He's often a loss of self-control, an irrational outburst of seeing red, the consequence of wounded pride, a self-indulgent bad temper. In God however, he is an expression of his fierce anger, drawn out by his offended holiness, always governed by his absolute righteousness.
God's wrath is his holiness stirred into activity by enemies that seek to defy his absolute inviolable sovereignty. It is one of the perfections that define the Godhood of God. And therefore dear friends, the extent to which our vision of God underplays this perfection is the same extent to which our vision of God remains sub-Christian. Something less than faithful to the Scriptures, a composition in fact of our own making. The words of AWP may surprise you. A study of the concordance will reveal that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury and wrath of God than there are to his love and tenderness. According to the Bible, however, holy wrath is not just a perfection of God. It is that first and foremost, the disposition also, likewise, that expresses itself in human beings who possess great love for God, human beings who are jealous for the glory of God. You remember that scene at the foot of Mount Sinai, don't you? After receiving the Ten Commandments, Moses descends the mountain and discovered the people engaged in the most perverse kind of idolatry. How does he respond? The book of Exodus says that the anger of Moses burned, that he lifted the tablets of stone over his head and he threw them to the ground, shattering them into a thousand pieces, that he called to the Levites and said, strap your sword onto your side, walk through the camp, and whoever comes across your path put him to death. Three thousand idolaters were judged that day. Interestingly enough, never once did God chastise Moses for shattering those tablets. He simply provided him with a new set. It was a manifestation of holy wrath. It's the same wrathful adrenaline that courses through the veins of young David when he hears the Philistine giant Goliath taunting the people of God. In what proves to be a kind of backhanded rebuke, David incredulously asks the cowardly soldiers of Israel, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? He then says to King Saul, whose own love for God's honor, lack the passion to arouse holy wrath, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine, your servant will go and fight him. And then when David steps into the valley of Ilah, Goliath begins to curse him by his gods. But David says in response, I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. It is not the wounded pride of a quick tempered young man. It's the heart of a person so passionately devoted to the honor of God, that he takes an offence directed against God and he makes it personal. He assumes the responsibility for writing the offence. It was a manifestation of holy wrath. And of course I could easily go on and on my friends, citing illustrations from both Old Testament and New. People so jealous for the offended glory of God that it incites them to expressions of righteous wrath. But of course the greatest justification for what I'm talking about this morning is seen in the righteous indignation of the ultimate man himself, Jesus Christ. Do you remember his denunciation of the Pharisees, for example? Matthew chapter 23, talk about name calling. Boy I tell you we wouldn't stand for someone speaking like this to us today. Hippocrates, blind guides, white washed tombs, killers of the prophets, snakes, brood of vipers. It's not quite the seeker sensitive model, is it? He was a manifestation of holy wrath. And what about his response to your friends at the tomb of Lazarus? We have misread that thing for years. You recall that scene from John chapter 11, the NIV says that he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. But that is a tremendously misleading translation. It suggests that Jesus was distraught with remorse, with grief, but the idea in the original is he was thrown into an outrage. It was a word used originally to speak of the snorting of horses that by and by came to suggest rage, anger, fury, emotional indignation. Now of course brothers and sisters, we know that Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. But in the emotional complexity of our Lord, in the open presence of onlookers, there were clear and visible manifestations of his righteous anger incited by that devastating consequence of sin that had inflicted itself upon his friend. It was the face of death that aroused Jesus to wrath, holy wrath. And then there was that unforgettable day in Jerusalem. His disciples would never forget it. With fire in his eyes, Jesus screamed in unmistakable anger. Get these out of here. How dare you turn my father's house into a market? And he knocked over the tables and he scattered the coins of the money changers in a thousand directions. He stepped into that scene and within seconds threw it into chaotic turmoil. You can imagine friends, the sudden crescendo of noise, the dust flying everywhere, the out of control movements of people and animals running every which way trying to get out. How powerfully frightening his wrath must have been that day, because the text says that with a whip he had specifically made for that occasion. He single-handedly drove all the text says from the temple area. That was not you can be certain of it. The melee mouthed whinings of a man be pambi wimp that caused the sudden evacuation of that settled place of commerce. It was a terrifying manifestation of holy wrath.
How foreign is this image of God in relationship to the image of God that has been foisted upon us by our culture? The image as it were of the emasculated God, a deity who has been so feminized that most people today cannot conceive of God and anger as anything other than irreconcilable enemies. That God and anger could never coexist, and yet my friends, the most basic reading of the scriptures reveals the very opposite. That not only do God and anger coexist, they cooperate, or to be even more exact, that righteous wrath is an eternal perfection within the very being of God himself. It was displayed in the life of the one who came to reveal God most clearly, the one in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. When God's own son came to us in human flesh, his glory revealed itself in awe, inspiring wrath, so profoundly so that even now when we refer to those historical expressions, we realize we are near to something that we can't control, something that we cannot domesticate, something that is dangerous and violent in holiness. And yet, I now ask you this morning, do you realize that those past expressions of divine wrath are but for shadowings of a yet to come wrath, a future wrath that is infinitely more wrathful? Do you know what an appetizer is? You say, well, of course I know what an appetizer is. That's the snack on which we gorge ourselves before the main course arrives. But that's not the purpose of an appetizer, my gluttonous friends. The purpose of an appetizer is not to satisfy you. The purpose of an appetizer is to stimulate you. It's a small portion of a tasty food or drink served at the beginning of a meal with the intention of stimulating your appetite for more. This is how we're to regard the expressions of divine wrath that have occurred throughout all of human history, most notably those displayed at the first coming of Jesus Christ. They are teasers, judicial appetizers as it were and anticipation of the main course yet to be served, the final and ultimate judgment of God's enemies, which now, for the first time in the revelation, you set before us as Jesus Christ slits the sixth seal on the scroll of destiny. Where are we in the flow of things? Well, as you know, John has already observed the slitting of the first four seals and with it, the releasing of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, God's devastating but restrained judgments on the inhabitants of the earth. But as we discovered last Lord's day, my friends, all of that served to raise a question posed to us in the slitting of the fifth seal. How long then, O Lord, until the final judgment of your enemies, when you execute the fullness of your holy vengeance upon those who have taken delight in bringing to death faithful gospel witnesses? Well, this now, friends, proves to be the purpose, then, of the sixth seal. It carries us beyond this present period of limited judgment to the great and final day when God's wrath and all of its unrestrained fury will be released on all his enemies, a judgment so severe that it will unravel the entire universe at its seams. Now, for the sake of establishing a little outline, you can take note of the fact that this great and terrible day of divine wrath is graphically pictured here by a twofold symbolism. Firstly, the symbolism of a crashing universe versus 12, 13, and 14, and secondly, the symbolism of a terrified human race versus 15, 16, and 17. Let's look, first of all, at the symbolism of this crashing universe. Verse 12, I watched as he opened the sixth seal. I remind you again of what I asked you to take note of last week. The established routine in the opening of the first four seals has now been set aside. There is no mention of one of the great living creatures issuing forth his loud summons. There is no mention of apocalyptic horsemen who immediately respond in obedience The fact of the matter is beloved the entire supporting cast has been ushered off stage. Now only one player remains. One spotlight is it were shining on one single figure, the lamb. Why? To remove any and all doubt that what is about to come is his handiwork. All intermediaries have been dismissed so that the full culpability for what is now forthcoming can be understood as being altogether and in every way his. Notice friends that the crashing of the created order is here articulated in terms comprehensive of the entire universe. That what is in view here is a scope of judgment that is both geologic devastating earthquakes the upheaval of mountains and islands and astronomical sun moon and stars and yet I beg of you at this very point resist the temptation to conjure up the kinds of fantasies that you might come across in a comic book or a science fiction novel. It is just precisely at this point my friends that are thinking needs to be disciplined. You say well what do you mean by this discipline all of the descriptions that we're about to read here have been drawn from the common quarry of apocalyptic material. Those images that were in use at this time that were common building blocks for all apocalyptic messages messages concerned to describe the end of time and final judgment. Now admittedly friends we read this here and this kind of speaking does not affect us the way it affected the original readers the people living at this particular time and the reason of course is because the radical difference of our world views living this side of the enlightenment as we do we've been conditioned to think of this universe and human existence within it in terms that are all together self-sufficient self-contained self-sustaining the people of this era however the people who wrote apocalyptic literature and read it they were radical feasts which means they believe that the well-ordered movements of the heavenly bodies were a token of God's providential control that God himself upheld all things geologic and astronomical by the word of his power consequently to then speak of the breakdown of this order the catastrophic crashing of the cosmos it was a definitive way of announcing that the end of the world was at hand and that God was now inaugurating final judgment that's the mindset you need to bring to this business don't read this wearing the lenses of 20th century science fiction literature we need to take it on its own intended terms now watch there was a great earthquake all by itself the vision of this great earthquake would have been terrifyingly vivid to these asia minor Christians why for two specific reasons firstly only a few decades earlier they had experienced two devastating earthquakes earthquakes of major proportions that had destroyed a couple of the asia minor cities in particular sardis and philadelphia we talked about this when we studied the seven churches but secondly my friends the reason why this profoundly resonated in the minds of these Christians is for the simple reason better than we they understood their old testaments yes they recognized all of these apocalyptic images from writings outside of the bible but especially where they familiar with them because of their repeated use in the old testament go home this afternoon my friends and trace the mention of earthquakes through the previous narratives and imagery of the old testament and what will you find earthquakes associated with the coming of the Lord to establish justice where does it all begin the pattern is set in Exodus chapter 19 the earthquakes violently before the coming of God as divine law giver establishing the terms of his terrifying justice in Joel chapter 2 the earthquakes again before the coming of God this time as the divine warrior leading his armies to battle against his enemies in isa 13 the earthquakes yet again before the coming of God now is the divine judge who will condemn his enemies we see this all through the old testament my friends when the earthquakes God is coming for the purpose of establishing justice these Christians know that imagery and so they know what this means what's more as we will discover in future days from this point through the end of the revelation John repeatedly uses the image of earthquake to signify the coming of God in final judgment never in the revelation is earthquake associated with preliminary judgment only with ultimate and final judgment it is the great eschatological last days earthquake that's what's here then he says the sun turned black like sack cloth made of goat hair what sack cloth it's a rough course cloth made from the hair of a black goat that was worn interestingly enough during times of mourning here the sun is blackened like the color of sack cloth moreover he says the whole moon turned blood red do you realize friends that both of these appear together throughout the old testament once again as events associated with the coming of God historically in judgment Isaiah 13 is eq 32 Joel 2 Amos chapter a John then says and the stars in the sky fell to worth as late figs dropped from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind the imagery that John has in view here is that of green figs that appear in winter before the leaves have blossomed figs then that are easily blown off the tree to the ground by a strong wind here the collapse of the stars are pictured is pictured by the use of this familiar agricultural imagery is falling to the earth like those unripe figs in a winter gale it is a quote directly from Isaiah chapter 34 where once again the prophet uses this very imagery to announce the terrifying coming of God in judgment against those who had persecuted his people
sun moon stars even our young children understand that the world as we know it and its well-being are all together dependent upon the faithfulness with which these luminaries fulfill their roles life can't exist apart from their faithful functioning a faithful functioning contrary to popular belief that is not an accident of the evolutionary process but an expression beloved of the common grace of God to the whole world those luminaries were poised in space by the very finger of God himself what's more the faithfulness of their function is owing solely to his gracious providence and so you see when the sun moon and stars are said to forsake their roles what is the inevitable conclusion that the day of common grace the day of gracious providence to the whole world has come to an end in other words the day of final judgment has arrived and then John writes the sky receded like a scroll rolling up more literally the sky was separated heaven was split open the image to fix in your mind is that of an unrolled papyrus scroll that is being held open at either end God as it were lifts up his hand and thrusts it downward through that papyrus slashing it in half at which point the divided portions instantly curl up and form a role on either side once again it's taken from Isaiah 34 speaking of God coming to judge those who have persecuted his people the old order is being destroyed and finally in the symbolism of this crashing universe John writes every mountain and island was removed from its place now interestingly enough this is an image that has no exact Old Testament precedent there are passages associated with the coming of God in judgment that speak of the hills melting away of earth heaving that maybe the idea that John is building upon here it may be that this is just a further description of the magnitude of the great earthquake mentioned in verse 12 further stressing this idea of wholesale up evil and you must remember friends I don't doubt for a moment that the immediate image that would have jumped into the minds of these original readers was the event from ad 79 in the volcanic eruption of Mount Suvius the Suvius that buried the entire city of Pompeii and its citizen now friends try to visualize what John is seeing here taking the picture as a whole all right heaven itself is ripped into shriveling up on both ends the sun with its light is blotted out so that it resembles the black sack of a morning cloth the full moon is a bloody ball the stars are turned out of their orbits plunging to the earth in great showers earth itself quaking so violent leave it every house crashes to the ground every mountain and every island ripped out from its roots in keeping with the apocalyptic imagery of the Old Testament it was an exceedingly graphic way of saying God is coming in judgment in fact my dear friends when the apostle John writes about final judgment in the revelation as he does on several occasions here is the first but in that final occasion when John writes about final judgment revelation 20 he gets at the same idea only uses much simpler language he says quite simply then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it earth and sky fled from his presence God comes to unleash the unrestrained fury of his judgment and we see the terror of it express symbolically in the crashing of this universe we also see it in the symbolism of a terrified human race and notice now friends as we turn our attention to verse 15 no longer a portion of the rebellious humanity as was the case in the earlier seals but now every enemy of God from every stratum of society verse 15 then the kings of the earth the highest of rulers in this setting even the most powerful of Caesars
the princes the great ones literally high-ranking governmental officials underneath the king the generals it's the word used to speak of a Roman Tribune the idea is high-powered military commanders those at whose word the army's advanced into battle the rich those who controlled commerce the mighty those who exercise influence over significant numbers of people and finally the lower classes every slave and every free man seven categories seven john's favorite number speaking here of the totality of the human race in alienation against God
watch what john says they hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains common hideouts in the ancient Middle East caves and rocky crags and by the way you know it's still the same today you've seen the news it's nearly impossible to find someone hiding in such places but all of this begs the obvious question why are they hiding or better yet from whom are they hiding they called to the mountains and the rocks fall on us and hide us those verbs by the way friends are what we call eras imperatives that is to say in the strongest possible sense they communicate the idea of urgency do it now fall on us now hide us now you say but art don't they know that what they're asking for will kill them of course they do that's the point there is something now my friends that they dread more than death
fall on us and hide us from the face of him the presence of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the land oh beloved this is astounding do you know what this is
we've come full circle we're back in the garden of Eden it's Adam and Eve all over again on the great and final day it will become very clear that the human race for all of the time in which it is existed has not advanced one bit in terms of elevating itself in righteousness how do I know that because right here fallen humanity is doing the only thing it can do when God comes looking for it it's hiding just like Adam and Eve hiding hiding from whom from his presence whose presence notice the presence of the one who sits on the throne God as we would expect but also the presence of the lamb who was here characterized by a holy perfection wrath what a phrase the wrath of the lamb it's the paradox again isn't it the wrath of a lamb what could be gentler than a lamb and yet from chapter five what have we seen this gentle lamb who was slain on the cross has now been given the highest exalted position over the universe this lamb now has horns seven of them no less suggesting fullness of power this lamb is a lion this lamb is ferocious this lamb has wrath the wrath of sacrificial love whose only option after rejection is to punish evil with the utmost of that and in so doing we're very clearly told this lamb is no respecter of persons no enemy will be too exalted to escape judgment no enemy will be too lowly to escape judgment all of his enemies regardless of their socio-economic or political status all of those enemies will meet with his wrath nonexmn you know what dawned on me beloved reading that this week thinking about it pondering as I read verse 16 and 17 it is amazing to me that on that day the theology of the enemies of Jesus Christ will prove to be extraordinarily orthodox you say well what do you mean for one note they clearly recognize who he is it's the lamb secondly they recognize the significance of that day for the great day of their wrath has come and for three they obviously recognize their guilt because they seek to hide they recognize who he is they recognize the reality of that day they recognize their own sin well the only remaining thing left for them to do is to repent to seek mercy
but they don't they don't they don't want it when will we firmly believe this that the effects of the fall are this severe that apart from the gracious intervention of God on the human heart no one seeks Jesus Christ savingly not even on the great and final day when the reality of eternal judgment is before them these are not people who want in and can't get in all they want in the face of final judgment is the eternal annihilation of their existence something that the wrath of the lamb will never allow them to experience because there is a lake of fire that burns forever and ever now friends you've been very patient this morning okay I know this is tough sledding it's tough sledding for me too but let me impose upon you for two final questions first of all what's really going on here I mean all of this image raven we can't fully put together in our minds what what is this all about
well you may recall that early on when I was introducing to you the book of revelation as a book I told you that the history of the Bible is not to be understood primarily as something linear but rather as something that is you shaped all you need to do is look at the beginning and end of the Bible the Bible begins with creation sinless humanity in a perfect garden this is followed by a fall into sin that as consequences for the entire created realm not just the human race but by virtue of the accomplishments of God savior Jesus Christ the Bible ends where it begins only better in re-creation new heaven new earth sinless humanity in a perfect universe eternally creation re-creation what the passage before us suggests however is that prior to final re-creation there must be ultimate de-creation God himself ripping apart the fabric of this fallen realm you know what's absolutely fascinating to me about this text the order in which the universe is here destroyed how it follows very similarly the order of the original creation in Genesis it begins with the earth it moves to the creation of light sun moon stars then the sky followed by the mountains and the islands the land and finally humanity here the objects of that seventh phase of de-creation the destruction of the fallen human race in fact what's interesting friends is that this seventh item in the list opens up to reveal another set of sevens doesn't it just as the seventh seal will introduce the seven trumpets and the seventh trumpet will finally include the seven bowls here specific mention is made of seven categories of humanity we've already saw seen this expressive of the totality of the enemies of the lamb and his people it's the destruction of the fallen human race the final phase in the process of de-creation that must precede re-creation that's what's going on here in the flow of the bible you say well art then does this mean that we are to understand this symbolism in a strictly literal way i don't think so for two reasons first this symbolism doesn't work if you attempt to force it in a literal categories for example my friends if the sun's light is all together removed and the earth is bound to pitch blackness how will the lamb be recognized how will god's enemies be able to seek shelter in hiding places mountains and caves and for that matter if the mountains themselves are torn up from their roots how can people seek hiding places in them moreover even an elementary school student knows that the earth is too small for even one star to fall upon it for multiple stars to fit on the earth they would have to suddenly become black holes if even one struck the earth let alone trillions traveling at millions of times the speed of light our planet would be shattered into pieces certainly not enough time for people to seek hideouts in the mountains you get the point an interpretation that employs a consistent literalism here dooms these events to the realm of impossibility and what's even more important more telling the second reason we're not to think of this in strictly literal terms is that when these very same images are used in their all testament contexts which is why I mentioned them to you go home and check me out other than a few which prophetically speak of final judgment they all refer to the historical destruction of a nation against which god himself waged holy war in other words in their own old testament contexts these same apocalyptic images were not literally fulfilled but they served to describe the coming terror of god's judgments in profoundly graphic terms and uniquely apocalyptic terms now friends all of this is not to suggest that there will be no renovation of the cosmos in the great day of recreation of course there will we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth the home of righteousness it's just to say that we are on shaky ground to insist that the events of de-creation mentioned here are to be taken literally especially when no other time in their usage of the old testament are they taken so the second question the much more practical question is simply this why is this here what purpose can it serve first of all it's here to awaken you who still remain in defiant alienation to Jesus Christ it's here to arouse those nominal church attenders out of their lethargy out of their complacency by compelling them to see something of the destiny of all unbelievers that this is the assured guaranteed future of all of those good people who refuse to embrace the land and you see beloved this is why then so much of the early christian preaching took this form flee from the wrath to come flee from the wrath to come if you are not a christian this morning you must appreciate the fact that passage is like this one have been included in the bible so that upon hearing them you would say is it wise for me to refuse Jesus Christ for one day more is it safe to defy the lamb in unbelief given his wrath why would I delay becoming a christian why would I ever refuse to trust Jesus Christ
it's here for unbelievers primarily however this passage is in your bible's beloved to provide a great encouragement for those of you who are christians the fact is the final question of the text has an answer for the great day of their wrath is come and who can stand answer it's in the very next chapter the sealed servants of God the followers of the lamb and though and so though the final judgment is real and terrible beyond words it is something that the followers of Jesus Christ need never fear you know my friends people today in so many different contexts throw around the word salvation salvation it's used to speak of just about every experience under the sun but salvation has one primary meaning in the bible and right here it's defined for us most explicitly this is what salvation is my friends it is deliverance from holy wrath that is salvation that's what it means when we declare that we are saved save from what the bummer of a life sickness poverty martyrdom salvation from righteous holy unending wrath if you've not understood this and you have yet to fully appreciate what it was that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross this is the very thing from which you have been saved why because the very one who will dispense this wrath upon his enemies has absorbed it in the place of his friends and so says Paul we wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath wrath is his perfection his to readily dispense as it was his to willingly absorb have you been saved from this would you bow your heads with me please