An oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum,
the Elkishite. The Lord is a jealous and avenging
God. The Lord takes vengeance and
is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his
foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. The Lord
is slow to anger and great in power. The Lord will not leave
the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and
the storm, and clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes
the sea and dries it up. He makes all the rivers run dry.
Vation and caramel wither, and the blossoms of Lebanon fade. The mountains quake before him
and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence,
the world and all who live in it. Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like
fire. The rocks are shattered before him. The Lord is good,
a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust
in him. But with an overwhelming flood, he will make an end. He will pursue his foes into
darkness. Now you will notice in our translation
that there in verse 8 it says he will make an end of Nineveh,
and they've got Nineveh with the little brackets around it.
And that indicates that really in the original language it doesn't
have the word there. That's probably exactly what
the prophet meant. But we'll just leave it exactly as the
prophet said it, with an overwhelming flood, he will make an end. Now the Bible teaches us that
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A man has no wisdom at all until
he learns to fear the Lord. And let us not be afraid of that
word fear when it comes to God. Let us never think that the gospel
is given to us in order that we would no longer fear the Lord. Not in the sense that this word
fear is used here. You see, the Lord is such that
He should be feared. And the fear of the Lord should
move us to the wisdom, to this wisdom, that we find a way to
be pleasing in His sight. The gospel does not teach us
that we no longer need to stand in awe and reverence of the God
who made us. Rather, the gospel teaches us
the true fear of the Lord, teaches us to tremble at His Word. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, but that wise fear of the Lord must begin with some
understanding of His nature. There is little fear of the Lord
in the eyes of most people, for there is little understanding
of His ways. When Paul laid out his indictment against man in
the book of Romans, he described how how gross man was, and how
sinful man was, and violent and perverse, he ends all of it with
this, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Do you realize
that all the sin of man, all of his arrogant, presumptuous
rebellion against God is based upon this? He has no fear of
the Lord. And really, he has no fear of
the Lord. There might be several reasons, but one reason that
no fear of the Lord is ever generated with him is very few people are
preaching a God that men need to fear. After all, the God that's
most popularly, most widely preached is doing everything he can to
save every single person in the world. In fact, as some preachers
put it, he's done all he can. And if he has done all he can,
now listen to this and see if it doesn't make sense to you.
If God has done all he can to save everyone in the world, and
yet most of them are lost, what does that say about God's power? It says there isn't much of it.
If God has done all he can to save you and you're still lost,
what does that say about what God can do? It says he can't
do much. Just as that that story, I think
illustrates that so well, the preacher that every year we come
to a particular town and have a series of meetings and every
year there was this fellow that wouldn't come, wouldn't come. And he'd visit him every year
and ask him to come to the preaching services. And he'd warn this
man. And finally, they're both approaching the end of their
lives. And that preacher came to that town for one last annual
series of meetings. And he found that old gentleman
and he said, you know, for these many years now, I've been warning
you, this will be my last time through here. Don't you realize
that if you don't come to the services and believe what I preach
and all this, God's going to send you to hell? The man says,
I don't think so. He says, what do you mean? He says, well, for these many
years, you've been telling me that God has been trying to save
me, but I won't let him. So I figure when he tries to
damn me, I won't let him do that either. Men don't fear God because they've
never been faced with the God whom they must fear. You'll notice
this in the scriptures that any man who ever came face to face
with God was terrified by what he saw. Even the beloved Apostle John,
when he saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, fell at his feet
as a dead man. Whatever you believe about the
Lord Jesus Christ, whatever you may hear me say, Never let it
take away from you that soul-sobering realization that here is a God,
as he's described here, he's a jealous and avenging God. The Lord takes vengeance and
is filled with wrath. Don't think for a minute that
God has ever lightened up on the concept of sin. that he has
ever said, I guess I just won't judge, that he's ever said, OK,
I realize that no matter how much I've tried, you all are
not going to quit sinning, so I guess I'm going to have to
do something different and respond to sin differently. The Lord
God has never changed, not one iota. The same God that cast
Adam and Eve out of the garden, the same God who flooded the
entire world, the same God who rained fire and brimstone on
Sodom, The same God who sent Israel out into captivity and
later utterly destroyed the city of Jerusalem when they rejected
Christ, that same God is seated on the throne in heaven right
now. And He will take vengeance against
all sin. He will. Many live on in unbelief and
rebellion, for they take God's slowness of wrath as an indication
that he is not wrathful. They misread his providence.
And let's be careful here. Don't try to understand God by
providence. That is, don't try to figure
him out by the things that are going on. Understand him through
what he has said. For you see, the things that
you see don't tell the whole story. We get away with sin. We think
we do. I mean, after all, we're still alive. None of us here
are in hell yet. And we think, oh, well, I guess
God never will execute His wrath against sin. Men don't fear the
Lord, and they see that His slowness in the execution of His wrath,
or they fail to see that His slowness in the execution of
His wrath is simply this. so that all his people can first
be gathered to Christ. We read a few minutes ago from
2 Peter 3. In it, Peter reveals what natural
man concludes from God's slowness in executing his wrath. He says
they conclude, well, where is this promise of his coming? He
said he was going to come and destroy the world. Well, we're
still here. Why everything just keeps right
on going, just as it always has. This world just keeps right on
turning. I guess there's nothing to God's promise, and understand
that a promise does not always mean the promise of something
good. He has promised to come and destroy this world, and He
will. And His slowness in doing so is not a delay. He will come
at the appointed time. But He has appointed that time
to be after every one of His sheep have been gathered to Christ. You see, the Lord is patient.
And He endures the rebellion of rebellious men so that not
one of His sheep shall perish. But there will come a time when
the last sheep is called in. And when that happens, God will
wait no more. for the reason for waiting will
be gone. You see, we see time, even thousands
of years go by without ultimate wrath, and it's natural for us
to conclude that wrath will never come. And we fail to note that
what may appear slow to us is quite fast to God, that with
Him a thousand years is like a day. Or would we count the postponement
of man's wrath for one day to be an indication that it'll never
come? I mean, if a person says, I'm going to get you, if they're obviously filled with
rage, and if only one day goes by without
them expressing that rage against you, would you then say, oh,
I guess they're never going to come? Well, in the same manner, a thousand,
two thousand, ten thousand years can go by with God not expressing
His wrath. That does not mean it will not
come. For with the Lord, time is an insignificant matter. God is not tardy like men are
when He waits. It's because His appointed time
has not come. You know, Paul said to those
on Mars Hill, he says, God has appointed a day in which He will
judge the earth in righteousness. by Jesus Christ. Our calendars
are pretty well empty from this day forward. We may write down
what we hope will happen, but we're really not sure what's
going to go on. In our experience, today's events and the future
are all unwritten. But God's calendar is full and
it's got a last day on it. And on that day, he's written,
Judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ. And when that
day comes, nothing will delay it. It'll happen. If a man is
scheduled to be executed on such and such a day, does he conclude
that his date with death will not come at all because it did
not come before the appointed time? God has appointed the day. And the fact that his wrath does
not come to that day doesn't mean that it will never come.
Now Nahum wrote to us regarding this aspect of God's nature and
purpose. He says here, and here will be
the pivotal scripture, verse 3, the Lord is slow to anger
and great in power. The Lord will not leave the guilty
unpunished. Now here we see what might look
like a bit of a contradiction. The Lord is slow to anger. He
will not leave the guilty unpunished. But there is a connection between
the two. And that connection is this,
that the Lord is great in power. And we'll see how these things
come together and then find out how we might escape this judgment
of God. Now it says, God is slow to anger.
By anger is meant the display of His anger. When He says He's
slow to anger, that means He's slow to display it. That word
that's translated anger there is actually the word for nose.
You say, how in the world does nose relate to anger? You know,
my dad never raised his voice. I can never remember him raising
his voice for any other reason but to get my attention. And
once he had my attention, he always spoke in even tones. But
I knew when he was angry. Why? You can see it in his nose. The flared nostrils. That's what
it's speaking of here. God is slow to flare his nostrils. That is an unmistakable evidence
of anger. I could always tell. I stepped
across the line. Dad didn't have to say a word.
And God is slow to do this, though. He's slow to anger. And what
a gracious act on his part that he is slow to display this anger
of his. He's slow in his anger, for he never strikes without
first warning. You know, we're quick to wrath.
We're quick to show. There is a word and then a fist,
and sometimes the fist first. Before we ever express our displeasure
in words, we're likely to strike out in one way or another. But
behold God. He looks down from heaven upon
the earth and He sees that man has made his way to be violent
in all cases. It says, violence filled the
earth, and the thoughts of man was upon evil continually. Man had already earned himself
the destruction that God would bring on them, and yet he says,
the end of all flesh comes before me. There's the pronouncement.
But then he goes, yet his days shall be 120 years. Does he mean
by that that the average life span will become 120? No. I'll
wait 120 more years before I bring about the penalty that they already
deserve." Oh, he's slow to display that judgment. God makes the
Israelites wait 400 years in Egypt before they possess the
land of promise, and for what reason? The cup of Canaanite
iniquity was not yet full. And though the Canaanites had
already done sufficient evil, to warrant their everlasting
destruction, yet the Lord says their cup is not full. Now, what
does that tell us about the Lord? We often teach that one sin is
enough to provoke the Lord's wrath, and it is. For one sin,
he cast Adam out of the garden of Eden. And yet we find this,
that God is of great mercy and compassion. He is slow in his
anger. And these Canaanites, which were
perverse in every way, by the way, Sodom and Gomorrah were
Canaanite civilizations. That gives you an idea of what
kind of people they are. And yet he says, the cup is not full
yet. And he waits 400 years before
he exacts his penalty by sending in Israel, the agent of his wrath.
How many prophets did God send to Israel and Judah, waiting
and waiting before he sent the agents of his wrath at that time,
which were the Babylonian and Assyrian armies? And then when Israel once again
perverted her way before the Lord, he sent down his son first. And
before he would visit that city with Jerusalem, With the judgment
that they so richly deserved, He sends His Son to cry out,
Jerusalem, all Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as
a hen doth gather her chicks. He slowed anger. One preacher put it this way,
when a message of God's grace is sent forth, it goes out on
winged steeds if the chariot wheels glowing red. But when he sends forth a message
of destruction and judgment, it goes along slowly as an oxen
pulls its cart. The Lord is slow in the display
of His anger. He won't judge without warning,
and even in this, He is slow to warn. Noah is not sent until
the world is full of violence. Lot remains with Abraham until
Sodom is truly fouled. He waits until Israel is a dry
ground before he sends his son to warn Jerusalem. And God is
slow to carry out his sentence. We don't know what time of day
it was that Adam sinned, but we know when it was that
God came. It wasn't until the evening.
He waits all day long. And even then, we don't find
God running. It says the voice of the Lord
walked in the garden. Now, let's not get ourselves
so tied up in absolute theology that we do not see God as He
reveals Himself. He reveals Himself in very human
terms so that we can identify with it. It's as though God hated
the work that He goes to Eden to do. He goes to Eden in the cool of
the evening to find Adam and cast him out. And he will not
run to his work. He will not hurry. He'll walk. And it's as though by his questioning,
when he says, Adam, where are you? And when he finds him, even
by his question, it's almost as though he's given Adam opportunity
to confess and repent. And Adam will not. And so God, in the slowness of
His wrath, says you must leave. And even as He does, as He tells
them to leave that paradise, He gives them a message of one
who would come and put away the sin that they had created. Slow
to wrath. God says that wrath, that anger,
that judgment is His strange work. Christ said in His day
that His generation, that is the generation of people that
were alive in His day, would not pass away until all God's
judgment against that nation would be fulfilled. And yet,
God waits to the very end of that generation. before he brings
forth the promised wrath. I find that remarkable. They
rejected Christ. They rejected God. With a high
hand, they demonstrated their rebellion against Him. And Christ
says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do. And God waits about 40 years
until there's only a very few left of that generation. And only when he can wait no
longer and yet fulfill the prophecy that that generation would not
pass away until all be fulfilled, only then does God express His
wrath and anger. He's slow to anger. Why is God
slow to this wrath? Why is He slow to show His anger? Why can He wait for this reason? He's great in power. And I see
a couple of things from that. First of all, I see how that
compares with how the weak in this world show their anger.
The weak must lash out right away, for they fear they shall
not be able to carry out their wrath if they delay it. I mean, one of the reasons that
we're quick to swat down those that cross our path is we don't
have the confidence And at any time we want to, we can take
care of the problem. You know, I've often thought
about what would have become of me if I had been sent to Vietnam. I barely missed that. I think
that my birth year was the first year that nobody was drafted
to go there. And believe it or not, they were
still passing out draft cards, and my draft number was one.
So if there had been a draft, I'd have been involved. And I
wonder what would have become of me. And I've come to the conclusion
that one or two things probably would have happened, at least
given what understanding I have. I'd have either been killed or
tried for war crimes. You say, why? Well, my aversion
to killing might have caused me not to shoot when I should
have. So I would have gotten shot. Or, my fear of death would have
caused me to defend myself at the slightest threat and not discriminate, be able
to discriminate between the deadly threat and that which is truly
no threat at all. In other words, out of fear that
I could not take care of myself if the need arose. I would have
been preventive, which might have led me to war crimes. I
don't know. This is just mere speculation, but here's the point
I'm trying to make. Just like I might have not hesitated to
kill out of fear that I would not be able to when the time
arose, God has no such fear. He doesn't have to snap to judgment. He can. at any moment he pleases,
bring anybody or everybody into judgment. And therefore, he can
be slow, he can be deliberate, he can, so to speak, put it off,
because he can handle it any day. Moreover, God has power over
himself. You see, God's anger is wrath. not rage. Men of maturity and decency and
virtue, they're able to control the expression of their anger.
Why is that? Because their anger comes as truly wrath, as a just
and righteous reaction to wrong. It's not simply a rage. A man
flies into a rage, he's not in control of himself anymore. And
we generally lose respect for a person that flies into a rage
because they don't have power over themselves. But God doesn't
fly into a rage. His anger is just and righteous. His anger is deliberate. It's
right. It's a holy anger. And therefore,
He has power over Himself to display that anger when He wants
to. A man may lash out in rage, unconsidered. not thinking about what he's
doing, and afterward regret what he has done, even confessing
that he went beyond what he should have done. That happens plenty
of times. But God's anger is not hot, it's
not impulsive. It is cold justice. And he shall
never regret his actions. When God flooded the whole world,
he did not afterward say, Oh, what have I done? It never crossed
his mind to question what he had done. And when God reduces
this world to a smoldering heap and all its rebellious inhabitants
cry out in the anguish of hell, God shall not stand in doubt
of his actions. He shall not for a moment question
what he has done. Therefore, he can wait. Judgment is certain. God is slow
to anger, but that doesn't mean that his anger never comes. For
he says here, The Lord is slow to anger and great in power.
The Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. Let no man think
himself safe because God has not yet executed his judgment. Just because it hasn't happened
yet doesn't mean it won't happen. That refers to any judgment against
this world as a whole or any judgment against you as an individual. Don't ever get the idea that
because God has not lowered the boom yet, he won't ever. The
wise man always makes arrangements for the things that he knows
will come to pass, which shows just how foolish we are. Because
we spend a lot of our time making arrangements for a future that
we're uncertain of. Our old age. And I'm not saying, you know,
that it's altogether illegitimate to plan for our retirement and
all that kind of stuff. But you know, we sure give a
whole lot of effort to it, don't we? and work hard and try to
put money away so that when the time of our retirement comes,
we'll be secure and be able to eat and all that. We put a lot
of time into that, and yet we may die before we ever reach
retirement. Our old age is not certain unless
we're already there. But here's one thing that's absolutely
certain, and may this sober us this morning. We will stand before
God. It might be today, it might be
tomorrow, or a year from now, or ten or twenty. But while the date is uncertain
to us, the fact is absolutely certain. We will stand before
God, and it is said of Him that He will not let the guilty go
unpunished. Every one of us shall meet God
and receive from Him exactly what is due to us. Every man
shall receive pure justice from God. No one who appears before
God with guilt upon him shall go away unpunished. The gospel
is not a denial of the justice of God. It is not a denial of
the wrath of God. It is not a claim that his wrath
has been put off so long that it will never come. Everybody,
now listen carefully to this, everybody who has ever sinned
shall suffer for his sin. He will not let the guilty go
unpunished. That puts every one of us here
in a serious predicament, for everybody here is guilty of sin.
We may, according to our natural way of thinking, try to say we're
not as guilty as someone else. We might, you know, have this
hierarchy of sins, and while we've done some sins, we've not
done sins like that. Or while we may have done those
sins, we didn't do them as often as this person did, and so we're
better. But the Scriptures don't say that he will by no means
clear the really guilty. He just says guilty. And while he may put off his
wrath, Until on a fixed day, that day will come and everyone
who has ever sinned will suffer for their sin. So how shall I,
who am guilty of committing many sins, appear in the presence
of God without guilt? That's the big question. You
see, often natural religion goes wrong, not as they try to investigate
the answer. They go wrong a long time before
that. They're asking the wrong question. They're asking questions
like, how can I avoid hell? Or how can I go to heaven? That's
not the proper question. There is no avoiding hell with
guilt. There is no obtaining heaven
with guilt. You can't do it. So forget the
question of how I can be guilty and go to heaven. Here's the
question. How can I be not guilty? That's
what I've got to find. How can I be not guilty? Because
he's not going to let the guilty go unpunished. I don't care who
he is. Not me. Not you. Not anybody. For the Lord is a jealous and
avenging God. Whatever else he is, he's that.
And he will avenge every sin. Have you heard that? Did you
hear that? God has made no way. Now listen, just write this down. God has made no way for the guilty
to go unpunished. So that leaves us in pretty bad
shape. Well, that's why I'm not going
to stop there. I got more to say. Thankfully, that's not the
whole story. You see, sometimes God hides
or only hints at the solution to the problem. And this is one
of those cases. Look in verse 6. It's in Nahum,
chapter 1, verse 6. Who can withstand God's indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger?
Now, we might take this as a rhetorical question. A rhetorical question
is something that's expressed as a question, but really it's
a statement. Imagine a couple of bank robbers in the Old West,
and they just robbed a bank and they're running away. And here
comes the sheriff. and the sheriff's posse, and they're chasing them.
And they think they might get away, but as they ride away,
oh, once they come up on the Grand Canyon. And you've got
the Grand Canyon in front and the sheriff behind. And the only
way to safety is across the canyon. And those two guys stand there
and one looks at the other and says, who can jump that? Well, that's not
a question in which it's intended you'd give an answer. That's
a question that's simply stating, we're lost. Nobody can jump that. We are without hope. No one can
jump that. And likewise, when Nahum says,
who can withstand God's indignation? Who can endure his fierce wrath?
That can be taken as this rhetorical question in which Nahum is saying,
for those under God's judgment, for the guilty, there is no hope. Nobody can stand it. Nobody can
survive it. Any hope founded upon God not
executing His wrath, or any hope that anyone has that will be
able to endure it, is a false hope. God's wrath is too fierce. It says at the end of verse 6,
His wrath is poured out like fire. The rocks are shattered
before him, and his wrath is too long. As near as I can tell from what
the scriptures teach, hell is never over. It is as everlasting
as heaven. Those who go there never get
out. Because you see, no amount of
God expending His wrath upon the sinner, upon someone like
us, will ever satisfy Him with regard to that sin. So don't
build any hope on the fact that God won't punish sin. He said,
I won't let the guilty go unpunished. Don't have any hope based on
the fact that you could survive it. Survive his wrath if you
fell under it, because you can't. And don't build any hope upon
the belief that his wrath will ever be over. There are some
who believe there's heaven, hell, and something in between. And
any sins that haven't been properly forgiven by some ecclesiastical
authority, when you die, you go on to this third place. And
there you suffer until all your sins are purged. That's why they
call it purgatory. There ain't no such place. There's
only two destinies in all the Scripture. And they are both
everlasting. And one is infinite blessedness. And the other is infinite misery. And there is a great gulf fixed
between those two places. And there's no way to cross from
one to the other. Judgment is certain. But we could also take Nahum's
question seriously. Who can withstand his indignation?
Who can endure God's fierce anger? And there's an answer to that.
Not only is there someone who can bear God's anger and withstand
the day of his wrath, there's someone who already has. And
in that lies the hope of people like you and me. Oh, how beautiful the Scriptures
are. They lay before us a bleak situation. God says He'll not
let the guilty go unpunished. He challenges us with a question
that robs us of hope. Who can withstand God's indignation? Who can endure His fierce anger? And then it turns us to one who
did face his anger and withstand it, who did endure God's judgment. Look over here in the book of
Lamentations. It's a few books back. It's just after Jeremiah. In verse 12 of Lamentations chapter
1, these words are spoken by the prophet, but they foreshadow
Our Lord Jesus Christ. Lamentations 1.12, Is it nothing
to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering
like my suffering that was inflicted on me that the Lord brought on
me? When? In the day of His fierce
anger. Who can withstand His indignation?
Who can endure His fierce anger? From on high he sent fire, sent
it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and
turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all
the day long. My sins have been bound into
a yoke by his hands and they are woven together. They have
come upon my neck and the Lord has sapped my strength. He has
handed me over to those I could not withstand." That is our Lord
Jesus Christ speaking there. That is him declaring that God's
fierce anger was visited on him, that the day of God's wrath fell
upon him. And here's the glorious news. He survived it. He stood. He endured. And by God's electing grace,
there was a multitude in Christ when that happened. Jesus Christ does not so much
deliver me from wrath as he delivered me through it. Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me. Everybody is going to go through
wrath. Everybody shall receive all the
judgment due for his sin. But by the grace of God, some
of them were in Christ when it happened. God says the end of
all flesh has come before me, and that included Noah's flesh. And on the day God sent the rain,
He sent the rain against Noah as well as he did everybody else.
And when the waters rose, they rose against Noah just like they
did everybody else. And Noah went through the wrath
of God. But he survived it. Why? He was
in the ark. And all those waves that would
have taken away his life, that had his name on them, they hit the ark. And so far
as God's justice and wrath was concerned, when they hit the
ark, they hit Noah. And God was satisfied in His
justice against Noah. Noah was punished for all his
sin. And yet he survived it because
he was in the ark when it happened. You've sinned, haven't you? Well,
here's something for certain then. You will suffer the wrath
of God. The only question is, will you
survive it? If you suffer it in yourself, you ain't got a
chance. It's just impossible. Who can
withstand that? But one did. One endured it. And if you are in Him, then not
only shall you be able to endure the judgment of God, you already
have. That's why it says, there is
therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
There's no condemnation because it's already been passed and
executed against them in Christ Jesus. No hell waits for them
because hell already came and claimed them in Christ. No eternal death waits for them,
because eternal death already came and claimed them. Look what
it says, and we'll wrap it up with this. Verse 7, The Lord
is good a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who
trust in Him. Everyone who trusts in Christ
is in Christ. Everyone who trusts in Christ
was already in Christ by the electing grace of God when Jesus
Christ waded through and endured the judgment of God's wrath,
and they endured it with Him and in Him. He was their refuge. The same God that came out against
them in judgment became their refuge. And He who had judged
them protected them through His judgment. This is a mystery to the world.
It's a mystery to natural understanding. But it's a glorious truth to
everyone who trusts Him. Will I escape punishment? No. But I'll never experience it,
because it's already happened. The Lord has executed His wrath
against me. He saw my guilty soul in Christ,
and He dealt with my guilt there. And Christ survived it. And so
did I. The wrath is coming. Will you
survive? Will you endure? If you're in
Christ, you will, and you have. God give us grace to lay hold
of that. Alright, let's get our bulletins. We'll sing Rock of Ages, it's
on the back of the bulletin. And as we sing this, folks on
the east move over to the west and we'll observe the Lord's
table. Stand together as we sing. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood From
Thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save
from wrath and make me pure. Not the labor of my hands, Can
fulfill Thy law's demands? Could my zeal, no resting know? Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone. Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply
to the cross I cling, Helpless, loathe to Thee for
grace, Foul I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Savior, or I die. While I draw this fleeting breath, I shall close in death when I
soar to worlds unknown. All right, you may be seated
and you'll look at the hymn on the front of your bulletin. We'll
sing that as Nathan and Cody pass out the bread. See the tables spread before
you See the feast of bread, food, and wine These are symbols of
our Savior Tokens of His love divine Bread that's broken is
his body Crushed beneath the wrath of God Wine poured out
is a reminder of our Savior's precious blood. Children of our God, remember
how He bought your soul and mine. In remembrance of our Savior,
eat the bread and drink the wine. Jesus came, the God incarnate,
to fulfill God's holy law. On the cross He made atonement
and retrieved us from the fall. Let us never forget the promise
Jesus made you to come again. Soon He comes, our King, to call
us home to glory. Praise His name! With this hope and expectation,
we rejoice to keep this feast, celebrating our redemption till
we lean on Jesus' breast. If there ever was a testimony,
a visible testimony that God will by no means clear the guilty,
it was when he punished his own son for the guilt that he bore. If there ever would have been
an opportunity for God to reveal that he was going to go easy
on sin, it would have been then. Because after all, that was his
beloved son. But God who said, I'll by no
means leave the guilty unpunished, when he found guilt on his son,
punished his son. And our Lord said, this is my
body which is broken for you, broken because of your sin, broken
because this is the only way that you're going to be able
to endure the judgment of God, which must surely come to pass.
And he broke it and he gave thanks and he said, eat in remembrance
of me. All right, if you would look
on the back of your bulletins once again, we'll sing according
to thy gracious word. according to thy gracious word
in me humility this will I do my dying Lord I will Thy body broken for my sake,
my breath from death shall be. The test of men will come, I
take, And the screamin' Curdieff gets it. And I forget, for there thy conflict Agony Remember thee When to the
cross I turn my eyes And rest on path O Lamb of God, my sacrifice,
I must remember Thee. Remember Thee, and all my things,
and all my love. And when these failing lips grow
dumb, And mind and memory flee, When we observe this table, we
don't reenact the Lord's sacrifice. We remember it, and we show it
forth. And we show it forth for this
reason, to glorify Him, and secondly, to give us comfort. Because the
thing that these elements represent is what teaches us that the Lord,
who will by no means clear the guilty, has devised a way in
which we can survive His judgment. And that is in Christ, who became
guilty in our behalf and suffered that judgment. and hid us within
his bosom when he did. He said, this is the new covenant
in my blood. I've satisfied the old one and thereby ratify the
new. Drink in remembrance of me. Our Father, your wrath is a fearsome thing
to us. It's fearsome because we know your power, know something
of it, and we know that your wrath cannot be withstood by
us. And it's a fearsome thing to
us because we know we well deserve it. And yet, Lord, in Christ we are
not afraid. For our Father, He's come before
you, and He has borne that wrath on our behalf. Oh, Lord Jesus,
blessed be Your name. May it be upon our lips forevermore
to praise you. For you are our rock and we hide in you. As you put Moses in the cleft
of the rock while your glory passed by, so have we been hidden
in you. And God's righteous glory and
wrath has passed by and we have survived. Lord, give everyone
here faith. Give them understanding to know
what we're talking about. And give them faith to lay hold
of it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Alright, in closing, let's
stand together and we'll sing the first and last verse of Amazing
Grace, number 236, if you need the words. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. was blind, but now I see on the
porch, oh, and we've met. And we've met. Look at me and you'll see. Oh, and we've met. you