How do we distinguish between satanic accusation and divine conviction? Among other things, the former comes in the shape of condemnation that breeds feelings of hopelessness. We are told that our sin has put us beyond the hope of grace and the power of forgiveness. Satan’s accusations are devoid of any reference to the sufficiency of the cross. Divine conviction for sin, on the other hand, comes with a reminder of the sufficiency and finality of Christ’s shed blood, together with a promise of hope and the joy of forgiveness.
Sam Storms

Gods Slaughter

Gods Slaughter

GOD’S SLAUGHTER

ISA 66:12-14 For thus says the LORD, “Behold, I extend peace to her like a river, And the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; And you shall be nursed, you shall be carried on the hip and fondled on the knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Then you shall see this, and your heart shall be glad, And your bones shall flourish like the new grass; And the hand of the LORD shall be made known to His servants

To the Christian this passage is a great comfort and encouragement. God gives us a word picture of his care and protection and delight in His own. He reveals His tender love and satisfaction in His children and compares it to the way a compassionate mother tenderly takes care of her young babe. She protects, provides, rejoices and delights in her infant. God says “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.” This passage should rightly give us comfort and strength in knowing that our God loves believers as a mother loves her child.

Yet we must not wrestle this passage from its context. We cannot pick and choose with the Bible. We must not dwell on only those “pet” verses of ours which thrill us but also on the totality of God’s revelation consisting of the verses that also teach us and reveal to us His perfect character. God is revealing His character here and if we were to stop now we would have an incomplete picture.

Continuing on where we left off:

ISA 66:14-16. But He shall be indignant toward His enemies. For behold, the LORD will come in fire And His chariots like the whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. For the LORD will execute judgment by fire And by His sword on all flesh, And those slain by the LORD will be many.

In direct contrast to the picture presented previously of the tender mother, here we now see God and His relationship toward the unbelieving on the day of His great wrath. We see His glorious kingship displayed in His carrying out to the fullest the punishment of the wicked.

Those slain by the Lord will be many. “Our good God will slay many?” you cry out in abhorrence and disbelief. Yes, many will be the recipients of His divine displeasure and suffer the weight of His wrath. Some might reel in horror here at the thought of such things. Some might plead with me as those who pleaded to the prophets of old “Prophesy unto us good things”. All truth is offensive in some way to carnal man’s reasoning. Yet just because a doctrine might be displeasing to our carnal senses does not make it any less true. We must deal with this passage, “those slain by the LORD will be many”.

The reason for this message is that I am concerned that the true character of God as presented by many professing Christians is deficient and lacking and lop-sided. Those who stress God’s love yet brush over or totally disregard God’s wrath are not presenting the whole truth when it comes to the nature and character of God. A half truth is claiming to be the whole truth. Yet a half truth is also half lie which really is all lie. We cry out, “God is love” and rightly rejoice in it, but how many of us cry out at the same time “God is holy, God is a consuming fire” and rejoice in that as well. God’s wrath is just as much one of His perfections as His love. It should be rejoiced in.

WHAT IS GOD’S WRATH?

But what is God’s wrath? Appealing to Scripture as our sole guide we find out many truths concerning the perfection of God’s wrath.

First, it is a fierce wrath. Revelations 19:15 gives us a picture of the glorified Saviour, Jesus Christ, dealing out judgement to His enemies. “And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.” We get a picture here of the Lord Jesus treading upon sinners as a man would tread upon grapes to crush the juice out of them for use in wine. Notice the words here. The wrath of our Lord is amplified here and presented as a fierce wrath. His wrath alone should provoke terror in us but here we read that that wrath is a fierce wrath. And not only is it a fierce wrath but it is the fierce wrath of the Almighty. The picture we are given here is one of terror and dread: Almighty limitless power with fierce wrath treading upon and crushing weak and finite men.

That this Almighty power should provoke us to terror is true yet we have just begun in looking at the perfections of God’s wrath. This fierce, Almighty wrath is also a pitiless wrath. Eze. 8:18 reads, “Therefore, I indeed shall deal in wrath. My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I shall not listen to them.” On the day of God’s wrath, when the curtain comes down, and the play is over, and the Author of the play comes upon stage to announce the ending. When those who have rejected God and His Christ must forever live with their decision. On that day imagine this: Imagine Almighty, Omnipotent fury pressing upon the sinner and crushing him. Hear the sinners cry for pity, for mercy, for rest yet hear the righteous answer of God; “My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I shall not listen to them”.

And yet, we still are not through with the perfections of the wrath of God. This holy wrath of God, this fierce, merciless, Almighty wrath is not quenched in an hour, nor in a day, nor in a week, nor in a year, nor in hundreds of years, nor thousands, nor millions. This terrible wrath is eternal and never-ending. Mat 25:46 Jesus speaks of the unrighteous, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” After millions and millions of eons of enduring such agony and punishment the sinner can take no rest. For that millions and millions or eons is but a drop in the ocean of eternity which will continue mercilessly without end. If we knew of just one here who was to be a recipient of this wrath could we even look them in the eye. Wouldn’t we even now pity such a poor soul and do all we could to awaken him to his plight.

You might recoil in terror just now. You might say “I can rejoice that God is love, but I cannot, I will not rejoice in His wrath. It is too horrible a thing. These things should not be.” If these be the thoughts of your heart, then it is apparent that you have no love for the righteousness of God, you have no love for the justice of God and would rather worship a god of your own making rather than the God revealed in the Bible. Here is what the Christians response to this wrath will be: Psa. 58:10-11 “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. And men will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely there is a God who judges on earth!” Far from God’s wrath being abhorrent to the Christian, it will be something in which he rejoices in and sees the perfection of God displayed in.

WHY SUCH WRATH?

But why, why such wrath? What have we done to deserve such a punishment. What is the reason for such a display of the fierceness of the wrath of God. The answer is found in Isaiah.

ISA 13:9-11 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises, And the moon will not shed its light. Thus I will punish the world for its evil, And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud, And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.

In verses 9, and 11 we get our answer for the reason for God’s wrath. God hates sin! He hates sin totally. He despises it to such a degree that only the eternal, unmerciful, fierce wrath of God is appropriate for the punishment of it. In verse 9, we find that He will exterminate the sinners. They will not dwell in His holy presence. In verse 11, we find that He will punish the world for its evil. And therein lies the reasons for God’s wrath. Those who recoil at the idea of God’s wrath usually are guilty of one of two things. Either they don’t understand the abhorrence God has for sin or they don’t understand that justice must be paid for God is a God of justice as well as a God of love.

We self-righteously proclaim that surely someone such as Hitler, or Manson deserves this fierce wrath, but not your average unbeliever. We want to see justice done, yet we feel as if the punishment in some cases does not fit the crime. Hitler may deserve this wrath, but surely not your average non-believer. Yet as we say this we show our ignorance of the ugliness of sin in the sight of God. If you sin against me, you might deserve some amount of punishment but surely not eternal. Yet if you sin against God, the only punishment that is fitting is eternal. Why? Look at the object of your sin. It is the Infinite, Almighty, Holy God, majestic and glorious in the beauty of holiness. God is a God of infinite perfections and beauty. To sin against an infinitely beautiful being automatically makes your sin an infinite insult against that infinitely beautiful being. Your sin then deserves an infinite punishment. Anything less could not satisfy the justice of God. To restate this idea in one sentence: A finite sin against an infinitely beautiful object becomes infinitely horrible and infinitely punishable.

But are unbelievers that bad you ask? “I mean man is basically good, isnt he? He just makes some mistakes every once in a while?!? I’m O.K., You’re O.K., right?!” That might be O.K. for the world but that is not the teaching of Holy Writ. The Bible says that there is something extremely wrong with man. Here is what Scripture says about the condition and nature of man. Listen to Scripture. Scripture says that the unbeliever is “of his father the devil”(Joh. 8:44), a loyal subject of “the kingdom of darkness” (Col. 1:13) with lord satan as his king. A “slave to sin” (Joh. 8:34), “by nature a child of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). His heart is “corrupt, evil, and defiled” even without the aid of Satan (Mark 7:21-23). The unbeliever is not only “judged already” (Joh. 3:18) but the “wrath of God abides on him” even now (Joh. 3:36). And to add to his miseries even now “because of his stubborn and unrepentant heart he is storing up wrath” (Rom. 2:5) in the same way that we would store up savings in our local bank for future use. Men truly deserve the wrath of God for men love the darkness and hate the light (John 3:19).

Some will still object and say, “Jesus is not like that, He is not full of wrath toward the unbelieving. He is loving, meek and mild”. Listen to your meek and mild Jesus. Or more appropriately, listen to the wrath of Jesus. Every word I now say is from the lips of Jesus: “Woe to you”, “you shall be brought down to hell” (Mat. 11:21,23), “you evil and adulterous generation” (Mat. 12:39), “you fools and blind men” “you serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell” (Mat. 23:17,33) “you are from below, I am from above. You shall die in your sins” (Joh 8:23-24), “depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire” (Mat. 25:41), “I never knew you” (Mat. 7:23).

APPLICATION

There are at least four applications we as Christians can glean from this truth.

  1. Pay attention to what God has to say for the stakes are high and the punishment is great if we ignore Him. HEB 2:1-3 For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

To attain the blessing of God we must wrestle as righteous Jacob with God and cry out for His mercy. Hear the warning; Pay attention! What may happen if we don’t. We may drift away. We may not persevere in the faith and in doing so show our true colors, revealing that we never were too concerned for the salvation of our souls and never did seriously consider that God is a consuming fire. Remember, most people do not profess Christianity and then leave it for intellectual reasons. Most just drift away like a boat not properly tied to its moorings that slowly drifts away from a dock. How many do you know who have just drifted away?

2) Hate sin as God does. Get angry at sin. Too often we wink at sin as if it is nothing and can be easily forgiven. We forget the great hatred God has for it. We forget the punishment that it justly deserves. Hate sin and get angry at it, yet in your anger do not sin. God’s wrath is perfect. Man’s wrath is not. We must keep our righteous anger in check to make sure it does not overstep our bounds. Yet I would rather see an over-zealous saint than a passive saint any day.

3) Fear God and not man. Fear God and serve him in the beauty of holiness and don’t be concerned about man. Any man may kill our body but no man may possess our soul. If our soul is in the hands of Almighty God then we have nothing to fear. Jesus put it this way, “And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat 10:28).

4) Let’s start presenting the gospel correctly. Let’s quit with these silly half truths we are presenting. Paul began his most systematic presentation of the gospel in the book of Romans with this fact, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”!? If your are smiling and saying that is beautiful you are showing your biblical illiterateness. Paul begins his gospel not with a statement of God’s love but with this, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”. Paul starts his gospel presentation with wrath not love. We have no right to tell a sinner that God loves them until we have told them that God’s wrath abides upon them and at the moment the wonderful plan is not that wonderful, unless you consider eternal, fierce, almighty, unending wrath to be wonderful. The gospel begins with a holy God who is a consuming fire that is infinitely angry at sin and will justly punish it to the utmost. It ends with love. Don’t get those two switched around. And don’t present one truth without the other. These two truths must be presented together, otherwise the gospel has not been presented. God is a consuming fire. God is love. Praise him in the fullness of who He has revealed Himself to be. Not in some weak caricature which you have set up which is more to your liking and less offensive to sinful man. We are not doing a lost world any favor when we don’t present to them the fact that without Christ they lie under the wrath of Almighty God.

These applications were for the Christian. Christians, remember these applications: 1) We as Christians must pay close attention to what we have heard so we won’t drift away. 2) We must hate sin with a holy zeal. 3) We must fear God and not men. 4) And we must, if we care for the salvation of souls as we say we do, present the gospel correctly and that means you are going to offend many.

The Unitarians, the Universalists, the Christian Scientists, the Mormons, the New Agers, and most other false religious groups start out their gospel with the saying “God loves you” too. Shouldn’t that warn us of something.

Now for the non-Christian. If you are not a Christian then I pity you. All the things I spoke of in this message are soon to come true for you. God’s wrath abides upon you even as I speak. There is one way out though. 1 Thes. 1:10 says “Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come.” What does it mean to be saved. What am I saved from? Too often we Christians don’t make that clear because we don’t give you all the story. I am saved from God’s wrath. How am I saved? Through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for me on the cross. He bore the wrath I deserve. You see dear sinner, justice is still paid, it is just that the wrath due to me was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. God could not just let me off the hook. He is a God of justice. Therefore, either I had to suffer the punishment of His justice or someone else had to suffer it in my place. Jesus did that for me. He is the sacrifice that satisfies the righteous wrath of God. God offers Him as the only sure way to escape the wrath to come. Flee the wrath to come and cry out to the God, perhaps He will have mercy upon you. If you truly seek Him with all your heart, He promises that He will be found.

Christian, preach the wrath to come and rejoice in it. There is a God of justice!

Sinner, escape the wrath to come. There is a God of justice!