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August 24, 2003 |
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Saved from What ...?"
1 Thess 1:1-10; Nahum 1: 1-7
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I. |
A decade ago over 400 bikers gathered to pay their last respects to "Grandpa Bob."
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| Bob Shields was a founding member of the once-feared motorcycle gang known as the Bandidos. At the age of 78, Bob had died of cancer. Middle age and older bikers gathered to drink beer and swap stories of the good old days of drug-running, assault, terrorism and murder, not to mention some legal sins.
With bravado they attempted to deal with death and future judgment:
"Give 'em hell, Grandpa," one gray-bearded biker said. "The devil's in the unemployment line now."
Bob Shields had once said about his death: "I don't want no preachers ranting and raving over me,. Besides, I'm down below, drinking whiskey and (beating up) on the devil."
What the bikers refused to face, we in the church do not often talk about. The fact is death without Jesus is no laughing matter.
In the church we often talk about salvation. We preach that "ye must be born again". But we do not talk much about the alternative to salvation.
From what are we saved? Over the next two weeks I would like us to answer that question.
(from Let Me See Thy Glory: A Study in the Attributes of God, by Boib Deffinbaugh, '95, Bible Study Press)
Hear this week's answer in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10. Paul writes that
everyone in the whole region around Thessalonica tell how the Thessalonian Christians had turned from serving idols to serve God, "the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath."
And again in chapter five of the same book:
1 Thessalonians 5:9: Paul writes this: "For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him."
| II. |
What are we saved from? God's wrath. |
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As Paul said--
"God has not appointed you to suffer wrath but to receive salvation."
Have we lost touch with the wrath of God in the American church today? In our over emphasis on God's love, we seem to have forgotten that wrath is the other side of love. A God who is never angry is a God who cannot love.
God in America is portrayed somewhat like a pleasant old gentleman who winks at sin and transgression. But that my friends is not the Living God "for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:29).
To some the idea of wrath is repugnant or a blemish on God or even an annoyance. However, "Wrath," wrote AW Pink a century ago, "Is as much a Divine perfection as is His faithfulness, power, or mercy. It must be so, for there is no blemish whatever, not the slightest defect in the character of God; yet there would be if 'wrath' were absent from Him."
(from Let Me See Thy Glory: A Study in the Attributes of God, by Boib Deffinbaugh, '95, Bible Study Press)
I tremble for people who do not recognize the wrath of God or who minimize His judgment. Who say, as did a man to me a few weeks back: "I will get back to church and God eventually, when I am good and ready." But what will it mean to "be ready"? And will God hear him at that time? God says in Proverbs: "Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes" (1:28-31). That man is unwisely thumbing his nose at God, who alone can save him from wrath.
The first mention of the word "wrath" specifically comes in the book of Numbers. It is clear that God's intention from the start was to do everything to save the Israelites from His wrath. Listen to Numbers 1:53:
"The Levites, however, are to set up their tents around the tabernacle of the testimony so that wrath will not fall on the Israelite community."
God places the Levites around the tent of His presence so that they can be a buffer from His wrath! They were the priests. They were in charge of the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant.
It is an amazing thought that God works to protect people from His wrath!
It is the same for us. God has given Jesus not as a buffer, but as His only means of rescue from His wrath. Ponder this thought: it is God's wrath we flee by fleeing to God in Christ!
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| III. | Let's look today at both present wrath and the future Day of Wrath.
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A. In the present time, we who have not come to Christ, are under God's wrath
and condemnation. From birth we are separate from God.
In John 3:18, Jesus says, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
And John the Baptist says in John 3:39: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." God's wrath remains--- since it was already there to begin with.
Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 2: "Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath."
Wrath is something naturally ours without salvation. There is no hope for anything but wrath. There is no way out. God knew this. He knew his wrath would break forth and so provided a buffer in the Old Testament and a rescue by Jesus in the New Covenant.
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a. A person UNDER GOD'S WRATH ---is under God's curse.
God caught some Israelites thinking: 'I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.'
And God warned: "This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the Law." (Deuteronomy 29:19-21)
Carl came back from Thailand and told me of the great concern the Thai people have for America.. As a nation we ignore His commands. They experience this in businessmen who come to their country for evil. They watch as we do our nation in an uproar over the display of the Ten Commandments in a judge's court. And they see the split of our nation over the decision whether or not to codify same sex unions. For us to do that would be disaster, for it would open the floodgate to evil of terrible kinds. There is a reason for marriage being reserved exclusively for male and female couples.
They look and see us catapulting into God's wrath. If you read Deuteronomy 32 you can find many examples of the wrath of God already manifest against us.
b. A person under God's wrath is receiving what he deserves.
Nahum describes the coming wrath upon the Ninevites who had repented under Jonah and then repented of their repentance, and returned to sin, like a dog to its vomit. The opening verses use every OT word available for God's anger. They "describe a God who is terrible in his wrath, moved at last to the point of pouring out his wrath upon that which has awakened it. God in a white-hot passion, burning with a terrible, blistering rage." (end quote) And the Ninevites are receiving just what they have earned, and no more. (by Ray Stedman, Nahum: The Terrible wrath of God, in Adventuring Through the bible, message 34, June 19, 1966, c'95 Peninsula Bible church)
No wonder Hebrews 10:31 says: "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
c. A person under wrath is more susceptible to sin:
Proverbs 22:14 says "The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; he who is under the lord's wrath will fall into it."
d. When under God's wrath makes a person more susceptible to illness:
"Because of your wrath there is no health in my body…" David wrote in Psalms 38:3 This is not to say that all illness is a sign of wrath.
e. Finally, this present wrath is to produce godly fear.
And the invitation in the old testament and the new is to take refuge only in God's Son. Hear this in Psalm 2:11-12 "Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him."
Moses adds his thoughts to this in Psalm 90, saying God's: " wrath is as great as the fear that is due (Him)."
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B. In addition to the present reality of the wrath of God upon any who are outside
of the covenant of Christ, there is the future Day of God's wrath.
Paul warns in Romans 2:5 "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God 'will give to each person according to what he has done."
There is a story of an unbeliever who made fun of a Christian farmer because he refused to work on his fields on Sunday. The unbeliever always went out every Sunday to work in his fields, and at the end of the year he came to his Christian neighbor and taunted him. He said, "Look, you are a Christian and you don't work on Sunday, and you have had a fairly good crop, but look at the way God blessed me. I have worked every Sunday and look at the abundance of grain that I have. Why, this has been one of the richest October harvests that I have ever had." And the Christian farmer turned to him and said, "Yes, but God does not always settle his accounts in October."
When God begins to move, nothing escapes his grasp, nothing. We are in his universe. We are creatures here. There is no way to run away. There is no place to hide. We must deal with a God who says over and over again that if his grace is thwarted, he will rise in judgement at the last.
(adapted from Ray Stedman, Nahum: The Terrible wrath of God, in Adventuring Through the bible,
message 34, June 19, 1966, c'95 Peninsula Bible church)
As God said to Israel through the prophet Amos: "Prepare to meet your God!"
This future day is frightful -- dark -- terrible!
Zephaniah 1:15 describes it like this: "That day will be a day of…distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,"
In Revelation 6:16 we read: "Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"
When the great and terrible day of God's wrath comes, there will indeed be no escape. All the earth as we know it will be destroyed by fire. Revelation chapter 16 through 18 describes this judgment of God.
This is the great day of God's wrath from which we flee by taking refuge in Christ (Hebrews 6). Don't think you can escape this on your own. Your own efforts will not help you any more than an umbrella would assist you in a hurricane.
SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?
1. MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE FAITH. The umbrella will not help, but God helps you. We flee from the coming wrath by fleeing to Christ, by taking hold of that hope, by turning from sin, by repenting, by forgiving. We give our lives to Christ and then walk in Christ day by day. If you don't know him, I will give you an opportunity in a moment to make that acquaintance.
Christ will rescue you from wrath.
2. LEAVE ROOM FOR GOD'S WRATH by walking in love -- serving those who are your enemies, praying and forgiving those around you.
Don't hold on to sins against you, forgive that you can be under God's forgiveness not under his wrath. When we sin, and hold to that sin, we place ourselves under God's judgment. We begin to invite wrath.
3. GIVE THANKS FOR YOUR RESCUE
Take a moment right now, if you know him, and say thank you!
John the Baptist asked the Pharisees coming to the river: "Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" (Matthew 3:7).
I have now warned you to flee. There is a judgment worth fleeing!
Let's take that moment for prayer.
If you have not received Christ, and would like you, lift your hand. I will pray with you. And you can take a step toward Him right now. As easy as ABC
Acknowledge your sins before God:
"Yes I am a sinner"
Believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead for those sins
"I believe that you died for me to free me from sin, and rose again that I need not die."
Confess that He is your Lord and savior
"I confess that you are my Lord and my Savior, I will serve
you."
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