, and the inevitable consequence of our sin, and the
righteous judgment of a holy God is a truth which is almost
universally denied and resisted by mankind today. and throughout
the ages. Even the religious, even those
who take Jesus' name and pretend to follow him, hate the truth
that there is wrath to come. And hate the truth that God will
send the wicked to a place called hell from which they will never
escape. But whatever your heart and your
foolishness thinks of the truth of God, burying your head in
the sand does not blot it out. Pretending something is there
does not remove it. turning your back on it, closing
your ears to it, shutting your mind to it, will not prevent
the inevitable passing of time and the inevitable advance of
that day into which you will step, in which God will pronounce
the fair and just penalty against your sin. There is wrath to come,
as God has declared plainly and repeatedly throughout the scriptures,
as Jesus himself repeatedly told his hearers. Don't speak to me
of your gentle Jesus who came full of love and try to claim
that these things, these hard words, these hard words of judgment
to come are something that only the apostles, only Paul spoke
of. Jesus had more to say about hell
and about judgment than any other. Ephesians 5, 6 tells us, Let
no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things
cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
There are many who will try to deceive you. Many who will spin
a lie. Many who will cry, Peace, peace,
where there is no peace. Many who will say, Don't worry,
that's not you. Many who will try to wriggle
you out of the consequences that your sins have sown. But the
time passes, the hours tick away, the minutes tick away. And if
you're a child of disobedience, be it known unto you that because
of your sin, the wrath of God cometh upon. the children of
disobedience, of which you are one. As Colossians 3, 6 affirms,
for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children
of disobedience. The wrath of God. When we turn
to the book of Revelation, those visions given to the apostle
John that revelation of Jesus Christ himself and his purposes
throughout all time and history. That revelation of what he has
done and will do throughout all time and the conclusion of time
and the coming in of the new heavens and the new earth and
the judgment and end of this world. In that book we read in
repeated places of the wrath of God. Revelation 14, 10. The
same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is
poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and
he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence
of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. Verse 19,
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered
the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of
the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden
without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto
the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred
furlongs. Chapter 15 verse 1, And I saw
another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels,
having the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the
wrath of God. Those plagues that they will
bring forth and pour out upon this world of the wrath of God
against our sins. Verse 7. And one of the four
beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the
wrath of God, who liveth forever and ever. And the temple was
filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power. And
no man was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues
of the seven angels were fulfilled. Chapter 16, verse one, and I
heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels,
go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon
the earth. So they go forth and they pour. And verse 19, we read in the
great city, was divided into three parts and the cities of
the nations fell and great Babylon came in remembrance before God
to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his
wrath. And in chapter 19 and verse 15
we read of that vision of the one upon a white horse whose
name was faithful and true, the Lord Jesus, and verse 15 tells
us of him, and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with
it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a
rod of iron, and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness
and wrath of Almighty God. and he hath on his vesture and
on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. You don't fool with almighty
God and you don't mess about before this one who rides upon
a white horse, the Lord Jesus. That same child born in a cradle
in Bethlehem in a manger before whom the shepherds bowed and
worshipped. That same child who at 12 years
old went up to Jerusalem with his parents and questioned and
taught the scribes in the temple and amazed them with his understanding
and doctrine. that same child who grew to be
a man, who touched and healed the lepers, and made the blind
to see, and the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak, that man
who was rejected by all, and taken outside of the city, and
nailed to a cross, and raised up to die in the midday sun,
that man who was spat upon and mocked and derided, who had a
crown of thorns thrust upon his head, who had his clothes ripped
from off his back and divided amongst the rough soldiers who
cast lots for them, that man who was spat upon and scorned
and laughed at, that man who suffered in the darkness, as
God judged him for the sins of his people. That man who for
his own drank the cup of God's wrath is the same man who cried
out, it is finished. the same man who was laid in
the grave, the same man who rose from the grave, the same man
who appeared unto the disciples and to many, the same man who
rose and ascended up into glory, the same man who sits on the
right hand of Almighty God, and the same man who one day will
come unto you riding upon a white horse in judgment. and come to
this world and will tread the winepress of the fierceness and
wrath of Almighty God against every sinner who was not saved
by his blood shed upon the tree. There is wrath, there is wrath
to come. There was wrath that God poured
out upon his son to deliver his people from the wrath to come. And there is wrath which God
will pour out upon the wicked who have rejected and scorned
and turned their back upon him and shut their ears to the gospel
as you have done, as you in your heart continue to do. And as
you, unless God arrest you by grace, and stop you in your foolish
tracks, will continue to do until the day you die, or the day in
which Jesus Christ enters this world again, riding upon this
horse, and comes to tread you as grapes in the winepress of
his wrath. Now were you delivered at the
cross? Or will you taste with the children
of disobedience the wrath of God to come? You don't fool with God. You
don't fool with the one whose wrath burns like this. There was a day of old When man
in his wickedness turned on mass away from God. When the generations
in this world had utterly rebelled against God. When man of old
turned and the wickedness multiplied upon the earth. And God was grieved
with the wickedness of man. And said that it repented him
that he had made man upon the earth. And God purposed to destroy
the wicked. But he purposed also to save
one man and his household. That man named Noah. That preacher
of righteousness. And God moved Noah and instructed
him to build him an ark for the saving of his house. And Noah's
faith that God gave him was such that no one believed and was
moved and did as commanded. And though all men laughed at
him, though all men thought he was a fool, he labored and built
that ark. And no one knew that God would
send judgment, though mankind to that day had never seen rain. For the earth was moistened by
mists that went up from the surface of the waters. But God had never
brought rain upon the earth. So all men laughed at Noah's
warnings of the judgment to come. They laughed at it, they scorned
him, they mocked him, they derided. And yet he by faith looked under
his guard. and carried on building, and
carried on standing for the truth, and carried on preaching righteousness,
and carried on preaching of the God he worshipped. And all men
laughed, like you who laugh at the gospel, like you who shut
your ears to the warnings of judgment to come. They laughed. And yet Noah built, and there
came a day when the heavens grew dark, and when the clouds gathered,
and when there was thick darkness, and when the rain began to fall,
and the waters began to rise, and the people began to flee.
and the people began to be swept aside and their houses were flooded
and their farms were flooded and the high places were flooded
and they tried to flee to the mountains and the waters rose
up to the foot of the mountains and they climbed higher and the
waters rose up higher and they climbed the trees and the waters
covered the trees And he got to the highest heights where
they could climb no more and the waters kept rising and the
rain kept thundering down. And that fool that they derided
was safe in his ark and here they were with the waters rising
and nowhere to escape. And it was too late. The door
of the ark that Noah had built in which he had spoken of deliverance
was shut. And there they were clinging
to the tops of the mountains, clinging to the cliffs, and the
waters rose, and the waters swept them aside. And everyone perished. Everyone, except Noah, and his
wife, and his sons, and their wives, and the animals in the
ark. And God destroyed all mankind
except for his chosen people whom he delivered from the wrath
he sent upon the earth. That really happened. And that man Noah really preached
deliverance. And that people who rejected
really were judged. And God has sent preachers of
righteousness like Noah ever since, to warn the wicked like
you and I, of another day which will come, in which God's wrath
will rain down upon this earth. Not in rain, but in fire. Not as floods, but as the searing
heat of the fires of God's wrath. And that day is coming, as surely
as that day came in Noah's age and generation. It's coming.
It's coming. And there is an ark which is
built, which delivers from that wrath, which you laugh at, and
which you turn from, and which you deride, and which you mock. For to you it is foolishness.
To them that perish the cross is foolishness. But to them that
are saved it is the power of God unto salvation. Noah took
wood and built an ark to the saving of his house. Christ took
wood and was crucified upon it to the saving of his house. There is deliverance from the
wrath of God to come and it is found in an ark called Jesus
Christ. These events are witnessed and
born testimony of throughout the scriptures. Christ himself
spake of Noah when he warned of the day to come when his judgment
would come upon the earth. The apostles spake of Noah in
the epistles. Hebrews 11 verse 7 tells us,
by faith, Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet. Judgment by rain through flooding
that the world had never seen. Being warned of God of things
not seen as yet, by faith, moved with fear, he prepared an ark
to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world
and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Because the
world rejected and the world laughed, yet Noah, by faith,
was saved. Peter says in his first epistle,
chapter three and verse 20, when he's speaking of those spirits
in prison which sometime were disobedient when once the long-suffering
of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a-preparing,
wherein few that his eight souls were saved by water. Picks up the theme again in his
second epistle. God spared not the angels that
sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into
chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not
the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher
of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the
ungodly. And Christ himself, in Matthew's
gospel, In chapter 24, when he speaks of the coming again of
the Son of Man in judgment on the last day, he says in verse
36, But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels
of heaven, but my Father only. For as the days of Noah were,
so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the
days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them
all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Then shall
two be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other
left. Two men shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be
taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for ye know
not what hour your Lord doth come. Christ says in Luke's Gospel
also, in Luke chapter 17 of his coming, First he must suffer
many things and be rejected of this generation. And as it was
in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the
Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they
married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that
Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed
them all. Destroyed them all. Oh, what
a destruction! And what a reminder, what a picture
of the destruction that will come upon the wicked. When God
brings this world to a conclusion, that wrath to come, which will
take the wicked and cast them into hell. How often Christ spoke
of hell and of hellfire. And what we read of hell in the
book of Revelation, When Christ says in chapter 118 I am he that
liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore amen. I've come, I've died, I've risen
again, I've saved my people, I'm alive forevermore and have
the keys of hell and of death. Today, the risen Saviour, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, stands on high, having risen from the
dead. And He stands awaiting that day
when He shall return in power and separate the sheep from the
goats, the righteous from the wicked, those for whom He died,
from those who despise and reject him, and he holds the keys of
hell and of death. Revelation 6, 8, And I looked,
and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was
Death, and hell followed with him. And power was given unto
them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword,
and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
In the latter chapters of Revelation, chapter 20, in the conclusion
of all things, we read that the sea gave up the dead which were
in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them,
and they were judged every man according to their works. And
verse 14, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. You may die once and stand before
Almighty God, but if he finds you unrighteous, without an answer
for your iniquity, with no answer for your rebellion and sin, then
you along with death and hell will be cast into a lake of fire
from whence there is no escape. This is the second death. This is what God was warning
us about through Noah and the judgment he sent upon the old
world. That account is not some children's
tale. some myth to amuse our children
about the animals it's a real event and a real warning about
the wrath to come and you ignore it at your peril Christ himself
said of hell chapter 5 29 it's profitable for thee that one
of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should
be cast into hell the wrath to come. But Christ came, Jesus came,
as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, to deliver His people from the
wrath to come. We wait for His Son from heaven,
whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come. Oh what a deliverance, what a
thing to be saved from. What a dreadful consequence to
come upon the heads of the wicked. If it doesn't fill you with fear
to contemplate that your sin and your state by nature could
plunge you into that judgment and that wrath, then you're a
fool. But if God sounds forth the alarm
in your heart, if God by His mighty Spirit takes you and shakes
you and makes you realise how dreadful your state is, how solemn
your state is, how awful the consequences of sin are, then
you leap for joy if you come to know a Saviour who delivers
you from it. You'll shout, you'll praise,
you'll bow down and worship. And that's what Christ did. That's the message of his gospel. He came to take away his people's
sin. He came to wash away their sins
by his blood. And he came as a consequence
to deliver them from the wrath to come. Not one judgment, not
one drop of God's wrath will touch them. If you're in Christ,
if his blood was shed for you, if he died on that cross and
suffered for you, then not one drop of God's wrath will touch
you, not one touch of the flames of that wrath will burn you.
You've been delivered, you've been saved to the uttermost and
you've been saved because Christ himself Like Noah, like the ark
in which Noah was delivered, Christ himself felt the wrath
burn against him. Oh what Christ suffered to deliver
his people from wrath. Like that box, that great box
called the ark, that hulk of wood in which Noah and his family
and the animals were spared. Christ had the thunderous outpourings
of God's wrath, the thunderous rains, the storms poured down
on him. He felt it all. He was rocked
about in the oceans, he was tumbled about. All the lashings of God's
reins of wrath poured upon his head. He felt the rod of God
against his back. He felt the fires of God burning
up himself. He felt the pain, he felt the
anguish, he felt the loneliness. He felt the shame and the guilt
and the fury and the anger that his people sheltering in
him should be spared, should be delivered, should be saved. Oh the hell he passed through. Oh the torment and the wrath
he passed through. Oh the fires he felt, like those three men in Babylon
that the king threw into the fiery furnace. And the king looked
and there was one who walked amongst them whose appearance
was like unto the Son of God. There was Christ in the furnace,
delivering his people. And they were alive because he
was around them, delivering them. Oh, the furnace he felt. The
judgment he felt. He went through hell as it were
for them. But in the end, he cried out,
it is finished. And in the end he rose from the
grave. God didn't leave him there. God
didn't leave him in death. God didn't leave him in the grave.
God didn't leave him in hell. He rose victorious. because he
saved his people with a mighty salvation. He did it all, he
finished the work, he accomplished it, he did it all. He's saved,
he's saved by grace, he's saved by his mighty power. He did everything
necessary to deliver them and they felt not one drop of that
wrath that he suffered for them. As the apostles cried out in
Acts, in Acts 2 and verse 22, they cried out, Ye men of Israel,
hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
to God among you. by miracles and wonders and signs
which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also
know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain. Ye have taken and by wicked hands
you have crucified and slain. You have, this Jesus, whom God
hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it
was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh
concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for
he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore
did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad, moreover also my flesh
shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou
hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full
of joy with thy countenance. Men and Brethren, Let me freely
speak unto you of the Patriarch David, that he is both dead and
buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore,
being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath
to him that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh,
he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, he seeing this,
before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was
not left in hell. neither his flesh did see corruption,
this Jesus have God raised up, wherefore we all are witnesses. Oh what a salvation, what a saviour
to suffer that and to rise from the dead. But he is risen, he
is risen, he suffered He suffered the wrath of God and he delivered
his people. And he delivered his people because
his blood was shed for them. He has covered them with righteousness. And that righteousness keeps
the wrath and the judgment of God outside. It cannot touch
them because they're covered. Like that ark of old, it was
covered with pitch that the rain could not penetrate. no one was
told to cover it with cover inside and out with pitch inside and
out cover inside and out that cover that kaffir speaking of
the blood of christ the blood must be on the outside and the
inside Well it's on the outside to cover you from sins but has
God taken that blood of Christ and sprinkled it on your inside
too? Has the Holy Spirit come unto
you by His gospel in power and set Christ the Saviour unto your
gaze and taken of His blood and sprinkled it upon your soul to
declare His peace? and his salvation. For as with
Noah of old, when God comes in his gospel and says unto you,
I have delivered you from the wrath to come. I have delivered
you from the wrath to come. He makes you a promise. He makes
you a promise. He made a promise to Noah. He
set a bow in the sky. And he said, as long as that
bow is there, I'm not going to send judgment again. I've delivered
you. I've paid the price. Judgment
has been wrought. There is no more judgment. And
when God in His Gospel comes to you by the Spirit and takes
Christ's blood and sprinkles it within, He makes a promise
to you as it were of a rainbow, a sign, a seal of His promise
and says unto you, there's no more judgment, no more wrath,
I will never judge your sins again. I have judged them in
entirety in my Son. Oh yes, there's wrath to come
for others. Oh yes, there's judgment for
those outside the ark. But if you're in the ark, if
you're in Christ, if you're in Him entirely, if He's shut you
in by His grace, then there's a rainbow that shines above that
says, I will never, ever judge your sins again. And when you
see Christ, when you pass from this world into eternity, you
will see that sight that John saw. in the new heavens and the
new earth you will look and you will see one sat who was to look
upon like a jasper and sardine stone and there was a rainbow
round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald a rainbow
and the one sat on that throne is Christ your Saviour Jesus
who delivered you if you're his from the wrath to come Has he? Are you looking for him? Are
you looking for the day of his coming? Are you looking for that
day which will come, the day of God, wherein the heavens being
on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat? And yet, you, we, according to
his promise, shall be spared. For we look for a new heavens
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Are you looking? John looked and he saw, I saw
a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. And
he looked in that new heaven and new earth and saw the sun,
the lamb upon the throne and knew he was his. And knew he
was saved. And knew all was well. For he
saw Jesus. Jesus, which delivered us. from the wrath to come. Amen.