Turning Back the Wrath of God

most religionists go through
life, as Paul said, ever learning and
never, never really coming to a knowledge of the truth. It may surprise us to find out
how little, how really little, we know about the living I'm convinced that most of our
religion, most of our what we call knowledge of God, is born
out of our own ignorance, born out of our own flesh, and begotten
by religious tradition. It's amazing to me that men who
practice medicine go to school for years and years and years.
And then they're always having to study. They're always having
to improve their methods. They're always having to study
and do research work. But such an infinite knowledge such as knowing the
living God, folks become authority on him in two weeks. The Bible is mastered in a few
days, and all about God is discovered in a few months. That's fantastic. And what I believe is this. I
believe, as the psalmist said, we have made us a God like ourselves. It may amaze you this morning
to discover how much your God is like you. Not you are like
your God, but how much your God is like you. Turn to Psalm 50. Let me show you something. Psalm
50. And our Lord tells us this. He warns us of this error. Psalm
50, 21, These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. You've
done this, and I've kept silence. You thought that I was altogether
such a one as thyself. Now the great Apostle Paul said,
Oh, after years, the Apostle Paul whom God met, who saw the
That's right. He had, as one of an abortive
birth, born out of due time, he saw the Lord. God Almighty,
in the person of his son, appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus,
spoke to him, and then took him into Arabia for three and a half
years, and there he learned the gospel, not from Peter, James,
and John, but from God himself, from the Lord himself. and wrote
13 of the New Testament epistles, and founded churches, and traveled
the world over, and preached the gospel, and suffered as no
man other than Christ. And yet here we hear him crying
to the Philippian church, I have not arrived, I have not arrived,
I count not myself to have apprehended. Oh, that I may know him, that
I may know him. Paul's search to know the Lord
only ended when he stood before him after he died. All through
his life, he said, I forget those things which are behind. I press
forward towards the mark of the prize of the high calling of
Christ my Lord. I haven't arrived. We have. That bothers me. This religious
world, these professional preachers and their professional members,
We've got it all fixed up. We've got our theology on everything
all fixed up. But here's what I notice. This
is what I observe. That as I listen to these gods
preached and these gods presented, these gods are just like the
people presenting them. Instead of seeking to know the
living God, instead of panting, as David said, I panteth as the
heart after the water broke, I panteth for thee the living
God. Instead of seeking Him, the living
God, to know Him, which is a lifetime, instead of seeking the Lord,
a pursuit of God, they've made them a God like themselves. Let me show you that. The militant
professor, the militant so-called believer, he sees God only as
the ruler of nations. He sees God as the sovereign.
He sees God as the owner of all things. He sees God putting his
stamp of ownership on all things, on the buildings, on the government,
on the nations. He urges his people to assume
that sovereignty, go forth in the name of the Lord and conquer.
That's his God. But God is triumphant. God is
sovereign. But if God were all sovereignty
and all conquering power and all might, where would be God's
love? Where would be God's mercy? Where
would be God's long-suffering? But he's got that God. That's
a one-sided God. That's a warped God. That's his God. And he's made
his God like himself. That's why he said, you thought
I was altogether such you wanted yourself. He can't conceive of
any other attribute of God but that one. The Almighty, the Most
High, the Powerful, the Ruler of all nations. He sees a throne,
he sees a king, he sees a crown, he sees a scepter. And then the
moralist, he sees God only as a lawgiver. God's no bigger than
his law. God's given a standard of holiness,
God's given an unbending standard of behavior by which all men
are to walk, and this man goes forth to demand and require that
the whole world walk by that standard. Too often that standard
is according to his way of thinking, and his way of seeing things,
and his understanding of sin. But that's his God. His God is
a moralist. That's what he is. He's a reformer. He's a moralist. He's a promoter
of holiness, and that's all his God is. If God were just all
lawgiver, where would be God's reigning power? Where would be
God's grace? Where would be God's mercy? Where
would be God's tenderness? Where would be God's forgiving
spirit? But that's his God. His goal is to close all the
picture shows and shut down all the dance halls and close all
the honky-tonk and shut everything down on Sunday. And this is his
goal, you see. That's his God. His God is the
moralist. His God is the holiest. When
he gets that done, he won the victory. We got heaven on earth.
We've legislated morality. Would God we had heaven on earth. But this was the Pharisees. They
cleansed the outside of the cup and they forgot the inside. And then I see the meek professor. He's sweet. He is so sweet. He sees God only. This is his
God. He's God like himself. God says, you thought I was all
together with such a one as yourself. It's amazing. That's the reason
we come to such a quick knowledge of God, is because we fit God
into this human mold. We bring God into these minds
of ours. Our minds are formed in this
way. This is our character, this is
our personality, and our God's just like us. The meek professor. God is a
kind and tender and loving old gentleman who loves everybody,
who is grateful for any effort put forth on his behalf. You
know, it's sort of like God and mother are the same. I wrote
about church down here in Ashton one time, and this is what was
on the bulletin board. The exact words quoted exactly
as they were on the bulletin board of the church. God could
not be everywhere, so he made mother. If that doesn't offend you, you
got the wrong God. If that doesn't offend you, you
don't know the God of the Bible. Your God is mother too. If God were all love, where would
be his justice? If God were all love, where would
be his righteousness? If God were all love and tenderness,
where would be his truth? Where would be his sovereign
power, huh? But our God's like ourselves. The man who preaches
that type of God, that's the type person he is and personality
is, he'd make God like himself. Let's question ourselves. Is
our God like unto us? Is this why we have suddenly,
is this why we have so quickly come to a knowledge of all things
about the Bible and God? Because we have made God like
unto ourselves, and therefore it was easy to understand God,
the theologian. The theologian sees God as an
intellectual. He sees God as an intellectual. He studies the mind of God. He
studies the attributes of God. He likes to read all about the
doctrines of God. Like the lawyer, he goes to the
previous cases to determine how the judge will rule. This is
what a lawyer does, when he gets a case, he'll go back to a case,
a similar case, and he'll read the similar case, and then he'll
know how the judge will rule, how the judge will act. And this
is the way the theologian does. His mechanical mind has produced
for him a mechanical, intellectual God, cold, logical, and predictable. He preaches, he talks to people,
he says, this is the way it is. This is the way it is. This is
what the Bible says. This is what God will do. This is the way God will act.
This is the way God will speak. It's all cut and dry. We can
even put God on charts. You draw a chart up here, and
you've got God predicted, John. This is what he's going to do
right here. No doubt about it. That's what it says, you see.
I've read it in the book. And then the emotionless. He
views God like himself. He's made a God like unto himself.
I heard a preacher say it this morning on the television. I
was listening to him while I was eating my breakfast, and he said,
you do good and God will reward you. You sin, God will whip you. That's the way some men think. God runs to our sides when we
weep, and the more we weep, the faster he runs, and God whips
us when we sin. And God blesses us when we do
good, and God departs from us when we stray. God waits in the
wings over here for our summons from the creature. That's where
your children, you reward them when they do good, and you whip
them when they do bad, and that's your God. He's just like you.
Just exactly. Do good and God will bless you
real good. If you don't do good, God will
leave you. God will depart from you. That's
the reason we have all the whoopee services, you know. And the emotionless
gets all stirred up. And God was with us. We had a
good time. Everybody felt good. Everybody was emotional. God
was there. God was there. We stirred it
up with music, you know, and emotion. You get out in the cold,
gray dawn of a cold December morning, and nobody around but
you, and God's not there. Didn't have nobody there to play
the guitar. I'm not making fun, I'm just
stating things as they are. I see it. I see it. I see that
the reason we have come to such a quick, instant knowledge of
who God is and what God does and the way God acts is because
we've made a God-like unto ourselves. We're not...turn to Psalm 42. Is this what we're doing here,
what David said in Psalm 42? Listen to it. Oh, as the heart,
this heart, H-A-R-T, is a deer, as the deer panting after the water brooks, thirsty. Can you see that deer out in
the, out yonder on the desert, dry, parched, thirsty, hungry,
weary? He's panting, panting for that
cool, refreshing water, that water that'll satisfy his thirst. David says, so hath my soul in
a dry and thirsty land, my soul after thee, O God, my soul thirsteth
for God, for the living God, for the living God. Christians of 1978 don't talk
that way. because they already know God.
This is David, this is just the fellow you know that authored
the Psalms and man after God's own heart, number one king of
Israel, prophet of God, the man upon whose head the hand of God
rested, who chose out David for himself, who has a throne in
glory. The intention of that fellow
you know. In our text, Psalm 106, David knew the living God. And
I want you to look at the way David, who knew the living God,
talked. I'm just going to pick a psalm
out here now that he wrote. Some say Moses wrote it. Maybe
he did. But I believe David wrote it.
And he starts this, he starts out in this Psalm 106 with praise
the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. And you look
at him, he winds it up with the same words. Verse 48, the last
verse in this psalm. Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye
the Lord. Whatever he does, praise the
Lord. Whatever he wills, praise the
Lord. Whatever his attributes, praise
the Lord. That's what David said. Praise
the Lord. Whatever he does, whatever he
wills, whatever his attributes, in verse 2 he says, Who can utter
the mighty acts of the Lord? Who among you knows the mighty
acts of God? Who among you can stand and talk
of the mighty acts of God? Who would designate himself as
the person to stand and declare the mighty acts of God? Who is
he? Who can do it? Who among you can show forth
his praise? Who can stand before the congregation
of the righteous and the world of unbelievers, and who has the
words to express the works and the praises of
our Almighty God? Huh? We do. Praise the Lord. You want some
insight into the judgment of God on this man he saw you know
we read that mechanically we read over here when God came
to Rebecca and he said you'll have you'll have two sons there are two nations in your
womb the twin one will be born first there's always one born
first and and the one that's born first the firstborn He's
going to serve the younger. That's reversing what God said.
I love Jacob. I hate Esau. Do you want some
insight into God's wrath upon Esau? Do you want some understanding
of God's wrath upon Esau? Do you want to have some insight
into why God despised Esau and loved Jacob? Now you read the
lives of those two boys. Esau's life, see, so was more
commendable than Jacob's. Now, it certainly was, according
to the Bible. Yes, sir, Esau stayed home, Esau
was a hunter, Esau was a man's man, Esau was a truthful man,
according to the Word of God, according to the judgments of
this world. lied to his father, he lied to
his brother, he lied to his uncle, he deceived his brother, he deceived
his father, he deceived his uncle, he deceived everybody that had
anything to do with it. He was a supplanter. He swindled
his uncle out of his speckled cattle, he swindled his brother
out of his birthright, and he swindled his father. Yet God
said, I love him. If you bring your God down to
the emotionless, you do good and God will bless you, and you
do bad and God will leave you, then that's not the God of Jacob. If you bring God down to the
militant, or God down to the emotionless, and God down to
the feeling, and God down to the lawgiver and the moralist,
this story won't do you any good. You know why God's wrath was
upon Esau? You think about it. Scripture says Esau despised
his birthright. He sold his birthright. You know
what the average person thinks? All that birthright consisted
of was he got the most in the wheel. That's about all they
think. But that's not it. That's not it. That birthright
was this. Listen to me. The firstborn was
sanctified to the Lord. He that openeth the womb, the
firstborn, belonged to God. The firstborn was a priest of
the family. The firstborn was a spiritual
leader of the family. The firstborn, God dealt with
the family through the firstborn. The firstborn took the Father's
place before God. And Esau said, that ain't worth
a plug nickel. That's not worth a bowl of beans.
I don't care about that sanctification of God. I don't care about that.
Oh, he was a moral man, and an honest man, and a man who took
care of his parents, and all that. But he had no thought for
God. That's what it is. And this is the religion of today,
though. This is the thought of today.
There's no need to recognize God's day, no need to recognize
God's word, no need to recognize God's church, no need to recognize
God's people, no need to recognize God's Son, no need to give myself
in identification with the living God. Yes, I treat my neighbor
right. But Jacob didn't treat his neighbor
right. But he knew God. He wanted that birthright. It
meant something to him. God meant something to Jacob.
It wasn't the inheritance. Jacob left home without the inheritance. He left. It wasn't being in the
will. He left. It wasn't owning the
family farm. He left the farm. He went down into another land
and married and lived with his uncle. But he had the birthright. He had God. He had God. He had a fellowship
with God. He had put upon him by the hand
of his daddy. That's what he wanted. That's
what he cheated to get. That's what he swindled to get.
That's what he wanted more than anything. He wanted that birthright. He wanted the hand of God on
him. He'd go to any length to get
it. And his mama wanted the hand of God on that boy. The other
boy, if he had it, he had it. If he didn't, he didn't. What
did he care? It wasn't important to him. What was important to
him was shooting his deer. What was important to him was
building his farm, taking care of his family. These things.
He's a good man, a moral man. You want to go to heaven when
he died, you know it, all that, you know, but he didn't care
about God. Jacob wanted God. Eli turned to 1 Samuel 3. I wish
we could see this. 1 Samuel 3, and I may be an odd
number in my day, I don't know. But I do know what I'm seeing
and what they're calling religion today and what they're calling
God today doesn't fit in with this book here. 1 Samuel 3, God said, verse 12,
I will perform against Eli. 1 Samuel 3, 12, all things which
I've spoken concerning his house, when I begin, I'll make an end,
also make an end. Told him I'll judge his house
forever for the iniquity which he knoweth His sons made themselves
vile Accursed and he didn't restrain him. He didn't he didn't do anything
about it Well Samuel came to Eli and told him what God had
said. I want you to watch his reaction. I want you to listen
This man knew God verse 18, and Samuel told him, Eli, every whit,
and he had nothing from him, and he said, Eli said, it is
the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. That man knew God. That man knew God. All right. It's the Lord. I heard about an old preacher.
Brother Mews used to preach for him. He's been dead a long time.
His name was Josh Gravitt. He lived out there in North Dakota
somewhere. He had a saying that he used
all the time. One time he had a wreck in an
old Ford automobile. thing turned over and threw him
out and one of his ribs punctured his lung and they found that
later and he was lying there in bad shape and they put his
head on a car seat and looked at that old white haired man
and Archie Mews said, Josh are you alright? and he lying there suffering
in pain and not knowing whether he was going to live or die He
gave his last motto, he said, Archie, God is sovereign and
will be thankful. And that's it. God is sovereign
and will be thankful. Look here at Psalm 106 again,
David starts out and says, praise the Lord, and then verse 6 he
says, we have sinned. We have sinned. These are the hardest words that
a mortal man or a mortal woman ever had to utter from the heart
or the mouth. We're always ready to say we
have sinned with our mouths, but these are the hardest three
words that you'll ever utter from your heart. We have sinned. We have sinned. There are three
different doctrines taught here in this verse. We have sinned.
with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We
have done wickedly. You know what those three things
are? Listen to them. First of all, personal guilt. We have sinned. This is what
Paul cried. This is what David saw. Against
thee and thee only have I sinned. This is what Paul cried. In my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. wretched man that I am. I've
sinned! I've sinned in mind, I've sinned
in thought, I've sinned in imagination. Anything that's not perfect is
sin. And then imputed guilt. We have sinned with our fathers.
In Adam we died. We sin with our fathers. The
rebellion of Adam is mine. The nature of sin is mine. The guilt of sin is mine. In
sin, my mother conceived me. The wicked are strained from
the womb. They're brought forth as soon
as they're born, speaking lies, imputed guilt. We are under a
threefold condemnation. We have personally sinned. We
have imputed guilt. And then look at the third thing.
We sin like our fathers. And then he begins to name their
sins. Verse 7, they remembered not your mercies. You know God's mercies are soon
forgotten, God's judgments are always remembered. Somebody says
we write God's mercies on the sand, we write our trials on
marble, we don't ever forget them. Verse 13 says they were
impulsive, they didn't wait upon the Lord. They didn't wait on
his counsel. Verse 14 says they lusted. They
tempted, tested God. Verse 15 says they envied. Verse 16 says they envied Moses. Verse 19 says they committed
idolatry. Covetousness is idolatry. Verse
21 says they forgot the Savior. These are our sins. These are
our sins. These are the things that we
have done. We have, we've sinned. We've sinned. We've sinned with
our fathers. We've sinned like our fathers.
We've sinned. The reason men do not know God,
one reason, they do not know themselves. If we knew God, we'd know ourselves.
If we knew ourselves, we'd seek God. And then verse 8, look at
verse 8 now, nevertheless he saved them. In spite of their
guilt and their shame and their sin, he saved them. But now here's
the key to this verse, he saved them for his namesake. You ask, listen to me. You ask
the average person why God saved sinners. Why does God save sinners? Why did God send his son into
the world? Why did Christ die on the cross? Why did he suffer?
Why does he intercede? Why does God save sinners? Why
does God forgive sin? Can you tell me why? Why are
men saved? Well, here are some of the answers
I get. The Southern Baptist several years ago came up with this little
slogan. We're saved to serve. Isn't that pretty? We're saved
to serve. Isn't that why God saved you?
God needed you. God needed you as a servant.
God needed you as a messenger. You're saved to serve. Isn't
that why God saved you? There's a little song we used
to sing. Don't know whether you remember. Remember when we used
to be kids, we'd say, save, save to tell others. of the Christ
of Calvary, huh? Is that why God saved you? He
saved you to tell others. He saved you to make you an ambassador. Is that why God saved you? Another song we used to sing,
save to go to heaven. Save to meet the Lord. Is that why God saved you? It
says here, in this book, it says he saved them, and he did it
for his namesake. He did it that he might make
his mighty power to be known. You know why God saved men? He
saves men for His name's sake. He saves men to make known His
name. His name is merciful. His name
is goodness. His name is grace. He saves men
to make known His nature. His nature is love. He saves
men to vindicate His name. I want you to listen carefully
to me, real carefully right here. I'm still studying, still trying
to know the Lord. I don't want a religion that
brings me to graduate when I'm 24 years old. I want to graduate
when God calls me home. My coronation day will be the
day that I leave here. There's something wrong with
that fleshly religion that makes me an authority. You know, I
get to think about these theological degrees, Bruce. Master of theology. Now, I want you to think about
that a minute. A T.H.M.O. You're saying that this man,
29 years old, is graduating from the seminary, is a master of
theology. He's mastered God. Theology is
the study of God. He's mastered the study of God.
We call our preachers doctors. What is a doctor? A deity, a
doctor of divinity. This man is a doctor of divinity. He's not but 27, but he's a doctor
of divinity. I want you to listen to this. Somebody said one time, could
either save everybody or damn everybody. That's not so. That is not so. God can do neither. If God damns
everybody, where is his mercy? If God saves everybody, where
is his wrath? You see, the God of glory, we
masters of theology, we've mastered one thing, and that's the God
we've made like ourselves. That's what we're master of.
We know all about him because he's just like us. We're doctors
of a human divinity. But the God of glory He is a
God of attributes and character. He is righteous. He will do that
which is right. He is merciful. He will show
mercy. He delights to show mercy. He
said over there in our Sunday school lesson this morning in
the book of Hebrews, some must enter into the kingdom. They
must! Those to whom it was preached first didn't enter in, but somebody
got to! Because God will be merciful. Thank God for that. God will
be gracious. He said, I will be merciful,
I will be gracious, I'll be merciful to whom I will, I'll be gracious
to whom I will, but I must be merciful. He saves them to vindicate his
name. He saves them to make known His
name. His name is righteous. His name
is mercy. His name is wonderful. His name
is counselor. His name is the mighty God. His
name is the Prince of Peace. His name is the Everlasting Father. And in redeeming sinners, He
makes known all those names. He vindicates that name. He honors
that name. He reveals that name. We can't get beyond our own personal,
our own personal object of someday having a mansion in the sky.
That's about how far we can get in our religion. And that's the
sum and substance of it. And if we could just get that
all figured out and bought and paid for and secure, then we'd
be happy, you know, no matter whether we know God or not. And here's the top stone, look
at verse 23. Now he said, he said, we've sinned. We've sinned with our fathers,
we've sinned like our fathers, and we are responsible ourselves. And therefore, and then he named
our sins, idolatry, lust, not waiting on God, not honoring
God, forgetting his mercies. Therefore, verse 23, he said
he would destroy. God must punish sin. God will
in no wise clear the guilty. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. He will, he will destroy them. He must destroy them. God's law
must be honored. God's justice and righteousness
must be honored. I like this next line though,
had not Moses Moses is a picture of Christ here. Moses is the
mediator. Moses stood between the people
in that smoking mountain. Moses stood between the people
and the fire serpents and lifted up that brazen serpent.
Moses stood between the people and God when he said, Lord, if
you won't be merciful to thy people, block me out of the book
which I've written. What are you going to tell the
heathen? When they say, you brought those people out of Egypt and
you let them all die in the wilderness and took none in the promised
land, what are you going to tell the heathen? Moses prayed for those people.
Moses suffered for those people. Moses interceded for those people.
Moses represented those people. And Moses was God's chosen. Now
let me tell you something. Like those people we've seen,
With those people we sin. In the same manner in which those
people sin, we sin. God must, just like when he said,
I'll destroy them, and Moses, his chosen, stood between him
and the people, interceded for them. And God passed, God's wrath
passed them by. We have a mediator. There's one
God and one mediator between God and me and sinful me and
the man Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus stands between God's
wrath and the sinner and he takes that wrath takes it in his own
body takes in his own Soul, he made his soul an offering for
sin He took our guilt and our shame and our sin and God the
Father poured out his wrath upon the son and he paid for it And
now he prays for us And he says father except my sacrifice for
them. He's God's chosen. He's the mediator. Now look at the next line. And
that mediator, that one who stood between, God's chosen, he turned
away the wrath of God. He turned away the wrath of God.
Now let me tell you something. There's nothing that you do It
turns away the judgment and wrath of God. It's what Christ did. There's nothing that you are.
There's nothing that you contribute. You've sinned. Your sins have
separated you and your God. The living God is not what you
thought He was, or who you thought He was. He's God. Praise the
Lord, whatever He is, whatever His attributes, whatever His
will. Whatever the manifestation of his name, he's God! I don't
know much about him. But I do know that mediator between
me and God. And you, by searching, turn over
there to the book of Job. The book of Job. Listen to this.
Job chapter 11, verse 7. Can you, by searching, find out
God? What I'm trying to do, you say, what you're trying to do,
Preacher, is tell us we don't know God well? I'm trying to
discourage us from this awful, awful fleshly familiarity with
the living God. It's Christ with whom we have
to do. We better come to know the Savior. Let him deal with
the Father. Let him intercede with the Father.
Let him be the mediator with the Father. Can you, verse 7
of chapter 11 of Job, can you by searching find out God? Can
you find out the Almighty unto perfection? It's high as the
heavens. What can you do? Deeper than
hell. What can you know? The measure
thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. Philip said, Lord, show us the
Father. And Christ said, he that hath
seen me hath seen the Father. He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. That's who we have to do business with, with the
Lord Jesus Christ, with Christ. He would destroy them had not
his chosen turned away his wrath. Our Father, bless this word and
use it for thy glory. Oh, that we might know him and
the power of his resurrection. That we might win Christ and
be found in him. Break us, humble us. Reveal to
us our nothingness and our inability. Get glory to thy name through
the word that has been preached. We ask for Christ's sake, amen.

Turning Back the Wrath of God

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Turning Back the Wrath of God

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