God's Wrath on Display Today

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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 1.
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Last week, we began a short series on a very unpopular subject within the modern church.
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We are in a series on the wrath of God.
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And what spawned at least the beginning of this series was when I had learned that a large denomination within mainstream Christianity had decided not to use a very popular modern hymn in their hymnal because of a line which dealt with the wrath of God.
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The PCUSA, the Presbyterian Church of the USA, has decided not to use the song In Christ Alone because it says, Till on that cross where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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They felt that that line was not something that they wanted to use because it referenced the satisfaction of the wrath of God.
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They preferred to use, Till on that cross when Jesus died, the love of God was magnified.
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That was what they wanted to change it to.
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So as to remove the reference to the satisfaction of the wrath of God.
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And this led me to ask the question last week, do we still believe in the wrath of God? Or have we become, as a church, as a body, have we become so far away from the Scripture? Have we come so far away from the Word that we have emasculated God so much that we have removed His wrath? Well, certainly, as an individual church, we have not.
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But we see this in the mainline Christianity throughout our nation.
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There is a major stepping away from the truth about God's wrath.
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So this has led me to want to preach on this subject.
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And as I said last week, we began answering the question, do we believe in the wrath of God? We talked about last week how God's wrath was revealed to us in the Old Testament.
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And we looked at various places in the Old Testament wherein God's wrath was shown to us.
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And we also looked in the New Testament at God's wrath being demonstrated to us there.
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Well, today, we're going to ask the question, how is God's wrath revealed today? How is God's wrath being revealed today? And we're going to see the answer to that question as we study.
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But let's stand to read the Word.
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Romans chapter 1 and verse 18.
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It says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.
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We thank You for this opportunity to study the Word together.
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I pray as I always do, Lord, that You would keep me from error.
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On behalf of Your people and on behalf of my own conscience, Lord, keep me from error.
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Keep me tied to the post of Your truth, which is Your Word.
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And help me not to stray.
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And I pray, O Lord, that You would minister to Your people through this opportunity to preach.
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And I pray that You would open their hearts to understand Your Word.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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As I noted last week, when we were looking at the text, we looked at the same text last week.
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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
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And we look at the fact that the wrath of God has been revealed.
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Past tense.
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It has been revealed.
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It's been revealed to us in the Garden of Eden.
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When man sinned against God, man was given a punishment and he was cast out.
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God's wrath was demonstrated there.
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We saw God's wrath demonstrated in the flood of Noah.
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When the Bible says that man was...
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the only intent of his heart was evil continually.
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And God brought punishment on that.
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And it was wrath.
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And it was horrible and terrible.
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A watery death for all of the world's population except for Noah, his three sons and all of their wives.
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And we saw God's wrath on Sodom and Gomorrah.
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We saw God's wrath in various places in the Old Testament.
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And then we went into the New Testament and we said God's wrath is demonstrated here as well.
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In Ananias and Sapphira.
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And on Herod.
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And on others who received the wrath of God demonstrated upon them.
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But today, I want to show you something about this text in Romans 1.
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If you look at it with me again, it says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
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And what I want to show you from this text from what I just read is very simple.
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It doesn't say, for the wrath of God was revealed from heaven.
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As if the wrath of God is only a past tense idea.
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It says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
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And if you look at the underlying language, which we know that the Bible was written in the Greek language.
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If you look at the underlying language, it's actually in the ongoing.
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It's saying the wrath of God is being revealed.
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And it's always being revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness.
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It's not that it was in the past.
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It's not that it was at one time.
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But it's being revealed.
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So we can still see the wrath of God demonstrated even today.
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God's wrath is not something which is limited to the flood of Noah or to the situation with Ananias and Sapphira.
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But the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven today.
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So you say, well how? How? Pastor, that's a pretty bold statement to say that the wrath of God is being revealed today.
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Well, I want to share with you four ways which we see the wrath of God being revealed today.
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If you have a MacArthur Bible.
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I don't know if anybody has a MacArthur Bible.
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I just want to make mention of this because if you go home today and you have one and you look in it, you might note that he makes a mention of these four things in that study Bible.
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I don't want you to think I just went and lifted my notes.
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But I do note that MacArthur has made note of these four things that the wrath of God is being revealed in four ways.
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And here are those four ways.
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The first way that God's wrath is being revealed today is in his eternal wrath.
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His eternal wrath.
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That is number one.
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We know the Bible teaches that there is an afterlife.
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The spirits of people go to one of two places.
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There is no third option.
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The Catholics are wrong.
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There is no purgatory.
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I'm not unwilling to say that they're wrong because the Bible says that they're wrong.
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There is no such thing as purgatory.
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There is no third location.
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The Bible is very clear that upon death, a person who is in Christ is with the Lord.
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But upon death, a person who is not in Christ is immediately in a place of punishment.
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And beloved, I have worked in the funeral business for many, many years.
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First, when I was in high school, I worked as a funeral attendant.
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After high school, I began to work back in the room where we prepared everything for the funerals.
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And then, of course, I became a pastor.
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And now I still work part-time doing funerals for people who don't have ministers.
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And of course, I've done funerals for many people here.
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And you know what I have learned over the years? Death doesn't stop.
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That's not very profound, but it's very true.
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That's one business that's never going to go out of business.
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There's always going to be a funeral home.
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There's always going to be people stepping into eternity.
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Right now, today, in our very city, there are countless people who are stepping into eternity.
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Some are stepping in because they have reached the end of their life and old age.
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Some are stepping into eternity because they are in some form of an accident.
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Some are stepping into eternity because they are the victims of violent crime.
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But there are people who are stepping into eternity today.
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And they are experiencing the wrath of God today.
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They are experiencing an eternal wrath from God which is unquenching, which will never stop, and will go on forever and ever and ever.
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Does that scare you? Does it frighten you to think? Shouldn't it? Shouldn't the reality of that buckle our knees? That there is eternal wrath falling upon the heads of men and women all over just in our city today? And people say, I don't believe in the wrath of God.
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That is silly talk, because it's being revealed today in men and women who have not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
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People are dying every day, and the beginning of eternal wrath is being placed on their heads.
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And just like we see in the story in the Gospel of Luke, remember Jesus talked about the rich man and Lazarus? Do you all remember the story in Luke where Lazarus, this poor beggar, went to a place of comfort which they called Abraham's bosom.
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He went to go and be with Abraham.
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Where Abraham was is where the beggar was, and there Lazarus was comforted.
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But where did the rich man go? It said he closed his eyes in this world, and he opened his eyes in hell.
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You know, it's interesting if you read that story.
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It says that Lazarus, the poor beggar, was escorted at death by the angels to Abraham's bosom.
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He had an angelic escort, so that even at death, the believing, faithful beggar was comforted at death and was able to be brought to this place of comfort, where even in death there was no pain and suffering.
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But yet, there was no angelic escort for the rich man.
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There was no angelic escort for this one whose heart was blackened by his love for the world.
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There was no angelic escort for this one who had no faith, but rather had a love for his wealth.
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This man closed his eyes here and opened his eyes in hell.
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Eternal wrath is the most incomprehensible, inexpressible, yet at the same time absolutely biblical form of wrath that God displays.
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And it's being displayed every day.
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And people ask me all the time, and I ask them, this conversation goes on a lot.
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Somebody will call me.
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Pastor, my blank died.
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Brother, sister, aunt, uncle, whatever.
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It's somebody.
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Person of my life died.
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It's alright.
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Don't worry about it.
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Don't let it get you.
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I can still see my notes.
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The recorder is battery operated.
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So even though the power is gone, the power is still here.
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Alright, so let's continue on.
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So I have people, they call me.
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Brother, Foskey, my blank died.
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My friend, my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, my sister, my brother.
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Somebody died.
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What's the first question we always ask? In our hearts, what do we always ask? Did they know Christ? Did they know Christ? Why do we ask that question? Whether we ask it verbally, or whether we ask it in our heart, it's because we want some comfort in the reality of what has happened.
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We know that death is the end of the opportunity.
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That death is the end of anyone being able to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
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That there is no after death opportunity to bow that knee.
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We know that.
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So we always ask, did they know the Lord? And when they do, when they say yes, this person was a believer, they knew Christ, what is our first response? We say it in our heart, don't we? We almost clutch the chest and say, well, thank heavens.
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Because we can't even begin to consider the thought of the reality of the ones who don't.
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And that's why when the person hesitates, you say, did they know the Lord? And the person says, well, no.
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It becomes even heavier, doesn't it? The weight of the death, the weight of the pain becomes that much more powerful.
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So eternal wrath, eternal wrath is being demonstrated from heaven every day.
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And yet, we don't want to see it.
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We don't want to think about it.
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And this is why in our culture, we have done something.
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We have tried to hide death so as to not have to think about the realities of the afterlife.
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We have tried to hide.
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We hide the cemeteries.
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The funeral homes are there, but everything is hidden from us.
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We don't want to think about it.
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I know people who won't even go to the funeral homes.
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They say, I don't want to have anything to do with that.
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I don't even want to think about it.
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Beloved, we have to consider eternity because it's what's waiting on all of us.
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See, we're good.
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We have to consider eternity because it's what's waiting on all of us.
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So eternal wrath is the first way that God's wrath is being demonstrated every day before us.
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The second way, and I'm going to use a big word.
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Don't let big words scare you, because I know sometimes people give me a hard time about big words.
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But there's a second way that God's wrath is being demonstrated every day and it's in a form of what we call eschatological wrath.
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I'll break it down.
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Eschatological simply means the wrath of the end times.
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End times.
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The eschaton is the end times.
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And I want to ask you a quick question, because people always tell me, Pastor, do you think we're in the end times? Well, let me explain what the Bible teaches.
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The Bible says as soon as Jesus ascended into heaven, the angel said He's going to return the same way He went up.
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That's when the end times started.
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Do you realize that's when the eschaton began? Because He said, I will return.
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There will be no warning.
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Watch, for you know not when the master of the house comes.
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The whole idea is that Christ could come any time and so He could come back right now.
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So we are in the end times.
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It could be 100 years from now.
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It could be today.
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It could be 500 years from now.
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But still we are in the end times.
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And all these guys, the Herald Campings, which he's completely wrong.
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Herald Camping and all these guys who are always trying to figure out, well is today the day or tomorrow the day? Is it going to be May 21st, August 22nd, 2012, the Mayans, whatever? We are in the end times.
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We have been since Jesus went.
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And since then we have been experiencing eschatological wrath.
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In fact, I'll demonstrate something.
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1 Thessalonians 5.
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1 Thessalonians 5.
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Turn there with me and I'll read something to you.
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The Thessalonian books deal more with the end times than some of the others.
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So they're helpful.
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If you're interested in studying.
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But 1 Thessalonians 5.
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Verse 2.
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It says, For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
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While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape.
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You see, this is a picture of the coming end times.
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Acts 2.
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Verse 19.
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It says this, And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke and sun shall be turned to darkness and moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
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That is quoting Joel 2, which we read as our opening text this morning.
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And some folks may say, well, I don't see pillars of smoke in heaven and I don't see where you see eschatological rap being poured out, Pastor.
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This doesn't make any sense to me.
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Well, let me say this.
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As a world, as we grow closer to the time when Jesus returns, we are going to grow closer to the time when we will see a strong shifting away from God, a strong shifting away from His Word.
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And that is what we see every day.
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We see this shifting away.
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2 Timothy 4, verse 3, For the time is coming when people will not endorse sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
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Do you think that we are there yet? Do you see that the reality...
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The time is coming when people will not endorse sound teaching.
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Do you think that time is here? Do you think we live in a time when people do not endorse sound teaching? I will tell you that we do.
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You guys are the...
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And know that I love you.
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You are the odd ones.
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Because you will listen to this and not leave.
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And by odd, I mean good.
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The Bible calls us a peculiar people.
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Not in a bad way.
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We are peculiar in that we are different from the world.
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I have preached in places that invited me, not knowing how I preach.
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And the people looked at me with just a wide eye.
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Who is this maniac? He is saying things...
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I am Murray Hill Theater.
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Murray Hill Theater had a...
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A few years ago, they would have us come and do martial arts demonstrations.
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And then they would ask somebody to give a short devotional message, a gospel presentation.
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Well, they asked me to do it.
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So I got up and I preached against sin and the fact that if we do not receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, if we are continuing in our sin, if we continue to live apart from Christ, we will go to hell.
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And hell is forever.
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And people looked at me like I had three heads.
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And I haven't been invited back.
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And I don't know why.
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That's the reality.
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That's the thing.
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It says in 2 Timothy, a time is coming when they will not endure sound doctrine.
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That's what we see.
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That is an example of the wrath of God.
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That the church, what calls itself the church, that the church has had such a massive falling away from the truth.
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The fact that men like John Dominic Crossan, a man who denies the resurrection, a man who denies the gospel of Jesus Christ, is one of the most sought-after speakers in the mainline Protestant denominations.
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The fact that he is even existing in Protestantism and teaching in the churches is a demonstration of the wrath of God.
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And it's a demonstration of the proof of this text.
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So there is a time coming when they will not hear sound doctrine, but instead they will want to gather for themselves teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.
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So eschatological wrath, the end times, no, we don't see pillars of smoke.
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No, we don't see the Lord coming yet.
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That's going to come as a thief in the night.
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But we see the building up.
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We see the removal of the gospel from the churches.
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We see the removal of the gospel from society.
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We see places where to preach the truth is becoming illegal.
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We see the rise in Islam.
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We see the rise in Eastern religions.
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We see the rise in everything which is anti-Christ.
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And that we know is an example of the end times and its coming.
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And that is eschatological wrath.
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And we see it every day.
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So there is two types of wrath that is being demonstrated every day.
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One is the eternal wrath that people who die are going to hell.
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Some, of course, are not, but many are.
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And eschatological wrath.
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Well, the third one, the third type of wrath that we see demonstrated every day is what we call consequential wrath.
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Consequential wrath.
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This one is probably the most obvious that we see.
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Because God, in His wisdom, has built in natural consequences for sin.
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Do you ever realize that? Do you ever realize that the things that we're not supposed to do are usually not good for us? And they carry within them a type of wrath built in? The Bible says this in Galatians 6, in verse 7, Do not be deceived.
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God is not mocked.
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For whatever one sows, he will also reap.
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For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
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Right there the text tells us it's the one who sows to the flesh, the one who is constantly trying to feed his flesh, the one who is constantly living in such a way opposed to the spiritual things, opposed to God, but living for self.
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This person is going to reap what? He's going to reap corruption.
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Do we get what that's saying? There are actions that we do that have built-in consequences.
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That's what sowing and reaping is always about.
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You know, you can't...
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One of my old professors, again, not super deep, but pretty smart, he said, you can't sow watermelon seeds and expect to get squashed.
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You know? And you can't sow evil and expect...
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Yes, it was Jerry Powers, that's it.
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You can't expect to sow a lifetime of wickedness and not expect there to be a consequence.
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That's the wrath of consequence.
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There are consequential wrath out there.
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Think about it.
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What does drunkenness bring with it? Disease.
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What does sexual promiscuity bring with it? Disease.
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Did you know that even the government is a form of the wrath of God? Well, I'm probably not arguing right now.
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No, what I mean is the government itself has been put in place so as to be a check on our sins and to provide punishment for evil.
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Mr.
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Adam is a police officer.
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Mr.
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Adam is part of what God has set up.
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He has set up governments so as to bring about punishment for people who do wrong.
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Right? You have to go and get them and lock them up and put them in the jail.
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Just look at Romans 13 with me just to see what I'm talking about.
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It says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those that exist were instituted by God.
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By the way, let me add something here.
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I'm not adding to the Word of God, but I do want to add an interpretation.
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It does not say that everyone that was instituted by God is necessarily a blessing.
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It says they're put there by God because some leaders are put as a blessing and some are put as a judgment, but they're all put there by God.
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That's what we have to understand.
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And I think that we are experiencing on our nation the judgment of God.
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As what we see in leadership now, I think it's fair to say that we are seeing an example of the judgment of God.
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But anyhow, it says, Therefore, whoever resists the governing authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment.
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That's a picture of the way that God has instituted this consequential wrath.
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If we do wrong, we should not be surprised that we get in trouble for it because God has placed these things there so that we will have a check against our sins.
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You're in Romans.
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Go back to Romans 1.
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I know this is a very unpopular text, but Romans chapter 1 towards the end of the text deals with the sin of homosexuality.
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And what does it say in Romans chapter 1? Starting in verse 26.
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It says, For this very reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
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For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
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And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.
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Men committing shameless acts with men.
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And by the way, there's no real difficult way to interpret that.
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It is what it is.
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It's men committing shameless acts with men.
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The Bible describes homosexuality as a shameless act.
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But it says what? And receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
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And what do we see? Rampant within the homosexual community.
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Disease.
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And statistics and studies continue to show that those who consistently engage in that lifestyle, the life spans are much, much shorter.
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It's just the reality of it.
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And it says right here, they receive in themselves the due penalty of their error.
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There's a consequence to sin.
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And it's the wrath of God demonstrated on it.
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These consequences are there.
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You tell me one of the sins of the Word of God and I will show you how in some way there is a built-in consequence.
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I hate it when people say, it really burns me up when somebody says, well, my sin ain't affecting nobody but me.
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Well, that ain't bad enough that your sin's only affecting you? That's not bad enough that your sin's destroying you? But it's also a lie we tell ourselves.
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Because our sins have consequences well outside of ourselves.
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It affects our family.
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It affects our loved ones.
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It affects our church.
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Think about the story of Achan in the Old Testament when he stole and he hid those items and the whole nation suffered for it.
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Our sin never affects only us and there are consequences which are built in to our sins.
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Finally, number four, we've looked at God's wrath being revealed.
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Eternal wrath.
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We've seen eschatological wrath.
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We've seen consequential wrath.
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Number four, and this is one I think is so frightening.
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This is the one that to me is so scary.
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It's the wrath of abandonment.
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The wrath of abandonment.
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You're in Romans 1, right? I had you go back there.
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Is that where we are? In Romans 1, I want you to look at verse 24.
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Romans 1 and verse 24, Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.
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Think about those words.
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Therefore, God gave them up.
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Now look again in verse 26, For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
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And then again in verse 28, And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
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Beloved, there is a real and true wrath that God is demonstrating even today wherein He removes the restraint of people's sins.
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He removes His restraint from them and they are allowed to go headlong into their sin, headlong into their love of their lusts and their passions and their flesh.
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And as a result, they demonstrate their pure hatred of Him.
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I don't know if you've ever known anyone like this.
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I don't know if you've ever looked in the face of a man like Dan Barker.
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Dan Barker is the head of one of the largest atheist associations in the nation.
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But Dan Barker hates God.
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And he hates Christians.
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And to talk to him and to look at him and to see the hatred, the only thing that you can think of is here is a man who God has given over to a debased mind.
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And beloved, Dan Barker is not alone.
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All you have to do...
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I don't know how many of you are on the Internet and do any social media stuff.
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Just spend a little bit of time.
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You read a story of someone who's gone through a tragedy, and then read the comments below.
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And you read what's in the hearts of men.
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And you see people whose hearts have just been given over to the desire for lust, who've been given over to the desire for hatred, who've been given over to the desire for selfishness.
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And beloved, that is a real and genuine wrath.
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You know, the Bible talks about God hardening the heart.
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You remember it talks about Him hardening the heart of Pharaoh, remember? In the Old Testament it says He would harden Pharaoh's heart.
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And something I try to remind people of when the Bible talks about God hardening someone's heart, it doesn't mean that God introduces evil into their heart.
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Because He doesn't have to.
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It doesn't mean like God has taken some type of spiritual hardening agent and put it into their heart and calcified their heart.
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He doesn't have to do that.
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All God has to do to harden the heart is remove His grace.
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And the depravity of the human soul will have its way.
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And when the depravity of the human soul has its way, the heart is stone.
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And that's what we see.
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We see men with hearts of stone.
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We see men who are willing to throw airplanes into buildings because they believe in a false God.
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We see men who are willing to strap bombs to retarded children and send them into marketplaces because of a false God.
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We see men who are willing to sacrifice their loved ones and themselves in a commitment to a false God.
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We see people who are lovers of themselves, lovers of the world, lovers of wealth, lovers of promiscuity, lovers of homosexuality, lovers of all types of sin, and their hearts are stone.
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And it's the wrath of God.
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And it's a demonstration of God's removing of His grace.
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And that's what we see.
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So don't ask, how do we see the wrath of God? Just open your eyes and look and you will see throughout our world this demonstration of the wrath of God.
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The wrath of God is not something that should be offensive to a person who believes the Bible because the Bible is not offended by it.
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If we are offended by anything, we should be offended by sin.
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Not the wrath of God.
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Sadly for most people, and Christians included, we would rather be proud than to be ashamed.
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We would rather be proud of our sin than be ashamed of God's wrath.
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And that's what we see.
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What happens with this is we get very comfortable in allowing sin into our lives.
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We get very comfortable in allowing sin and very uncomfortable with anyone who is preaching against it.
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And the result is God becomes emasculated, impotent, and not really God at all.
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And man in his sinful rebellion becomes the most glorified being in the universe.
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And beloved, this should not be.
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We need to see things as they are.
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God is a God of love.
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And we must never forget that.
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But God is a God of love and wrath.
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And man is worthy of His wrath.
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Yet because of His love, God has chosen to hold His wrath from those who believe in His Son.
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And the question we all have to ask ourselves is a very simple question.
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It's profound, but it's simple.
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Are we ones who trust in Christ? Or are we not? The Bible says very simply, if we are in Christ, the love of God abides on us.
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But if we are not in Christ, the wrath of God abides on us.
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There is no middle place.
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There is no purgatory.
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There is no halfway point.
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We are either in Christ or we are in the world.
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And beloved, I pray that everyone here today has confidence and knows that you're in Christ.
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For to not be is to be in a situation which is, in my heart, unthinkable for you.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to again be about the business of studying Your Word.
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I do pray, O Lord, that You've used this Word to open people's hearts about the reality of sin and the Gospel and the need for salvation.
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I pray, Lord, for those who are believers here that this has been an encouragement to them in two ways.
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One, to encourage them that they are in You, Lord, that they are in Christ.
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But, Lord, also to encourage them to want to share the Gospel with others so that others might be in Christ.
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And Father, I pray if there's anyone here who doesn't know Christ, who has never proclaimed their faith in Him, I pray that You would use this as an opportunity to spur them to the truth and draw them to Yourself through the preaching of Your Word.
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In Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen.
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Let's stand together and sing.
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If you have a need for prayer, please come as we sing.