Well, last week we started what was supposed to be one sermon and ended up being two. We're in a small little break that I'm choosing to take on my own and that break is to Explain to you a little bit about what's been going on or in Revelation. We've been in the book of Revelation. We're now to chapter 16 What's ready to happen is now the fullness of the wrath of God is about ready to be poured out upon humanity that means us people human beings big ones little ones babies and Unborn babies doesn't matter. The wrath of God is ready to be poured out Seven angels are pictured as having lined up and their bowls are filled to the fullness of his wrath and each is a unique Aspect of it and they will be poured out and in one chapter It will just go flowing out fast one after another of these things that happen Up to this point. We've talked a lot about wrath and in all of that. It's just becomes very hard and And I pointed out last week that there are times that we have to give difficult news. We have to give difficult information to people. We have to tell them that somebody they love has died. Or we have to tell them that they have some terrible disease. or we have to give them consequences to their actions, which are not fun and you don't want to tell them. The first time my son, who is a manager now, had to fire somebody, he talked to me for quite a bit of time before he fired the person, and then afterward he called me and talked to me for quite a while after he fired the person, because he didn't like firing the person. And I said, buddy, there's no easy way to say it. Eventually, you're telling them you're fired. So save a lot of time. When he comes in your office, sit him down and say, well, I have some things I need to talk to you about, but let's just get this out in the open. You are going to be terminated from employment, and I'm going to explain to you why. And that's how you got to do it. There's just times you have to say hard things to people that you don't want to say, but they have to be said. They're necessary. Well, judgment is hard, and there is no way around it. And yet, moms and dads, friends and family, spend too much time protecting their friends, loved ones, from the consequences of their sin. And they do not then prepare the people to understand that there is something greater than just mom and dad, or my boss, or my government, but there is in fact the sovereign and holy God, and that he is standing there, as the psalmist says, and he is angry with those who commit iniquity every day. We paint God as if He is some jolly, gentle giant who just wants to be our friend, but in fact, the Bible declares that He looks upon all who do sin every day only with anger. And that anger is building because that sin is against Him and His holiness, and the Bible says that that is building and growing. Now, we work our way through Revelation and we are being confronted every day or every week with the nature of that wrath, the nature of that judgment. And I know if you're like me, that gets wearisome. It hurts. You just want to take a breath and think on things more pleasant than some more people dying and more things happening to our creation and just the agony of what it's like to be under the thumb of God because of our rebellion. But I have argued, and I will still argue, that if we would learn to spend a significant time thinking and learning about God's judgment against all who rebel against Him, that it would be good for us if we let it. The trick is if we let it. We live in an age where we amuse ourselves to death, that we are so busy watching and playing and fiddling that we cannot contemplate for any length of time something serious. Moms and dads, again, helping your children to unplug, to take things out of their ears, to not just retreat into their electronics, but rather helping them to think on serious things, giving them things that are serious-minded, serious books that you as a family will go through and talk about. Husbands, wives, friends, it doesn't matter. Having this awareness that there is God, that He is over all, that this is His creation, and that He is serious about sin. And so when we chuckle at Him, we laugh at Him, we make light of sin, we actually end up contradicting what we say we believe. If we let the reality of God's wrath settle upon us, then we will rightly be looking for the salvation from it. Because once we realize how great the wrath of God is, we need escape. We know we need escape. A man that I went to seminary with, on Thanksgiving Day last year, put a gun to his head and killed himself. The reason I won't get into. I know the reasons. If what the reasons are in fact are true, there's no reason to think that he in fact was in Christ. And all I could think about on that day was You're in hell. You're in hell. You haven't improved your situation. Your situation on this side was horrid. But on the other side, it's eternal. It's eternal. You have achieved absolutely nothing other than to confirm yourself in the wrath of God. To understand his wrath makes you look for escape. When the Bible talks about the idea of salvation, it doesn't talk about it in general terms. It doesn't talk about it in a vague way. Never. It's actually very specific what you're saved from. And it is a salvation from the very wrath of God that we have been looking at week after week in the book of Revelation. And so I thought of that as a result, and I preached the sermon I did last week, and I'll finish that sermon today. My desire was to prepare us for the final chapters of the unfolding of God's wrath in Revelation I wanted us to be able to go into those Remembering that there is a way of salvation that there is hope It's not just this despair that we see written in Revelation to those who reject Jesus Christ Now last week what we did was talked about why the wrath of God is to come. Why is there this wrath? What is it that brings it about and makes it so violent? So severe and we looked at the nature of sin, and I argued that it is the great Doctrine it is the great and important doctrine of the Bible some would debate with that but most of your theologians would say that the doctrine of sin the teaching of the Bible on sin is the most important because it affects how you will address everything else and It speaks of the fact that sin is what captures the whole of our existence as people. It is our enemy, though it claims to be our friend and we act like it's our friend. It is what separates us from one another, why you have friends who are no longer your friends. Be how you are deceiving your friends and family and how they are deceiving you Why divorces happen and why children run away and why all of the other things that just happen in this world? Happen all of it is because of sin and it affects one another and their relationships but far more important than that it affects our relationship to the one who matters and that is God who made us and Along with that, sin is the explanation of how things work in the world we live, why everything breaks down. And it makes what God does or doesn't do make sense. Once you understand sin, once you stop playing around with sin and making it something less than it is, then you will never argue why God is filled with wrath. It will make absolute sense. The only thing that you really will do once you really get a hold of sin and understand it, the only thing that really will happen to you is that you will be amazed. You will be amazed, not that God would be so harsh and filled with wrath upon people, but how he could be so kind to you and show you grace. And if you are not there, then you do not yet understand sin enough. I mean that not as a rebuke, but merely because I know that many of you have walked with the Lord for a long time, and yet you still are not really standing in amazement that you can claim Christ as your Lord and Savior. Last week I said that there are only a few things that I'm actually convinced of in this life, and they really do color how I approach everything. That's how I color how I counsel a person, how I go about living in this world, how I deal with my friends, how I raise my children. There's just certain things that I know are true and I'm convinced of them, and so therefore they affect me in what I do. One of those is what Matt Miller taught. And that is the Hevel, which is that Hebrew word that speaks of everything being twisted and broken and absurd. It's vanity. That nothing works like it's supposed to. That the rules are not fixed, other than the rule that nothing is fixed. So the good man will do the good things and that we suffer and die early. The wicked man will do things and live well and have a painless death. That's just wrong. Why is it that way? Why is it that we labor so hard to make a name for ourself and then we die and it's like the finger is pulled out of a lake and there's not even a ripple of remembrance of who we are? It is a reality that we live in a broken world, a sinful world, and therefore nothing works as it ought. I am convinced of that, and so I'm not usually that surprised when things go bad. Second, sin is far more toxic and destructive than any of us realize, and it is our great enemy. So to the degree that I watch people play with sin, that I choose to play with sin, it shows my folly and your folly. That sin, whatever you think it is and how bad you think it is, you have not come close to grasping the fullness of what sin does in us. Third, the salvation that is given to us through Jesus Christ is greater than all other things. And although it is often unappreciated by us, it stands tall above sin and death. And it's your only hope. It's it. There is nothing. If you have loved ones that you're aching over, but you are not bringing to bear the reality of the gospel and their need for the gospel, then you are literally wishing their death sentence. There is no other way. There is no way to be right with God but Jesus. Sin is so powerful that nothing but God himself defeats it. And fourth, you can only learn to weep and rejoice at the same time when considering God's holy judgment, when you understand both sin and salvation. The weeping comes as you contemplate the greatness of the sin that you have done and the fullness of what you are apart from Jesus Christ. As you see, it still afflicts you. And the joy comes as you also contemplate that Christ has conquered that sin and set you free from it. These are the things that I just live my life by. They color me in how I talk to you, how I talk to my children, and even how I talk to my little grandchildren. This is all that really matters. I remember telling my son, who was having a hard time growing up, And I was talking to him about his schooling and what kind of choices he was making and how those would be potentially hard on him if he didn't get himself going and his acts to act together. And I just looked at him and I said, buddy, listen, you're making choices and they're foolish choices and they're going to get you in the rear end when it's time. And if you're not careful, What you're going to do is, because of your own choices, you're going to end up being a ditchdigger. I said, now there is nothing wrong with being a ditchdigger. Nothing wrong whatsoever. If that is what God has called you to do, then by golly, be the best ditchdigger and do it to the glory of God, and I will be proud of you. I said, but do it because God has made you to be that. Do it because you want to worship God in your work as a ditchdigger. Do it that way. I said, but Matty, unless you don't want to be a ditch digger, I'm urging you to go and improve yourself in these different ways so that you might have other options. But then I sat him down, I said, but listen, I don't care if you succeed in business. I don't care if you get your dream job. I don't care if you make all the money you make. I don't care if you marry the most perfect woman. I don't care about any of those things. Those things just don't matter. My concern for you is your soul. My concern for you is that that's all that matters. And until that's resolved, everything else is a waste of time, buddy. Everything is a waste of time. Are you convinced of that? Are you convinced that every day that you wake up, that there's really only one thing that matters, ultimately, and it's the gospel? Now when we consider what brings about God's wrath, we have to understand that it is ever and only sin. And so what I taught you last week was a very basic, but actually a very solid doctrine of the sin. And if you were not here last week, and I know that many were not, I would ask that you would watch or listen to that sermon and get the basic foundation of sin, because it's that that I painted that will make sense for this sermon today. What I did was explain what sin is. And what we did was we looked at the vocabulary of sin. Because the Bible uses a rich variety of terms that paint a very, very bleak and difficult picture of what sin is and how it functions in your heart. Because sin is not just something you do. Sin, more importantly, is something that you are. You are, by nature, born a sinner. And so it describes it in various ways, such as failing to reach the proper goal, failing to hit the mark that it wanted to hit. And the goal, of course, is honor and glory to God, and worship God, and we fall short of that. And we worship everything but God, and we seek to glorify everything but God. We fall short of that. It describes also this idea of wandering or going astray, but it's not by accident. It's not like, oops, I didn't mean to be here. The Bible makes it very clear that it's a purposeful wandering. We know the way which God has told us to go. We know that we are to go and follow Jesus Christ and trust in Him. And we just keep wandering off because we don't want it. It also talks about overstepping ourselves where we have stepped over the boundaries and we've overstepped ourselves and we are where we don't belong. And it speaks of that in so many different ways. Closely connected to that are other terms of turning aside or leaving the path or to act in a treacherous manner and to be a traitor and to make friends with the enemy. describes it as spiritual adultery. You're unfaithful to the One who makes you and sustains you. One that I often refer to in my preaching is a word that speaks of being twisted or crooked. How you find that woman, then you love her, and you marry her, and it's going to be right. Everything's going to be right. And anyone here who's been married any length of time knows that's not true. It gets twisted. And it's because of sin. And it just breaks things and twists things and warps things so that it's not what you thought it was. Then you can add to that terms that describe us as being rebellious and stubborn of heart. And then finally, if that's not enough, it says that we are ungodly. And ungodly simply means that we take no thought of God. We don't factor God into our lives. We can go about our whole day, all day, and never once pause and contemplate God. We can do this life that we call life and never contemplate if it's honorable or right or proper in the eyes of God. Why you choose to go someplace and watch something. Why you choose to embrace these relationships in this manner. Why we choose to spend money in this and not that. All of those things are oftentimes done without a thought of God. I claim to be saved by God. I claim to be a child of God. I claim to follow God. And in what manner does my life model that? And in fact, the term ungodliness can be attached to many a person. And all of that is the result of wrath or brings about wrath. In fact, it's the only thing a person has a right to expect. By the time you figure out that you are as rich and great a sinner as you are, the only thing that can come from that is, I am toast. I'm dead. I have nothing but the wrath of the sovereign God from whom I cannot escape, who literally holds my life and breath in his hand, and when he is pleased, he will let me die, because in him is the power for death, and he will judge me. And there's only one right answer. It is guilt. Guilty. Wrath is that expression of God's reaction to your rebellion. Many times parents have asked me over the years, you know, yeah, I got I got angry. I caught my son or I caught my daughter. And they turn out they were doing something that just shocked me. And I got angry and I had to really confess my anger. And I'm like, why did you confess your anger? I don't understand. Well, you shouldn't be angry. I said, against sin you should. Your children should see you angry when you have sinned. Abusive, no. Cruel, no. Angry, yes. You have every right to function like your Holy Father in heaven. He is angry with sin. And when a child high-handedly rebels and acts in that way, for you to calmly respond to it says that you don't fully grasp how evil that is and the consequences of what that sin is. Death in eternity. When we understand sin rightly, then we begin to understand why God is truly angry all the time. We understand the idea then that God is storing up wrath to be unleashed on the day of judgment. We begin to grasp that, and it's frightening. Let me read a quote from R.C. Sproul. He just died a couple of days ago. He's now with the Lord, and he writes this. He says, we want to be saved from our misery, but not from our sin. We want to sin without misery, just as the prodigal son wanted inheritance without the father. The foremost spiritual law of the physical universe is that this hope can never be realized. Sin always accompanies misery. There is no victimless crime and all creation is subject to decay because of humanity's rebellion from God. Here we are making friends with sin. We just want to be saved from the effects of sin. Again, simple parenting advice to those of you with children. Don't save your children from the misery of their sin. Let them experience it and then use that as an example to show them that this is what sin is. It never will deliver. It will never give you what you want. it always lies to you because it is contrary to the God of truth. So that's where We need to stop and ask, how can we be rescued from it? And that's where we ended last week. And I pointed out that God says in passages like Romans 5-9, and just listen to it, He says, much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him, through Jesus. He says right now we can have this justification, this declaration of righteousness, so that we have the confidence that we are safe. And on the day of judgment, when that wrath is finally unleashed and the dam is opened and it comes flooding down on all of humanity as individuals, we will be safe from it. And so God has not only told us the bad news that we are under his wrath and that we are objects of his wrath, but he has also given us the way of escape through his son, Jesus Christ. And so that brings us to the idea of what is salvation? It's such a beautiful truth, and yet it is also such a complicated truth. And I want you to keep that in mind so that you might embrace the fact that I'm going to touch on this very lightly. For some of you, you'll be frustrated with me. You'll say, man, he could have said so much more. And you're right. And actually, I know I could say much more. And some of you, it will be more than you maybe ever heard in your life, but what I hope it will be is sufficient for all of us to understand, against the backdrop of the blackness of sin, how great the salvation is. Now when we talk about the vocabulary of salvation, it's just as rich and just as varied as it is for sin. So the vocabulary of salvation is beautiful and good and it helps us paint a picture. So I'm going to deal with some of them. I won't be able to get into all of them to try to give you a sense of having in light of missing the mark and trespassing and wandering astray purposefully and being ignorant and ungodly of God and being treacherous and adulterers All of those different things that are describing us by our very nature. Think about now how God pictures us and the work of salvation. One of the most common terms in the Bible, various terms, but one of the most common terms to refer to salvation is the idea of deliverance. Deliverance. What's what's happening there? Well, the picture is this and it's a good word picture you find yourself in a tight constricted place Your back is up against the wall and there is no escape All you have is a reality of doom you have been trapped and you realize you're trapped and you're looking for a way out and there is no way out and then God Suddenly makes what was a narrow and constricted place a wide place He opens it and makes it wide and you might be free Another aspect of that is being snatched away picture yourself maybe again in a in a canyon or something and you're surrounded by wolves and and you have nothing to defend yourself and you fled as long as you can trying to be safe from them and you can't escape them and they chase you down and these massive beasts are hungry and they will kill you and you know they're going to kill you and there is no escape. You are weak, you have no capacity at all to save yourself and then God reaches down and snatches you out of it. That is another way that the term of delivering us speaks of. He snatches you out of these enemies of sin and Satan and death and He puts you into a true place of eternal safety. So for those of you who are Christians, that's your reality. Whether you feel it or not, you are kept in a place of eternal safety because God has delivered you. One of the things sin does to you and I is makes us slaves to it. Bluntly told that we are slaves to sin before Jesus Christ as amber said in her testimony You can't do things good enough To be right with God because even your goodness is stained with sin You're a slave to sin. How does a slave? Become free when you don't even possess the ability to free yourself There is no escape This enslavement is horrid. We are slaves to sin, and we find that it is a terrible taskmaster. But again, the Bible will use various terms speaking of redeeming us, and that's where the redemption terms come in, that you've been redeemed. And all of them are very, very beautiful in their own right. Sometimes we'll talk about redeeming what was lost. When I was young and incredibly foolish, I needed money because I had stolen from my employer. I got caught. I got fired. And I still had to make my bills. And the consequences of my sin were upon me. My dad, in his wisdom, was not rescuing me from those consequences this time. And so I found myself in the back alleys of Nampa, Idaho, in all of my pride, climbing through dumpsters. to find aluminum cans. My father sat on the Chamber of Commerce as president. He was the president of some other organizations very prominent in the town. And he was wise enough to let me be a back alley dumpster diver. And I thank him. I thank him to this day that he was willing to let me do such foolish and humbling things. But he and I were buddies, and we would go hunting. That was something Dad and I did, only us. None of the big boys, my big brothers, they never went hunting with him. My little brother never went hunting with him. Dad was a lover of hunting, and I would go hunting with him. And so on my 15th birthday, he bought me a 20-gauge single-shot shotgun. It was mine. I had a love-hate relationship with it because it was only one shot and I wasn't very good. My dad had three shots and he was really good. But I hope you can understand the memories I still possess of him and I getting up super early on a fall morning and going down the Snake River in Idaho to our place with our saws and our screws and screw gun and we would build our blind. This big boy's making a fort. And then we'd get it all covered up, and then we'd wait for the first time of duck season and the snowfall, and we'd go down with our dogs, and we'd go down the river and get in the blind, and it's cold, and we're calling, and we're jumping up and shooting the ducks, and the dogs are jumping in the Snake River, getting the ducks, and it's just a good day. All of those memories attached to that gun. And me and my foolishness, as I'm pulling out aluminum cans and not getting enough to take care of what I needed, I thought, I'll just pawn my gun. So I went down, didn't know how it worked, and they gave me $15 for this gun, and I never had the ability to buy it back. That is what redemption speaks of. It's something that you pawned that's so precious to you, but you don't possess the ability to buy it back. When you were born, you don't realize it, but you sold your soul, and you have no ability to get back. None. And so your soul is gone. It's dead. And God redeems it. And He gives it to you without the stain of sin anymore. He gives you a new heart. This redemption terminology has a subtle idea of redemption through substitution, which is even more beautiful. Picture yourself on the slave block. enslaved to sin and No escape is possible for you And then somebody else comes and takes your shackles off puts them on himself and stands in your place as the slave You're free. You're completely free. No one can ever put you back on that block ever again. I And that is what is in the idea of redemption, that God, in His mercy, sends His Son to be that substitute to take your enslavement of your sin, and He slaps it on His hands, and He then goes into that and suffers what you were to be suffering from. He has redeemed you. He saved you from the wrath that is yours. In this redemption terminology is another shade of meaning. It's the idea of giving life. Life for you and I is existing. Honestly. And that's how our lives are. We get up. We go to work. We come home. We eat. We watch something on TV. We go to bed. And we do it again and again. We have little things happen. We have to go to the hospital. We have vacations. We have this. We have that. But that's our life. We basically start in the beginning and we end at the end of life doing those things. But God does not describe life as simply existing. The Bible says that life is existing in relation to God. And this is why God's wrath is so present, because mankind in their ungodliness do not factor God into their living. They do not live with a constant awareness that God is their Lord. He is over them and watching them, and we are to be doing all things in light of Him. They just do their life. The Bible says that he's the giver of life, the sustainer of life, but he's also the taker of life. To be separate from God then in any manner, now listen to me, in any manner to be separate from God is death. So if you right now in this room, you are not Saved you are not a Christian then the Bible says you're dead and You can argue all you want, but all you show in your arguing is that you reject God and his truth That's it because God says this We're dead We may have the form of life and We can say, yes, he does live, but you really almost have to put quotes around it because you're not really alive. You are alive in one sense, but eternally separated from the author of life and the giver of life, God, and therefore you're actually dead. And the fullness of that death will be discovered when you stand in judgment and his wrath comes upon you and you are eternally separated from him for all eternity in the lake of fire. That is your end. But God, he says, I bring you life, true life. What kind of life? My life, the life that is intrinsic to God because he does not possess life from outside of himself and it comes in. He is the source of life. And what is the life that he has? It is eternal life. Finally, for this message, at least, there is a term that speaks of being reconciled to God. We are enemies of God. And you say, I don't feel like I'm his enemy. Well, sadly, he feels that way about you. And so it doesn't really matter, does it? Well, how can I be friends? How can I be reconciled? The only way you can be reconciled is through Jesus. The Bible says that we are far off from God. but we are brought near to Him through the blood of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. All of this is framed in the idea of the wrath and the judgment of God. So all of the stuff we've been looking at in Revelation that's depressing and hard and in your face and brutal and bloody, and some people say, if this is who God is, I don't want Him. You don't have another option. He made you. He is creator of all things. He is God alone. And He says, come and worship and I will rescue you from your sin. If you will, go to Romans 5.9. We have just a few passages I want to take us to. But Romans 5.9 makes it very simple and clear. I've already referenced it earlier in the sermon. I want you in your Bibles to look at it. Maybe make some marks in your Bible to draw out some of the things there. I'm going to start in verse 8. He says, but God demonstrate, displays, shows his own love toward us. How? In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That for us could be translated this way. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died in our place. That's substitution. So He's not waiting for you and I to get our act together, clean up our act, get going, go to God. We are in our state of sin and God comes to us. And then he says, because Christ died for us, much more than, he then says, that's not even the end of it, more than that, having now been justified by his blood. So this death of Christ does something to us. It's called being justified. It's a term the Bible uses that's a legal term that says that we are now declared not guilty. More than not guilty, though, he says that we are now declared righteous. We who are ungodly and unrighteous are now declared righteous. But you guys tell me, what is the means through which we get this justification in verse nine? What? By His blood. By His blood. Only through Jesus Christ and His death do you have this justification where God looks at you no longer as that sinner, an object of His anger and wrath, but He looks at you as one who is righteous. And He declares you that. That is ours now. And then he adds to that the future aspect of that salvation, and we shall be saved from the wrath of God, how? Through Him. Who's the Him? Jesus Christ. Jesus and Jesus only and Jesus always will be the means of our salvation. We can have the confidence even now in this life that we are righteous before God, not because we have cleaned up our act, but because of the blood of Christ we have been declared righteous. At the same time, we have the confidence that on that day of great wrath, that is terrible to read about in Revelation, that all we have to do as we look at those words and read about his wrath, is all we have to do is just weep with joy that it's not ours. We will not taste it. And then go tell others that they might be rescued from that as well. This is why the psalmist says in Psalm 32 verse 1, he says this, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. Remember, because those two terms are two of the terms we talked about last week. Whose transgression, that's where you purposely step over the line and go where you don't belong. And sin is simply missing that mark and falling short. So he just uses two of the terms for sin. And he said, you are in a state of being blessed if your sin and transgression is forgiven. That word blessed is wonderful because the word means to be envied. So I'll pick on my brother Tom in the back row there. That I am a wicked sinner and Tom is a wicked sinner and together we have done much wicked sinning together. We've known each other, let's pretend, since childhood. We were the two guys that caused no end of mayhem in our neighborhoods. And we grew up through high school, and we were frequently sent to the principal's office for various reasons that were not good. We were liars from the beginning. We plotted great evil, and we entered into lifehood full of the dreams of what we were going to accomplish, and all of it for our own purposes. And we were wicked men. Even those who are wicked would have called us wicked. And in all of that, someone else came to this man, Tom, and spoke to him of Jesus Christ, and in God's grace, he saved him. And Tom looked and trusted in Jesus alone for his salvation, and Tom was forgiven. as the one who is on the outside, for the one who's trapped in that canyon with the wolves, in the one who's in the hole, tight and constricted with no way of escape, as the object of God's wrath, as the one who is enslaved and standing with no hope on the slave block, I would look at him as he stands in the crowd of free men, and I would look with envy. I want that. I wish I were that. That's what David says in this psalm. He says, you are to be envied if your sin is forgiven. In Isaiah 52, Isaiah 52, open your Bibles right in the middle if you're not sure where Isaiah is at. And you should be in the psalms. Then start going back a ways. and you'll hit Isaiah rather quickly, says the guy who's in Daniel. Isaiah 52, famous passage. I'll read it and then just make a few comments on it. Hear the word of the Lord. Verse 1, awake, awake and clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion. Clothe yourself in your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. For the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you. Shake yourself from the dust. Rise up, O captive Jerusalem. Loose yourself from the chains around your neck. Do you see the salvation terms? Do you see them? Shake yourself, O captive, their slaves. Loose yourself from the chains, O captive daughter of Zion. Why? Why is he saying this? For thus says the Lord, You were sold for nothing, and you will be redeemed without money. And for thus says the Lord God, My people went down at the first, into Egypt to reside there. And then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now, therefore, what do I have here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people have been taken away without cause. Again, the Lord declares, those who rule over them howl, and my name is continually blasphemed all day long. Therefore, my people shall know my name. Therefore, in that day I am the one who is speaking. Here I am." How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, Your God reigns. Listen, your watchmen, lift up their voices. They shout joyfully together, for they will see with their own eyes when the Lord restores Zion. Break forth with joyful shout. Let me start again. Break forth, shout joyfully together, you waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of the nations. Now in this passage, it's used and referred to in the book of Romans in the New Testament about the bringing of the gospel. They quote a portion of this where it says, and how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. And so Paul takes out of this passage a portion to make his point in Romans chapter 10. The result of that is people, when they read Isaiah, they tend to read it only about sin, that the salvation that God is bringing is just sin. He's going to save you from your sin. But it's not. It's much more. I want you to understand that verse 7 is talking about the bringing of good news. But most people don't understand that at the very end of verse 7 is what that salvation and good news is. The peace in verse 7. He says, who announces peace. That term there is the word we know as shalom. If you go into the Middle East, you'll hear variations of that term in Arabic. You'll hear it if it's Hebrew as Shalom, and it means peace. And we tend to think of peace like the cessation of violence and fighting, but that's not it. The peace that is being referred to here is the day when God will bring everything under His rule and reign. Where the rebellion and the sin and all of the stuff that brings about horror is done away with and that's what you're seeing Beloved hear me. That's what you're seeing in Revelation is you're seeing God now rise up and act to bring all things under his feet. to bring all things under his sovereign rule. He is bringing peace. And you say, it doesn't look very peaceful. You've got mountains falling into the sea, people being crushed and killed and afflicted. Yes, they are now experiencing the wrath of God. And when that wrath is finished, the peace will reign. How will it reign? Because it will reign with God. So he goes on and says that the righteous are finally vindicated in verse 7. That means to be acquitted. It's the word we would get for justification. It also uses terms that are very familiar to us. The one who announces peace is the one who evangelizes. That's the word for evangelization. The one who brings good news of happiness is the one who is evangelizing happiness. And he also, of course, in verse 7 uses that term salvation. But what is that salvation? Salvation is salvation from the wrath of God and entering into the reign of God. It is that time of great joy when all of creation is now fixed, made right, and God reigns. So it's not just fixing things, it's ultimately the rule of God where righteousness and hope and truth flow only and always upon all of creation. So salvation in this passage, as well as throughout the Bible, is a lot greater than simply the battle of sin and death. What we do is we tend to look at salvation backwards. We tend to look at something from which we came. We were sinners and now we're saved. So we once were in sin and death and now we're saved. But that's actually not how the Bible will focus. The Bible focuses it on something that we're looking toward. The Bible says that when we are saved, there is an aspect that we are saved, but the salvation is something in the future and we are yearning for it. So what I want to try to train this church to do is to stop looking backward as much as to look forward. Because if you look backward, you think you're all done. And then you get yourself in trouble, and you get entangled in this world. But when you understand that the salvation that you have is something yet future, and that you are to look forward to it, then you prepare your hearts to receive it. Because there is a day that your Savior is coming, and the Bible says that we are to purify ourselves in light of that. But just listen, I'm going to read for you some passages, and note the verb tense. In Ephesians 2.8, he says, for by grace you have been saved, looking backward. You have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. But then in 1 Corinthians 1.18, he says, for the word of the cross is to those who are perishing, foolishness. But now notice what he says, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. When was the last time you referred yourself to being in the state of being saved? Doesn't that change your thinking a little bit when you're not saying, I am saved, but you're also saying, I'm being saved? That there's this consistent, active work of God in my life to save me? In 1 Corinthians 3, he says, if any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be in the future saved. So we have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved. And then in Ephesians 4.30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. You say, well, I thought I was redeemed. You are redeemed, but you're also waiting for the day of full redemption. So when we talk about the wrath of God, it is something that God will save us from. Has the wrath of God come? Yes or no? This is an easy question for those of you. Yes or no? No. The wrath of God is revealed We get glimmers of it, but the wrath of God is not coming. It is yet future. And so when we talk about being saved from God's wrath, that also is yet future. You are to look to that day with hope and anticipation. Now, in the last few minutes of this time, I want to transition. The challenge The challenge in all this is that we live surrounded by a culture that thinks anything and everything has value and that nothing is absolute. And so we begin to think that we have a right to be offended. One of the weird things that's happened over the last five, ten years is everyone is offended over everything. And you're not allowed to speak against that. to speak against it because it's offensive or someone's offended by it is therefore wrong. And what happens is it's frustrating for me as a pastor and as a father and as a husband to live in that culture and yet on another level it excites me because the Bible has said forever that the cross of Jesus Christ is an offense. And what I'm thankful for, in a weird and strange way, is that all of you who say you're a Christian, we're going to find out if you are. Because you are rapidly becoming a person who will be a constant offense to everyone if you believe the gospel. That there is but one way of salvation, And yes, in spite of the fact that our military will let transgenders enlist in the first of the year, and in spite of the fact that the LGBT now has added seven more letters that I don't even know what's going on, and before we get all snooty about that, Our lies continue to pour forth from our mouth, we continue to cheat one another, we continue to play games where we steal money from one another, and we do not pay the taxes that we ought to pay, that the scriptures command us as Christians to do, as we rebel against the governing authorities that God has set above us and over us. All of these things are the cause of God's wrath upon us. As all of those happen, there will be a cleansing of the church because you will be forced to draw the line. You cannot be a nice, sweet, quiet Christian, not as a true Christian. You will have to say that there is but one way of salvation, and you will offend. Think about what we have been learning in this church, and think about how offensive it is to our culture. We are so easily offended over God being offended. Well, I just don't like the fact that God says this about these people. Too bad. I mean, I just know what I would say, and you guys know what I would say. Who asked you? Well, it's just offensive to me. Well, you're offensive to God, so let's just start from there. Instead of you being offended about God, let's talk about the fact that you have offended your Maker. And let's talk about it. Let's deal with it. Think about how God's expressions of what He loves and hates can be very offensive. God says that He loves the humble heart. He loves lips that speak truth. that God loves true justice and He hates lips that lie. He hates them. He hates impurity. Not just immorality, but impurity and sensuality. He hates people who divide one another. You know what? When you start picking through the Bible and seeing what God loves and what He hates, It oftentimes will surprise us or offend us, but it doesn't change it. What we learn in every page of the Bible, most certainly in Revelation, is how amazed actually we ought to be of our salvation. Because we are people, even as a Christian, who spend more time doing things offensive to God because we are not serious about what it looks like to walk as Christians. I believe many of us, and I say this as your pastor, and I say this with no meanness. I just say it because it's on my heart. I believe many of us have a long, long way to go before we grasp what holy means and what grace truly is. My prayer is that God would grant us the capacity to see them both and to love them and to model them and to live them. Parents, somehow you have to get this in your mind. God has made you to be the model for that. You are the persons who show your children what they are to love and hate. If they love and hate things that they ought not, why are you not showing them how to hate what should be hated and love what should be loved. From the earliest of their days, set it in your heart to model what God models, to be that image and that point person that shows your children this way. You are the persons who are showing them what faith looks like and feels like. You are the persons who show them why following Jesus is worth anything and everything. That's your job. That's your job when the baby comes out. And it's to be your job for the next 18 to 20 years until they leave. It is your job to show them that God hates these things and therefore I hate them. And that God loves these things and I love them. that this is what faith looks like in all of its messiness. And this is what it looks like to follow Jesus no matter what. Finally, go to James 1. Never, never forget the gospel and the effects of the gospel. The gospel we have said for an hour now. We heard it in the baptism. We sing about the gospel in all of our songs. I have talked about the gospel. The gospel, the good news, is that God has resolved the issue of sin and His wrath through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When you place your faith in Christ alone, that He has accomplished what you cannot with regard to your sin, that your hope is in Him alone, and that you will follow Him as your Lord and Savior, that He says that calls you and makes you a Christian, that brings to you forgiveness. The good news is that God has accomplished what you cannot. You've got to know that and constantly preach that. But you also have to always remember that the gospel does not live in a vacuum. The gospel has natural effects attached to it. They are distinct, but they are never to be separated. You have to make a distinction between the gospel and the effects, but you can never separate them. When you separate them, you're in hell. You're an unbeliever. They must be kept together. So in James, in verse 21, he says this, Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness and humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls." The word is the gospel, and he says, we are to be cleansing ourself and receiving that word, because it is the only way that our souls will be saved. He's describing the effects of the gospel. You say, I believe the gospel, I have it implanted in my soul. Then he would say, well, then begin to cleanse yourself of these wicked things that need to be put off, and that will be the rest of your life. He goes on, but prove yourselves to be doers of the word, not merely hearers who lie to themselves. Why? For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror, for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. This is the man or woman who says, I believe in Jesus, I want Jesus, I believe in the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, and then goes back home and continues on in the same way that they always have. That is a deluded hearer who is not doing. But the one who intently looks at the perfect law, the law of liberty, abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer. This man shall be blessed in what he does. If any man thinks anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep one unstained by the world. He says, look, it's not hard to see the effects of the gospel. I can tell you this. How many times in my life as a pastor, I have sat with family members, friends, and they're telling me about somebody in their circle of friends or family. And they're just kind of frustrated with the person. And I'll say to them, are they a Christian? And this is their face. I'm like, so I always say, OK, if I had a gun to your head and I said, You've got to call it. No ifs, ands, or buts. You've got to call it. Are they a Christian or not? Almost always, eventually, they'll say no. See, the fact that you or I are reluctant to say yes or no is because we have separated the gospel and its effects. James would look at the person and say, are they living a life of justice? Are they caring for the needy? Are they keeping themselves unstained from the world? No, no, no. then they're not a Christian. Wait, whoa, that's a little harsh. Whoa, whoa. No, he's like, it's not harsh. The only thing that's harsh is when they stand before God and try to call themselves a Christian and he casts them into hell. There is no way, beloved, that you can take the gospel and separate it from the effects of the gospel. You and I love to talk about being saved from the wrath of God, but the question that is more pressing is, have you been saved from the wrath of God? Do you believe the gospel? Have you become one who is unstained now and are in the process of turning aside and putting away all filthiness and lies? Or do you play that game while all the while claiming Christ? In chapter 2, he goes on more bluntly in chapter 2 verse 14, what use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but he has no works? And the question is a rhetorical one. Can that faith save him? And the answer is no. If a brother or sister is without clothing in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warned, and be filled, here's how we will say it. You post it on Facebook, hey, this is what happened, boom, boom, boom, boom. I could really use your prayer. And somebody's like, praying, and then goes back to the TV show. Right? Nobody prayed, but they did it, or they do what really annoys me is the emoticons. Oh, that helps my soul. We're guilty of this. A brother or sister without clothing in need of food, and we say, go in peace, be warned, and be filled. I'll pray for you. But you don't give them what is necessary for the body. What use is it? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead. It's not weak, it's just dead. Because it's by itself. Someone says, well, you have faith, I have works. Show me your faith without the works, I will show you my faith by my works. His point is very simple. I could go to each one of you and say, are you a Christian? And you could say yes or no. How am I to know that you're a Christian? How do I know my brother? Bruce is a Christian. I know. I know how I know. And it has nothing to do with his testimony, what he says. I know what he says. He says the right words. You know why I know he's a Christian? Because he models it in his life. I've watched it for years be modeled. You want to know why I have no doubt about the salvation of Pam and Mort? Because I have known them for over 20 years, sitting in the exact same pew for 20 years. And I have watched them grow in grace and godliness. There is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that they love Jesus and that they have been saved from his wrath. So when we talk about the wrath of God, it's frightening. When we talk about the salvation of God, it's wonderful. But it only is wonderful if you have it. In Matthew 7, one last passage, and then we'll wrap it all up. In Matthew 7, it's a passage I go to all the time. You guys mostly should have this almost memorized by now. Such a terrifying passage. Jesus says these words Many will say to me on that day. What day is that? It's the day of judgment Has the day of judgment happened? Yes or no? No When did Jesus say this approximately how many years ago? about 2,000 years so he's saying this to people 2,000 years ago. They're all dead and And some of them, this is true for them, and they've now been in hell for 2,000 years waiting for the Day of Judgment. So keep that in your mind. Many, not a couple, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles? Notice he does not debate with them if they did or did not do that. Notice that these are people who did it in the name of Jesus Christ. But what he instead says, and I will declare to them, I never once in a time knew you. depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." I was talking to Grayson about this yesterday. The height of deception of sin is this, that you can think you're saved, die, find yourself in hell, And now 2,000 years have gone by and you're still sitting in hell thinking God made a mistake. That's how powerful sin is and how deceptive it is that I am sitting in hell for 2,000 years thinking God made a mistake and I'm thinking in my mind, as soon as the day of judgment comes, as soon as the day comes, we'll get this fixed. And that day comes. And he raises you from the dead to stand for the final judgment. And you're there and you look at the Lord on his throne and you say, look, we got to talk. I did this. I did this. I did this. I did it in your name. And he looks at you with the coldness of pure justice, and he says, I never knew you. I don't know who you are. But one thing I do know is you're a lawbreaker. And he cast you into the lake of fire for all eternity. So if you think that I'm beating to death a horse that's dead and should let it go, I believe the Bible. I'm a fool that way. And I keep on looking at that word many and it scares me like nobody's business. If you are one of those plain with the name of Christ and not showing the effects of that gospel, you need to rethink who is your Lord. You need to rethink what it is to follow Jesus Christ. You don't get the cheap thrill of saying, I'm safe, but then contradict that faith without the accompanying works. Listen, beloved, it's very simple. You and I are sinners. We have no standing with God. He's our creator. God is holy, and He will not ignore sin. So mom and dads don't ignore sin either. Husbands and wives don't ignore sin. He won't ignore it. He has to be faithful to who He is, and the eternal wrath is how He will deal with the sinner. And so the only answer that you have is to flee from that wrath, and the only way you can do that is to flee to his son. Because it is Jesus who took sin upon his perfect self and he died because of it. It was Jesus who drank the fullness of God's wrath in himself. It was Jesus who died the death that belongs to us. And it was Jesus who destroyed death through his resurrection. It is Jesus from the beginning to the end that is the hope of your salvation. And so I ask all of you Consider that and hear Christ's words once again. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let's pray.