God's Wrath Satisfied — David Downs

God's Wrath and the Seriousness of Sin

Matthew 27. We're looking at verses 45 -56. And the topic of the sermon deals with God's wrath being satisfied. One thing I've discovered is that people don't take their sins seriously. They don't take the cross seriously because they don't take their sin seriously.

And because they don't take their sin seriously, they don't take the wrath of God seriously. Many, many people, the majority of people that I speak with will all proclaim their own goodness. They will all declare, I am a good person.

Just ask someone, do you think of yourself as a good person? Just about 100 There may be some that don't, but just about 100 of the ones that we've asked that question will say, yeah, I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person.

And as a result, because they don't take their sin seriously, they don't take the wrath of God seriously. I've even had people tell me, well, what kind of church is it? Is it a church that's going to make me feel good?

Or is it one of those hellfire, fire and brimstone, wrath of God type churches? And I say, we're a Bible church. So when we come to the wrath of God, we preach the wrath of God. When we come to the love of God, we preach the love of God.

And in the cross, you have the greatest display of both the wrath of God and the love of God. You see, the love of God will be meaningless to you unless you understand the wrath of God. And the wrath of God will be offensive to you until you understand the wickedness of your sin.

You'll never grasp the meaning of the cross until you come face to face with the depth of your depravity. You have to acknowledge and understand and confess that you are a wicked, hellbound, iniquitous sinner.

Sin as the Backdrop for Understanding the Cross

I want you to see that the wrath of God is a very biblical teaching, because the wrath of God... Think of it this way. If you have a diamond and you throw it in the snow, it's hard to find, isn't it? But if you took a diamond and rolled out a big pad of black, black, black velvet and put that diamond there, it would be easy to find, wouldn't it?

Because of the contrast. The cross is the diamond of God. And your sin is the black velvet. Your sin has to be understood clearly, or you will not understand the cross clearly. Look back in Matthew 3.

Matthew 3. I just want to do a quick survey of this issue of the wrath of God. And John the Baptist is preaching. And look down at v. 7. John the Baptist says in v. 7, Matthew 3 .7, "...but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?".

The Bible speaks very clearly about the wrath of God to come. Flip over to the book of John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. John 3 as well. John 3. And many people know John 3 .16 about the love of God and God demonstrating His love toward us.

But let's read a little bit further the same sermon in John 3. But now, drop down to v. 36. "...He who believes in the Son...". John 3 .36 "...He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.". Now, hold on before we go any further.

What it means to believe in the Son is not simply to give mental assent to a list of facts. The demons have that kind of belief. Belief in the Word of God is a commitment to Christ. Yes, it is believing facts.

The Gospel is a factual, historical story. The Bible gives an historical record, not a mythological story. The Bible is a historical, accurate, true record. And Christ is God in the flesh. He was born of the Virgin Mary.

He lived a sinless life. He worked real, actual miracles. He died on the cross in our place and actually, really, literally rose from the dead. But those facts will not save you unless you entrust yourself to Christ.

The word believe means faith and trust. It is a commitment of your life to Christ. But watch what he says. Let's see in verse 36 again. He who believes in trust, commits himself to the Son, has right now as a present possession everlasting life.

If you are born again, you have right now, you possess everlasting life. We're not one day hoping to earn everlasting life. You have it as a present possession. But watch what he says. And he who does not believe, those who have not repented and trusted Christ as their Savior, those who have not put their faith in Christ, believed in Him, trusted Him alone as their Savior.

And the way you can answer that is just ask yourself this question. Why should God let you into heaven? If the answer to that is, well, I'm a pretty good person, then your faith is in yourself. But if you understand it is because of the death of Christ and the death of Christ alone, then your faith is in Christ.

And you can only get to heaven by faith in Christ alone. The second question to ask yourself is this, has my life been one following Him? Am I a follower of Christ? The following Christ proves the reality of the faith in Christ.

When you have genuine faith, you will follow. If you're not following Christ, you do not have genuine faith. Let me give you an example. I'm a fireman. I knock on your door. I say, your house is on fire.

I was driving by in the truck and there are flames and smoke shooting out of the top of your roof. And you were sleeping on your couch and you open the door irritated that I've woken you up. And you say, ok, ok, I believe you.

You click, lock, and you go back to sleep. Do you really believe? Not at all. You can tell the fireman you believe, but your actions prove whether you really believe. And just ask yourself, you might say, well, I've been around church for all of my life.

Have you been following Christ all of your life? If you've not been following Christ, then your faith is a demonic false faith. It is nothing more than believing a list of facts. V. 36 and John 3 again, He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.

He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on you. Do you see how important this is? Right now, if you are not a follower of Christ, committed to Him, trusting Him alone as your Savior, you're not waiting for the wrath of God.

The wrath of God is already labeled on your back. You already have a big sticker that says the wrath of God abides on you right now. The wrath of God must be taken seriously. But people don't take the wrath of God seriously because they don't take their sins seriously.

The Universal Guilt of Sin

They just don't believe they're that bad. I don't care what he says when he preaches. I just don't think I'm that bad. The problem is you've changed the message to what I say when I preach. What you should say is, I don't care what Almighty God says.

I don't think I'm that bad. You are that bad, and you are ten thousand times worse than you even have the slightest clue that you are. When you sit down and ponder the depths and wickedness of the worst sinner in history, you are not scratching the surface of your own wickedness.

You see, that's why God is furious at sinners. The wrath of God currently abides on you if you have not been born again. Look over in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. Romans 5. Romans 5. And look with me at verse 9.

Romans 5 .9. Well, go back to verse 8 because it gives you the picture of the love of God and the wrath of God. 5 .8 God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still what? This is the point.

This is the sticking point. Do you see? This is where you just can't get past this. You think, well, it was nice for Christ to die on the cross, and I've made a few boo-boos. And there are wicked, godless preachers that will say you're nothing but a little booger head.

But they will not declare you a wicked sinner, lawbreaker, full of iniquity. They won't declare that. That is what God says about you. That's what God says about me. Outside of Jesus Christ, that is what God says about every man, every woman, and every child in all of human history.

When Adam and Eve sinned, the Bible says that sin was passed on to all of Adam's descendants. Is there anyone who's not a descendant of Adam in here? Maybe if you're from Mars or something. But the reality is we are all descendants of Adam.

And look what he says in verse 8. God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, in the act of nailing the nails into His hands, He is saying, Father, forgive them! Father, forgive them!

As the spear rams up in His ribcage, while we are in the act of sinning, He is saying, Father, forgive them! Do you see how important this is that we come face to face with our sin? But watch what he says in verse 8.

God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for who? Sinners! He didn't die for self-righteous people. He didn't die for you because you think you're a good person.

Jesus said, I didn't come for the self-righteous. I came to call sinners to repentance. If you stood before the Lord today and said, I'm just not that bad, I don't understand, Pastor Dave. I mean, yeah, some cannibal, I can understand that.

He deserves it. Hitler absolutely deserves it. Saddam Hussein, no question about it. But I'm not that bad. I mean, I've got friends, and I'm better than my friends. I mean, I don't sleep around very much.

Or maybe you never. Maybe you've kept yourself as a virgin. And you think to yourself, well, I'm just not that bad. I don't understand. Then you had better cry out to God that God would give you the sight to see your predicament.

The Necessity of Spiritual Rescue

Let me give you an example. This is one I'm witnessing all the time. You go to the beach and you have one of those blow-up rafts. And it's early in the day, nice cool breeze. And the waves are nice. And you're just laying out on the water on your raft.

And you drift off to sleep. Little seagulls in the background. And pretty soon, you hear a honk like a boat horn. And you wake up and think, what's going on? And you cannot see land. And you realize, I've slept all day.

And the sun is beginning to go down over the horizon. And there's no land to be seen anywhere. And you realize your little raft that was nice and tight when you laid down on it is now starting to bow up and there's little bubbles leaking out the side of it.

And then you look around and you see fins in the water. And you realize that that band-aid you put on this morning has come off and there's blood going into the water. Are you starting to feel worried about your situation?

And you see a boat going by. And you go down in between the waves and up and down. What are you going to do? Maybe you can just barely see it. You are going to start screaming for your life. Save me! Save me!

And every time the wave goes up, you're going to be screaming more and then it goes back down. Screaming more and it goes back down. And if that guy comes to you and says, what are you doing out here?

You have been caught in the current. You're over 100 miles out to sea away from land. Don't you realize you're in shark-infested water? And I can see blood in the water all around your leg. What are you sitting on?

You're sitting on a little dinghy, a little rubber ducky that's leaking air. You would not say to him, well, I'm not that bad. You just don't understand. I mean, I'm a good swimmer. And I bet you I could hold my hand over my leg.

No, you wouldn't even think that way. Like I had the Coast Guard rescue boat said, get in the boat, man! And throws you the ring or pulls up alongside you and grabs you by your shirt collar and drags you up in the boat.

That is what we've got to see. That's what this is all about. Most people who go to church think of themselves just a few feet from shore. My raft is fine and I'm enjoying it. And someone on shore says to you, oh, don't you want to be a part of our rescue boat team?

And you're like, no, I'm pretty good. I'm fine. You see, we're not seeing our predicament. We just don't see how absolutely deadly it is. Can you imagine a disease sweeps through Orlando and it is a disease that is 100 fatal?

And I walk up to your door and you don't know about the disease. And I say, here, quick, drink this. And you say, no, what do you mean drink? Drink what? I don't want to drink anything. Oh, it's medicine.

Well, in that case, I certainly don't want to drink it. You see, if you're feeling fine you're not going to take the medicine. And I come along and want to give you medicine. You don't understand you have a disease.

You're not going to take the medicine. But if I say to you, wait a second. There is a rare tropical disease that has swept through Orlando. Everybody in Orlando has it. And there are 10 clear warning signs, 10 clear symptoms that you have this disease.

And out in front, we've got the medical van. Come here, let me show you. We sit you down. Yep, you've got the sweats. You've got the this. You've got the next thing, next thing, next thing. All 10 symptoms.

Now, are you interested in this medicine? You see, that's the problem. People don't understand they have a rare tropical disease called sin. And it is 100 fatal. And the only cure is the blood of Jesus Christ.

Your good works will not remove your sin. Your self-effort will not remove the fact that you have this disease called sin. The only cure for your sin disease is Jesus Christ. And that's what it says in Romans 5.

Verse 9, Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from what? Wrath. Well, why do we need to be saved from wrath? Because God is angry at the wicked every day. God's wrath is real.

And because God's wrath is real, that makes the cross so much more beautiful. So much more incredibly meaningful. And it makes us understand that our sin was so terrible that it required the Father to send His own Son.

It required God Almighty to take on human form, be born the Virgin, and die in our place as the only remedy. If there was some other way to get rid of our sin. If God could have sat in heaven and said, well, yeah, there are a bunch of little booger heads.

You know, they just mess up. You know, they made a faux pas. They've made some mistakes. Maybe what they need is some motivational speaking. Someone will tell them that they've got meaning in life and purpose in life.

We'll do a 40-day study on purpose. And how things can be purposeful. No, no, no, that's not God's remedy. God's remedy is that we are wicked sinners, hopeless sinners, lost sinners, and the only remedy is the substitutionary atonement of the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5 and the Wrath of God Against Disobedience

God in the flesh bearing my sin in my place and feeling the full force of the wrath of God. That's the only way that we can be saved. Turn to Ephesians with me. Ephesians 5. I'm just introducing the subject because I want you to see how important the wrath of God is so that you'll understand how important the cross is.

The sin of man deserves the wrath of God. And the wrath of God requires the cross of Christ. And the cross of Christ requires that you respond to that cross in repentance and faith. But in Ephesians 5, look at verse 3.

Fornication. That's all sex outside of marriage. Of every sort. Even the Bill Clinton kind. All uncleanness. Sexual immorality is dirty. It is unclean. It is filthiness. Or covetousness. Watching all the commercials.

Oh, I wish I had that. I wish I had this other thing. Oh, I've got to get that new brand of sneakers. Oh, I just can't be happy without that new brand of car. And I need my hair cut this way. And I need this, that, and the next thing.

Covetousness. Always wanting. Let it not even be named among you as is fitting for saints. By the way, saints is saved people. It's not a category of saved people as though you somehow did super-duper good things and now you're above the rest of Christians and you're in this category called a saint.

The Bible says you get saved and you are a saint. One old southern preacher said, you're either a saint or you ain't. Let it not even be named. Verse 4, neither filthiness nor foolish talking or coarse jesting comedy channel.

Right? What's the comedy thing on cable? That they're just one foul joke after another, after another, after another? Which are not fitting, but instead giving of thanks for this you know. Of this you can be certain.

Mark it down. For of this you can be certain that no fornicator, no unclean person, no covetous man, which is simply idolatry. It's putting all that junk, all the things of the world. I've got to have newer and bigger and shinier and I'll not be satisfied without another shopping spree.

He says no one who has that mindset or anything like that has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Then he warns you again in verse 6. Let no one deceive you. Stop letting people, stop letting false teachers deceive you with empty words.

When someone gets up and says, all you need to do is bow your knee, cross yourself, take the supper, and man, you're in. What are you worried about? They are a deceiver. Anyone who says just walk down front and pray a prayer, Lord, come into my heart.

And then you go right back to your fornication. Right back to going to the clubs. Right back to drinking. Right back to sleeping around and cussing and apathy and lukewarmness and no interest in the Bible.

No interest in prayer. No interest in evangelism. No interest in fellowship. The Bible says you can be guaranteed, you are certain. Just mark it down. You have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words. It is because of these things, the sins, the wickedness of man's heart, that what? The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. If you're not obeying God consistently and fervently, you are a son of disobedience.

We were all sons of disobedience before we came to Christ. The Bible says in Ephesians 3 and 2, that's how we lived. We were caught up in the current of this world. It's like you're at the beach in a rip current.

You just lift your feet and it rips you out in a different direction than you want to go. All mankind has devoted himself to wickedness. The Bible says in Genesis that the thoughts of your heart are only evil continually.

Are only evil continually. And I know you are arguing with God about that phrase. Stop arguing with God. Just sit down and write out your thoughts for a half an hour. Write out the thing like, what do I have to write this out for?

Okay, that's evil. Right? And just write out your thoughts. And just lay them on paper. Oh, God! What is wrong with me? Even the good things you may have done are tainted with wickedness. I'll use the example.

Can you imagine that a young man is as bright as bright as expecting and she's right near delivery day. And he's out working in the yard in the manure. He's spreading the manure. He's got his eyes on down and his hands and knees and he's digging in the dirt and planting things and shoveling things.

And she's like, honey, I'm due, I'm due, I'm rich! I mean, we'd better go now! And he jumps in the car, drives to the hospital, walks in and says, I would like to help with delivering the baby. Well, that's a good thing, but it's a bad thing.

You see? He's going to be utterly useless in delivering the baby until he gets cleansed. You can't walk in dripping with manure and think you're going to go into a sterile surgery room and help deliver the baby.

And yet, people think they are dripping, they are stinking, their righteousness is as filthy rags. Their good works are a stench in the nostrils of God. They think when they die, they're going to stand before God dripping in their sin, stench covered with filth, and they're going to just walk right into heaven.

God says, no, no, no, this is a sterile environment. If God allows one sin into heaven, we will turn heaven into hell. Let me give you an example of that. Let's say that there was some island in the South Pacific.

And maybe because of the orbit of the satellites that had never been discovered and never been charted. They were just maybe in a little blank spot, you know? And you're on an airplane. You get blown off course.

And your airplane crashes. And you swim up on shore. And let's say the plane has 400 passengers and 50 of you survive. And on this beautiful tropical island with every kind of fruit that you can find, bananas and mangoes and pineapples and just everything.

I mean, this is just an island paradise. The 50 of you are there. You know what will happen in 100 years or less? You will turn that island into Hawaii. Organized crime, prostitution, gambling, every kind of covetousness, every kind of wickedness.

And the proof of that is look at America. Here we come. The pilgrims come to escape the persecution. The Puritans come over here. But that's not all. And then the children. And then the children. And we have now turned America in a couple of centuries into the most wicked nation in this world.

We have been incredibly blessed by God. Mountains and prairies and oceans of grain. The beautiful seas on all of our borders. And here we are living in absolute depravity. Just turn on the television.

Go and turn on the movies. Turn on your Internet. Once your Internet is saturated with not just 10 or 20 porno sites, but millions. Do you see how horrifying this is? And you say, I'm not that bad. You're worse than you realize.

You're 100 times worse than you realize. You are 100 ,000 times worse than you have in your worst nightmare. Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest theologians in American history, said, inside the hearts of unregenerate men, hellish desires rule.

They reign. That's what's inside all of us. We absolutely, desperately need the cross of Jesus Christ, because God Almighty is angry with the wicked every day. We could go on and on about the wrath of God, but let's go back to Matthew 27.

God's Wrath Displayed in the Darkness of the Cross

We find that God's wrath on your notes, number one, God's wrath against sin is displayed in the cross. You say, God is not... I've heard guys on the radio say this. I've heard guys in conferences and seminars say, oh, no, no, since the cross, God's not mad at anybody.

Well, then why do we have the book of Revelation, which is written after the cross, and you have the constant threat of the wrath of the Lamb? Why did we just read in the book of Ephesians, which is written 30-some years after the cross, and Paul the Apostle says, do not be deceived with empty words.

It is because of these sins that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. This is the Bible. And your wrestling match in your mind right now is not with me. You might say, oh, I can't believe that guy.

I can't believe him talking about this. Why did I waste my Sunday morning? I could have gone and listened to Joel Osteen. You could have. But in God's grace, He brought you here. This is the grace of God because you are hearing the Word of God.

And with your Bible open in your hand, it says in v. 45, Now, from the sixth hour until the ninth hour. The sixth hour in Jewish time was 12 noon. The ninth hour was 3 in the afternoon. So for three solid hours at high noon, there was darkness over all the land.

Some of you will say, well, that was just a coincidental eclipse. I'm not a science major, but let me ask you this. Have you ever heard of an eclipse lasting three hours? On top of that, we know that the Passover was the time where the moon was full.

You can't have an eclipse where the moon and the sun are in different locations and the moon is a full moon. This is not an eclipse. This is a putting out of the sun. It is God putting His hand over the nightlight, if you will, and just saying, alright, for now, I want to display my wrath.

We also know from the writings of Origen and Tertullian that this event was recorded in the annals of pagan writers in other countries. So, was it just a little local blizzard or a sandstorm that just sort of, oh, I can't see anything?

No, not at all. This is Almighty God. I believe that this was not just a local darkness in Jerusalem. It was not a local darkness in Israel. It was not even a local darkness in the world. I believe God put His hand over the sun and this was a cosmic darkness.

This was darkness throughout the universe. For three solid hours, God put the light out and what we find in the Word of God is every time there is darkness in a situation like this, it is a display, it is a symbolic demonstration of the wrath of God, of the judgment of God.

We saw that back in Exodus. We won't take the time to look there, but you'll remember there was darkness in Egypt and that was a plague. It was a judgment of God upon an idolatrous nation. You see, people have a problem thinking that God still deals with nations other than Israel.

They don't have a problem reading the New Testament and God did this with Israel and that with Israel and the next thing with Israel, but they forget about Egypt, which was not Israel. And God judged Egypt.

They forget about Nineveh, that God judged Nineveh. First, He sent a prophet to them and there was a repentance, but 100 years later, God judged that pagan nation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

That our nation is turned away from God. We've turned our back on God. Families are disintegrating at an alarming rate. Illegitimate children are being born more frequently than legitimate ones. They had a little baby having to do with that.

But it's not even a shame anymore. People are not even ashamed of their fornication and their sin. The Bible says, there was darkness over all the land. It is as though God is saying while Christ is on the cross and all of our sin is being heaped upon the Son of God.

All of our sin is being heaped upon the Son of God that God is saying, look, I want everybody to understand this is my wrath being revealed against man's sin. We find in verse 46 about the ninth hour.

That's at three o 'clock in the afternoon. After three solid hours of almost tangible darkness, we find Jesus cries with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Christ Forsaken While Bearing Sin

We find God's wrath seen in the darkness and now we see God's wrath displayed in forsaking His own Son. This is a mystery that Martin Luther said that he took quite a significant amount of time away. He pulled himself away and immersed himself in this mystery.

How can there be a forsaking of the Son of God by the Father? And he said after all of that study and thinking he was more confused than when he began. And this is one of those divine mysteries. We don't really understand how God the Father and God the Son can somehow, there can be a forsaking there.

Because we know that within the Godhead, there can never be a separation. So it's a mystery. We don't understand fully, but we do know that look over in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians in chapter five. 2 Corinthians chapter five.

He says in verse 20, now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. Do you understand that's what God's doing right now? Do you understand that God is using my throat and tongue to plead with you?

That He's trying to show you that you are a sinner and you are such a sinner that you deserve the wrath of God. And the wrath of God is so intense that the only thing that will satisfy the wrath of God is the cross of Christ.

And the cross of Christ being the only solution, being the only remedy to our sin, you must respond to that. You cannot just have it on your building or hanging around your neck or dangling from your ear and just say, oh yeah, I believe in the cross.

Yeah, let's get on to other things. What time's the party tonight? You see, that's not responding to the cross. And God is trying to help you see that. But He says, God is pleading through us. And as a result, we beg you, we implore you, we plead with you in Christ's behalf as His representative, as His preacher.

And that's where you've got to determine, am I truly a preacher of the Word of God? That's why you gotta have the Bible in your hand. Because on judgment day, you can't say, well, I sat and listened to this guy and I heard he was a false teacher.

But after all, I mean, I just trusted him. God's given you a Bible in your language. Read it, study it. Be a Berean, be diligent about this. And that's why it's such a horrifying crime for preachers in our world today to get up and hardly ever open the Word of God, hardly ever do nothing more than a little bit of hopscotch preaching.

They're not deeply digging into the text. That's a crime against God. It's blinding the eyes of the congregation. And some, it was even illegal into the 50s to own a Bible. They slaughtered Christians during the Inquisition for having a Bible.

God is saying, He's pleading with you through us. In Christ's behalf. That's why these guys who preach, they're monotonous. I don't understand some guys who just get up and mumble a few interesting, not even interesting, a few thoughts about stuff.

There's no passion. There's no fire. There's no pleading with people for their soul. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke with a loud voice. The Bible says, be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to God. And the reconciliation is only through Christ.

The reconciliation is only when you come in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. It is only when you turn from your sin, acknowledging everything the Bible says about your life that is out of line with His Word.

And saying, Almighty God, I'm not going to argue with you anymore. Your law is holy and righteous and good. I believe it and it condemns me. And when the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God is doing His work, He's building that shame in your heart.

He's building that understanding of your corruption. It's called conviction. And as the Spirit of God pierces, He takes the sword of the Spirit and He unsheathes that sword of the Spirit and begins to slice and hack and cut you open and lay you bare and naked before God.

Then you might cry out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! You can't pray that prayer if you're self-righteous. You can't say, God, be merciful to me, I'm so good. God, be merciful, reward me, I'm such a good person.

You have to say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. It says in verse 21, for He has made Him, this 2 Corinthians 5, 21, He has made Him who knew no sin. Jesus Christ had never, ever sinned. He was the spotless, sinless Lamb of God.

What an incredible thought. To be sin for us. Underline that phrase. To be sin in our place. It's as though He took your rap sheet and said, I will pay your penalty for your crimes and you can have my perfect, pure righteousness, my sinlessness ascribed to you.

And that exchange, that great exchange of our unrighteousness and receiving His righteousness is a free gift that comes when you repent and believe the Gospel. But that's why the Lord God Almighty, the Father turned His back on His Son because for those three hours on the cross, His Son was bearing our sin in our place.

I was trying to think how to illustrate this. And I thought, can you imagine, let's say some guy was wearing a football jersey and he comes over to your house and your beloved Son, this guy comes to your house, steals everything in your house, slaughters your children, rapes and slaughters your wife.

And as he did that, the blood is splattering on his jersey, on his football jersey. And then someone else said, I will wear that jersey in his place. The sight of that jersey would be so offensive to you.

The sight of that would be horrifying. Your wrath would be against that. And that's what the Lord Jesus did. He took our jersey of sin and went to the cross in our place. In our place, do you see? And so God turned His back on His Son.