Sermon Central
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God's Wrath
Contributed by Ed Pruitt on Jun 16, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: God will only put up with so much for so long
GOD’S WRATH
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 24, 2000
1 A psalm of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush of the tribe of Benjamin.
I come to you for protection, O LORD my God.
Save me from my persecutors—rescue me!
2 If you don’t, they will maul me like a lion,
tearing me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
What you find David saying here is,
“Jehovah, my God, in thee I seek shelter.
Save me from my pursuers, and rescue me, lest like a lion he tear my soul rending in pieces, and no one to deliver”
Who is that lion?
That is Satan, whom Peter says is on the prowl.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”
Then he speaks of unjust persecution:
3 O LORD my God, if I have done wrong
or am guilty of injustice,
4 if I have betrayed a friend
or plundered my enemy without cause,
Unjust and innocent suffering in this world is something I don’t understand. I don’t propose to understand it, but I want to say this to you:
I know Somebody who does understand it, and He is going to explain it to us one day.
There are things in my life and things in your life that we don’t understand.
I can’t explain your trouble, because I don’t even know why I have had to go through certain things; but He is going to explain it someday.
Now we come to the wonderful part. This is not the darkness of night as we saw in Psalm 6, but this is morning light.
5 then let my enemies capture me.
Let them trample me into the ground.
Let my honor be left in the dust.
Interlude
6 Arise, O LORD, in anger!
Stand up against the fury of my enemies!
Wake up, my God, and bring justice!
Here David cries for God to avenge and vindicate him.
7 Gather the nations before you.
Sit on your throne high above them.
8 The LORD passes judgment on the nations.
Declare me righteous, O LORD,
for I am innocent, O Most High!
9 End the wickedness of the ungodly,
but help all those who obey you.
For you look deep within the mind and heart,
O righteous God.
10 God is my shield,
saving those whose hearts are true and right.
11 God is a judge who is perfectly fair.
He is angry with the wicked every day.
We are in a time of the “new morality,” which is really just old immorality.
God doesn’t go along with it; He is not changing His standards to conform to modern thought.
Because of this, we can sing with David:
12 If a person does not repent,
God will sharpen his sword;
he will bend and string his bow.
13 He will prepare his deadly weapons
and ignite his flaming arrows.
14 The wicked conceive evil;
they are pregnant with trouble
and give birth to lies.
15 They dig a pit to trap others
and then fall into it themselves.
16 They make trouble,
but it backfires on them.
They plan violence for others,
but it falls on their own heads.
17 I will thank the LORD because he is just;
I will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.
My friend, God will deal with sin and wickedness, and He will finally eradicate it from His universe.
Praise the Lord!
And let’s read in,
19 So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and loaded the grapes into the great winepress of God’s wrath.
Let me make it clear that I make no apology for these scenes of judgment.
God has not asked me to apologize for His Word.
He has told me to give it out.
We need to face up to the facts:
1. Sin is an awful thing.
2. Sin is in the world.
3. You and I are sinners.
The only remedy for sin is the redemption Christ offered when He shed His blood on the cross and paid the penalty for our sins.
You and I merit the judgment of God.
Our only escape is to accept the work of Christ for us on Calvary’s cross.
The Bible asks a question that even God cannot answer: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? …” (Heb. 2:3).
Escape what?
Escape judgment—the Tribulation is judgment.
The way out is to accept Christ.
Call it an escape mechanism if you want to; but, my friend, when the house is on fire, I’ll go out a window or any other way that is an escape.
This judgment must inevitably come on Christ-rejectors.
Mankind has rejected Him, trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing.
