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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/larry-steers/because-there-is-wrath/
So he's saying sometimes that it's a grand thing to be saved, but it's real to be saved. I'm going to read a passage of scripture, one verse in fact. I want you to turn with me please to the book of Job, and we'll read in the 36th chapter of the book of Job.
Job chapter 36, and we'll read verse 18. Job chapter 36, and we're reading the 18th verse. Because there is wrath, beware, lest ye take thee away with a stroke, that a great ransom cannot deliver thee.
That's all that I'm going to read. We'll notice the verse again. Because there is wrath, beware, lest ye take thee away with a stroke, that a great ransom cannot deliver thee. What I have just read is one of the most solemn statements in the word of God.
When God wants to reveal eternity to the souls of those that are not saved, he uses very clear, very plain statements that you would have to understand that what God is saying is what God really means.
I want to take a little look at this verse very quickly as a very solemn, very solemn statement. And I trust that in the few comments that we make upon it, that it would be solemnly impressed upon the conscience and the soul of any here who are not saved.
I want you to notice that we have in this verse a solemn fact. There is wrath. That's a solemn statement. That's incontroversial. Found in the word of God, the unerring word of God. Very solemn statement.
There is wrath. Then I want you to think for a moment in this verse, there is a solemn warning. And the warning is to beware. Because there is wrath, God gives the warning, beware. Then you'll notice that there is a solemn event.
Lest ye take thee away with a stroke. A solemn event, death comes. And then a solemn eternity, a great ransom cannot deliver thee. And so notice a solemn event or a solemn fact that there is wrath. I'm going to give you four reasons why we would be absolutely convinced that there is wrath.
We believe that there is wrath because the Bible teaches very clearly that there is wrath. Any soul who will come to the Bible and will commence to read from Genesis chapter 1 on just a few chapters, and then on through the rest of the Bible, you must be impressed that this Bible declares verse after verse, chapter after chapter, that there is wrath.
Let me say it again that that is incontroversial. That wrath is real and that wrath does exist. I have believed that there is wrath because the character of God demands it. God demands that there is wrath.
The holiness of God demands wrath. And that demands that God must deal with sin. And God only has one way of dealing with sin. And that can be expressed by one word, suffering. Either the sinner, and as you have been hearing, will accept the Savior who suffered for your sins.
Or you will suffer for your own sins. The only way that God has to deal with sin is suffering. Suffering by the Savior at Calvary. Or you will suffer for your sins because God says there is wrath. The sinfulness of man cries out for it.
We are told in the Bible, in the early chapters of Genesis, that God looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did good, that did understand, that did seek after God.
And the sentence from heaven was, they all got out of the way. They are all together become unprofitable. And when God looks down upon the sinfulness of this world and your sin, your sin cries out for the wrath of God.
But there is a fourth reason why. We would suggest to you, incontroversially, that there is wrath. And that fourth reason can be stated in one word. The Calvary, the cross, is one of the great proofs that there is wrath.
The Lord Jesus Christ in those solemn hours of darkness upon that cross, suffering the wrath of God. There is a statement in the book of Zechariah, chapter 13, and about the seventh verse of that book.
And that statement is, Awake, O sword against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow. Just think for a moment of that sword. That's the sword of divine justice. And God commanded that sword which was sleeping.
He commanded the sword to awake. And in solemn hours upon the cross, that sword awoke in all of the judgment of God. And God says, against the man that is my fellow. One of the most precious words in the Bible is that word, my fellow.
That is, God is looking down upon the cross, and he's looking down upon the Lord Jesus at the cross. And that word, fellow, my fellow means my companion, my equal one. And as a holy God in heaven looked upon His Son upon the cross at Calvary, He was about to pour out His wrath upon His equal one, upon the one who was God's fellow.
And upon that man, the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary, the wrath of God was poured out. And so we sing, the wrath, the wrath, the awful wrath that Jesus bore for me on that cross, suffering, bearing in all of its intensity.
The floodgates of God's heaven were opened, and the wrath of God in all of its entirety was poured out upon the Savior in three hours at Calvary. Calvary declares the wrath of God. My Bible tells me that there is wrath.
That is a solemn fact that you have to face tonight in your sin. To go on in your sin with life so uncertain, facing the awful intensity, indescribable, the wrath of God. The Lord Jesus taught that. In Luke chapter 16, He rolled the veil of eternity aside.
And if you would just read your Bible with this thought in mind, that I'm looking into eternity. I'm looking into hell where there is a man suffering the wrath of God. A man who is crying for a drop of water because he is experiencing the intensity of the wrath of God.
And he's crying for his brothers lest they come to this place of torment. John the Baptist taught that there was wrath. He said, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath of God?
There are no doubters in hell at this present moment who have any doubt that there is wrath. They are immersed in the awful, indescribable, intense wrath of God because they went into God's eternity without a Savior.
Not saved. And they are now facing the intensity of that awful wrath. There is wrath. And so there is a solemn warning here. Beware. That's the warning tonight in the Gospel. This may be your last Gospel meeting.
I have to preach in that way tonight. And that you may never have the opportunity again to sit and listen to the Gospel. To hear how you could be saved. To hear how you could be delivered from your sins.
And to know for certain that eternity is sure your destiny to heaven because you have received Christ as your Savior. And so he says, beware. He gives examples in the Bible of the man who was a farmer.
And he looked on his fields and he saw that they were ripe already to harvest the crops. And the barns weren't large enough. Tear them down and build greater. Then he was going to have a good time. But God put an end to the man's life very quickly.
God said, thou fool. That's what God calls a man who is living for this life. Not occupied with the wrath of God. Not thinking about eternity and where he is heading for. And God says, thou fool. This night thy soul shall be required of thee.
I had a cousin who loved her son. She had her son sit on her lap. My cousin was saved. And as a little boy, Ray sat on his mother's knee. And she poured into Ray the message of the Gospel that you've heard already tonight.
And heard in the Sunday school this afternoon. She told Ray how to be saved. She sang the Sunday school choruses with Ray sitting on her knee. She longed that Ray should be saved. But Ray lived a careless life.
And when he was in his 30s, not saved, turned his back upon his mother's Savior. And the warnings of his mother. And the pleadings of his mother. And I remember when my cousin was informed that her son died under the influence of alcohol in a motel room.
And in the end of his life, those last few moments, he wasn't thinking about being saved. That wasn't on his mind. He wasn't saved those last few moments of life. He died in a stupor. And I can hear her yet.
Oh, Ray. She literally wailed, Ray. Ray. My boy, Ray. Ray, you're in hell. Died without a Savior. A broken-hearted mother. And if you were to leave this meeting tonight, and there were to be an accident on the road, and your life is uttered into eternity not saved, there would be those who would cry over you.
They would weep over you. But you would be weeping and wailing and wandering forever on the coast of the castaway. There is wrath. And then he says, a soul of eventless, he takes it away with a stroke that life will come to an end.
Many a soul has sat in a gospel meeting and listened to the story of the gospel, the account of the gospel. It's far more than just a story. It's a message, the sweetest message that ever fell upon human ear of how a soul who deserves the wrath of God, of how a soul in their sin could be saved.
We have sat beside a woman on one occasion, and that dear woman wanted to be saved. And she was lost. And there's a good thing we're hearing. I think one of the men mentioned the word lost. Lost and in her sin.
And she had tried to be saved, but she couldn't get saved. And as we were sitting beside her, I can hear her yet. She said, I'm on the way to hell, and there's nothing I can do about it. She just stated two truths in that statement.
Because number one, she was on the way to hell. And number two, she could do nothing about it. And she sensed the futility of being lost, wandering on in the darkness of her sin. Not a ray of light could she see.
And the thought filled that dear soul's sadness, there's no hope for a sinner like me. When a sinner gets to that place in life, when they realize that they are lost, it becomes real to them. And they realize that the great issue that they are facing is their sin.
That is real. And they almost give up in despair that there's nothing they can do about it. That's what that girl discovered that night. There's a verse in the Bible. I've thought much about this little statement.
It's in Romans 10, the 17th verse of the chapter. And the verse simply says, Faith cometh. That's part of the verse. Faith cometh. I think one of our speakers this afternoon mentioned that the moment of salvation, the moment that a person is saved, is almost an undefinable moment.
And so here's a soul, maybe sitting here tonight, maybe honest with God tonight. Honest with God about your sin. Concerned about eternity, about the wrath of God that God warned you solemnly about. Realizing how helpless you are to save yourself.
Maybe you've tried over and over to believe and total failure. And tonight as you sit in this present gathering, you're in your sins, and you know deep in your soul that you're heading for the wrath of God.
And to be honest with God, you acknowledge, I deserve it because of my sin. And there's a moment that has arrived in your experience, your hopelessness. The Bible says at that moment, faith comes. Without the person believing or trying to believe.
But right at that moment, they sit in the darkness of their sin. And faith comes to that moment. And that person will suddenly say, well, I see it. That Christ died for me on the cross. Or the verse that has been read.
For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. We had meetings back home in the city of St. Thomas. I won't give the boys full name because a good number here might know him.
His name is Jeff. And I got a phone call from his mother after the meeting one night. And she said, my son wants to be saved. He's sitting at the table. He won't go to bed. He's crying. A 14-year-old boy weeping, crying.
I see that very often. But that boy wanted to be saved. I remember sitting down with him. I went to the house. I asked him now, if you died in your sins right now, where would you be? Where would you be?
I'm asking you. If you died in your sins right now, where would you be? That boy told me I'd be in hell. So I told him, I won't talk someone into being saved. So I told him, you take your Bible and you go up to your bedroom.
And when you go up to your bedroom, you open your Bible to Isaiah chapter 53. That's the chapter that the eunuch was reading. So I have authority for using that chapter. He said, you read Isaiah 53, and you ask yourself the question, is God telling me something in this chapter that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for me?
I said, up to your bedroom. So he went up to his bedroom. I sat with his mother. Went back to the place where I was staying and the phone is ringing. Jeffrey's on the phone. Still weeping, but weeping differently because he said to me, Mr. Steers, I just got saved.
I said, well, tell me about it. What happened? He said, I went up to my bedroom and I opened my Bible. And I opened up to Romans 5 and verse 6 and I read that verse. When we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly, and I realized I'm ungodly and Christ died for me.
Faith came. Didn't do what I told him to do, but he got something better than that. Tonight, the wrath of God is real. There is a solemn eternity ahead. I know a number of men that were POWs, prisoners of war in the Second World War.
And in a concentration camp, suffering hard. Conditions were difficult. Not enough to eat. Some died. We just long for the moment that the allied armies would come and we would be rescued. We would be delivered.
That was their hope. But to dine your sins. To experience the wrath of God. And for eternity, no hope. No deliverance. No way out. To spend that eternity in the wrath of God. Because of your sins and because you rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of his wrath, beware, lest he take thee away with a stroke and a great ransom cannot deliver thee.