The Wine of His Wrath, Part 2

The results of faith in Jesus Christ involve both a positive and a negative. The Gospel, listen, is not just believe in Christ and repent of your sin in order to go to heaven. It is also believe in Christ, repent of your sin in order to not go to hell. Avoiding the wrath of God, by the way, is a very good thing, and I'm going to spend three hours today recommending it to everybody. Avoid the wrath of God, okay?

It's as simple as that. When God saves us, that brings us the two results Stephen was just talking about. One, of course, is that God gives us the promise of heaven when we die. We know that we will be in heaven with God for eternity. The other is that he promises that we will not face his judgment when we die. We're not facing hell because by faith we have avoided the wrath of God. We're looking at God's wrath today from Revelation 14.

This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen's in a series called A Preview of Things to Come, and today's lesson is entitled The Wine of His Wrath. This is a difficult but important topic, so please stay with us. Notice the personal pronouns that appear in this text beginning with verse 9 about the middle part, and you could perhaps circle them.

If anyone, anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone. This is not metaphorical. This is not metaphysical. This is not ethereal. This is personal reality.

This is literal experience. The individuals in this peak is given to us here, but it will be fleshed out later on as all the unbelievers are judged before God and cast into the lake of fire. God gives us a body that is able to enjoy eternity and its glory, and he gives the unbeliever a body capable of experiencing the horrors of what we've just read.

This is the horror of a person here who experiences this literal submission to the Antichrist, and it will find its way back into the book of Revelation in a literal place of torment, of literal fire and brimstone. And many, I can't believe it, but many evangelicals within the church are now denying that this is the truth, and they are effectively scrambling for loopholes. In the 1920s, a liberal Baptist pastor named Harry Emerson Fosdick was extremely, extremely popular. Even though he was a Baptist, for some reason he was pastoring a Presbyterian church and was called up on charges in the session for heresy.

He avoided the charges of heresy by simply resigning from the church. And with the full funding of John D. Rockefeller and all of his money, a new interdenominational church called Riverside Church was built on the overlooking the Hudson River, and he was placed as pastor, and it was soon packed to capacity. He literally influenced seminaries and pastors across the country.

In fact, at the height of his fame, his picture graced the cover of Time magazine in 1930. In an interview in 1928, which sort of set the whole thing ablaze, his words became the standard for American pastors who wanted to be accepted. They wanted the church to be accepted by culture. They wanted the church to be viewed as something other than hellfire and brimstone and instead be welcomed by culture, and so his words were especially meaningful as they walked away from Bible exposition and verse-by-verse teaching. In this rather seminal interview, in fact, you can read all of it online, Fosdick said these words, preachers who pick out texts from the Bible and then proceed to give their historic settings, their logical meaning in the context, their place in the theology of the writer with a few practical reflections are grossly misusing the Bible. Nobody, he said, who speaks to the public assumes that the vital interests of the people are located in the meaning of words spoken 2,000 years ago, which led immediately a lot of ministers to say, you know, we've felt that way all along and now we've got our champion.

Of course, that's true. I mean, how could we have been so old-fashioned to do what Paul told Timothy to do in preaching the what? The word. 2 Timothy 4-2. I mean, we're well past believing and we should be now as sophisticated as we are in believing that the words of Scripture are actually inspired by God and profitable to effectively, that is, thoroughly equipped the believer for life. There's got to be something than this old book.

So we're way past that. Trouble is, Fosdick was heard and created a movement. Another movement was founded to try to battle. It was called fundamentalists movement, the fundamentals, as they simply clearly laid out the fundamentals of the faith. Fosdick preached a message that was trumpeted by Rockefeller's own money, put into print and it circled the globe called and shall the fundamentalists win. He became the inventor in modern terminology, what we call today the seeker driven church. For many today, it is a badge of honor.

To me, it is a horrifying badge. In the seeker movement, the desire to relate to the unbeliever in the assembly, in church, in worship is more important than the desire to convict the unbeliever. The desire to be relevant overshadows the command to be biblical. And so preaching, if it can be called that, begins with the needs of the audience rather than the scripture, which leads to the transformation of the audience.

There's a world of difference. With almost prophetic precision, Fosdick wrote these words that are not considered gospel truth in the evangelical church, and I quote him, who seriously supposes that one in 100 in our congregation cares what Moses, Isaiah, Paul or John meant in those verses. So the preacher should not end, but start with thinking about the audience's vital needs and then let the whole sermon be organized around a constructive endeavor to meet those needs. All this is good sense and good psychology.

Sound familiar? The church growth methods of the late 20th century that bought his lies, that took people away from the word of God and the pulpits void of the word of God, are really nothing more now than the repackaging of the lies of Harry Emerson Fosdick. In fact, one of those popular authors today who really did nothing more than bring Harry Emerson Fosdick into modern church growth method was not a pastor, not a theologian, but a pollster named George Barna. And he wrote another book that created a firestorm and sort of reinvented a number of new terminologies. The book was entitled Marketing the Church. It's hard to say that in a positive aim, but that's how he intended it to be. And that's how many bought it up to be. And they scrambled to the bookstores to buy it as a best selling book in which he wrote, and I quote, now think of what you've just heard from Fosdick.

Here's what he said. It is critical that we, he's speaking to pastors, keep in mind that a fundamental principle of Christian communication is this, the audience, not the message, is sovereign. If our advertising, I guess he means our preaching, is going to stop people in the midst of hectic schedules, our message has to be adapted to the needs of the audience. When we produce communication that is based on a take it or leave it proposition, rather than on sensitivity to people's needs, people are going to reject our message. And we don't want to be rejected and we don't want the message rejected. And so we begin with our needs. We sort of slip in the gospel.

Whatever you do, in other words, remember the feelings of your audience are more important than delivering the truth to the audience. And now you see why you end up with no sin, no judgment, no hell, no guilt, no wrath. Just read the messages of Jesus Christ.

Read his conversations. One of the things that will strike you is how sensitive he was to the feelings of the Pharisees. You remember that time where he called them a brood of butterflies.

Oh wait, a brood of snakes, I believe is what he said. And now if that isn't twisted enough, Barna goes on and those around him, he's not the only one, to explain that the apostle Paul felt this way. I didn't know that. Well, he writes, Paul studied strategies and tactics that would enable him to attract the most prospects and realize the greatest number of conversions.

Are you kidding? Let Paul speak for himself. When I came to you, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

In other words, I didn't come to you with a strategy or a tactic to realize the greatest number of conversions. He wrote further, for I determined not to know anything among you or to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Even when he went out and spoke to the philosophers, you could boil it down to basically, I know what you believe, you're religious, but you happen to be in trouble with God. He's storing up his wrath, Paul said to them. And it will come through this man, the God man who rose from the dead, so you need to repent.

That's quite a strategy. That's why Paul ended up in jail and there were so many death threats on his life that he narrowly escaped. He was not received by his culture, nor was he appreciated. He says, when I came to you, I didn't begin with your felt needs, I began with the character of Christ. What mattered most to me was not that I was relevant to you, but that you were related to Jesus Christ.

That's the most significant thing. And so I delivered to you the gospel of Christ's crucifixion. He said there in 1st Corinthians 2 that I read, his crucifixion.

What is that? That is the statement that Christ suffered the wrath of God on our behalf. You remember in the garden, and I think it's related to here in subtle implication, as he talks about you will drink the cup of the wrath of God. You remember Jesus Christ in the garden said, take this what from me? Take this cup, because as a man he fully understood the horror of the wrath of God the Father, and he referred to it as a cup. But praise God, Jesus Christ did in fact willingly take that cup and drink the wrath of God so that we never have to drink this cup that we're told in Revelation chapter 14, we'll be drunk by those who do not believe. I'm amazed that now we hear the denial of church leaders, and again it goes all the way back to the redefining of Scripture which leads you to be able to openly deny it. A man who said recently, a leader in the emerging church movement, when somebody asks me if Christ is the only way to heaven, now isn't that the question you want to hear somebody say? How do I get to heaven? Is Christ the only way? What would you say in a word?

Yes, thank you. What would the rest of you say? Yes, yes, Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. He said this, when people ask me if Christ is the only way to heaven, I got a problem with that, because that assumes the primary purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to get people to escape hell and take them to heaven. Of course it was, that was his primary purpose in coming to earth.

Why did he die? So that you could escape hell and go to heaven, simple as that. He said in fact himself, I have come for this purpose, this is why I'm here, I came, I came to seek and to save those who are lost. Luke 19 verse 10, say this with me, this is radical truth in our generation and I believe the fundamental truth of the gospel has been lost. So say with me, for God so loved the world, are you ready? Let's start again, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

Why? That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Sounds like Christ came specifically to save us from hell and take us to heaven. How unique though is that gospel message today.

Can there be anything greater than that message? Salvation is personal, you must accept Christ by faith in him alone. Just as salvation is personal, so is the coming wrath of God for those who do not believe. Secondly, not only is the wrath of God personal, it is terrible. Verse 10, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger. This is no doubt one of the most compact, compressed sentences regarding the wrath of God found in all of scripture. His wrath will come, it will be mixed in full strength.

You can understand that as it is unmixed, it is undiluted. Even the Romans in the days of Christ believed that if you drank wine unmixed you were barbaric, so they normally mixed it with one part grape concentrate and three part water. Here he says there's no dilution, there's no watering down, there's no mixing in the cup of wrath, elements of mercy or compassion or grace. No wonder David said of that day, who may stand in your presence when you are angry?

Psalm 76. The word John used here to refer to wrath is the Greek word thumos, or anger I should say. Anger is thumos, mixed in full strength in the cup of his thumos. That gives us our word or the basis of it, thermometer measures heat. His anger is hot, he is hot with anger.

We can demonstrate elements of thumos as well when the temperature rises, right? And we become angry and we say that somebody's fuse is short and there's an explosion. I'm sure none of you here are guilty of that this past week. I saw a glimpse of this one afternoon and I've never forgotten it. I was about 10 years old.

I can still picture where I was standing in the side, on the side of that big one acre lot yard about two homes up from my house. And I was I was in trouble. I was in front of a guy who was bigger than I was, at least a head, taller, he was stronger than I was, he was older than I was, and I had somehow made him mad. I'm sure I was delivering the gospel to him in some fashion. But I made him really angry and I remember him cowering over me and I knew I was in deep, deep trouble.

I was short for my age for most of my young years until about 11th grade in high school and I just shot up and so I was a little skinny, a head of red hair, you got to use your imagination. And I was in deep trouble and I don't know what happened but I just remember I balled up my fist and the next thing I know that big guy is holding his nose which is starting to bleed. And it was one of those awkward moments where I thought, now what do I do? And I could see in his eyes nothing less than thumos.

I didn't know the Greek language yet but I knew that's what it was. And so I began to run and I ran across that lot and he was behind me. He was saying all sorts of unbiblical things about my future. And I remember there was this chain link fence in front of me as I was running barefoot across that yard and that, about four feet high, and that fence was the only thing that separated me from a happy childhood. And I needed to get over it and I don't even remember touching it. I'm sure I leapfrogged and I was over it. He ran into it, stopped, he lumbered over it and then I was able to escape and live to be your pastor and tell you the story.

Listen, let me tell you something. You know, just in the eyes of some person who's angry, you don't want to be around, do you? You don't want to be there when thumos occurs. Can you imagine thumos, undiluted, this rage from God and in another word he throws in there, he says the word wrath, you have anger and wrath. The word for wrath is orgei.

It gives us our word orgy. It means settled, deliberate, unhinged wrath. And that's the gospel. David said it well in Psalm 2, now therefore show discernment. In other words, be smart. Do the smartest thing you could ever do.

What? Take warning, worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled. And then he says, how blessed are all who take refuge in him.

That's both sides of the gospel. You are in deep trouble with God and he's angry with you. But run to him.

Now this is the day of grace. Take refuge in him and escape the wrath of God. Run to him now. You will not outrun him later. Escape into him.

You will one day not be able to escape from him. His wrath is personal and it is terrible. So this is the gospel of the angel or a portion of it. It's a different gospel from the messenger's names like Metatron and others who bring messages of success and your own divinity and good times. The world is followed and is following the voice of these false messages, these pseudo pastors, these pseudo spiritual advisers, and they will be led past a desert which would be comforting.

They will be led beyond into the chasm of hell forever. See, this is the other side of the gospel and it shouldn't be a secret. Follow the words of David. Show discernment.

Take warning. Give glory to God. Give your life to Christ. Give him your sin. He'll forgive you in this day of grace. If you're a believer, this is the opportunity for us to reflect on the grace of God in our lives and thank him that he opened our eyes that the God of this world had blinded so that we might see the glorious gospel of Christ.

Let me invite you to receive the pardon of Christ if you don't have it as yours. Let me wrap things up quickly by taking you back in time to a scene that still marks our system of jurisprudence with with some unique incidences. In 1833 the US Supreme Court had to get involved with a rather interesting decision.

It had to do with George Wilson and James Porter. They had together robbed the US mail train. They were caught. They were brought to trial. They were sentenced to be hung by the neck until dead. James Porter went to the gallows first and was executed. George Wilson's friends interceded on his behalf and it went all the way up to the president and President Andrew Jackson wrote a pardon, pardoned him, issued a formal pardon.

The charges resulting in the death sentence were completely dropped. He would have to serve a prison term but then he would be able to be released. Incredibly George Wilson refused the pardon and the sheriff didn't know what to do. You can't hang a pardoned man, especially one pardoned by the president. So Wilson was returned to court as they attempted to force him to acknowledge and accept the pardon upon him and he refused.

He says I don't want it. He went all the way up to the Supreme Court. I was able to read some of the court documents.

They're available to the public. It was recorded that Wilson chose to when I quote wave and decline any advantage or protection which might be supposed to arise from the pardon referred to. It's a long way of saying I don't want it. The Attorney General argued before the Supreme Court and he made this comment, made a lot of them, I'll give you one sentence. He said this, the court cannot give the prisoner the benefit of the pardon until he claims the benefit of it. The case was argued and then it was decided Supreme Court Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion. Again a long opinion. I'll give you two sentences. Quote, a pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential and delivery is not completed without acceptance.

It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered and if it be rejected we have no power in a court to force it upon him. George Wilson was hung by the neck until dead. The wrath of God revealed by this angel that will warn the world one day. You have the benefit of hearing his warning today. Receive the pardon in and through Christ and give him everything of yourself and receive from him everything of himself and be set free. The good news of the gospel is that you can be spared the wrath of God by responding in faith to the truth of God's Word.

While God's wrath would be terrible for you if you were to experience it, it won't be a surprise or at least not anymore. Now you're aware of what God's Word says and if you've never responded in faith to the gospel I hope you will today. We have a resource that can help you. If you go to our website wisdomonline.org there's a menu item at the top that says about and one of the options there is our presentation of the gospel called God's Wisdom for Your Heart. That presentation is also on the home screen of the Wisdom International smartphone app. I encourage you to read and share that presentation, God's Wisdom for Your Heart. You've been listening to Wisdom for the Heart, a ministry of Wisdom International and the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. In addition to this daily Bible teaching program, Stephen also has books and other resources designed to equip and encourage you. We recently received a supply of Stephen's latest book. It's volume 10 in his Wisdom Commentary Series, a book called 1st through 3rd John and is available right now at a special price. Look for it at our website or call us today at 866-48 Bible. That's 866-48 Bible or 866-482-4253. I'm Scott Wiley and I thank you for listening. Please join us at this same time tomorrow as Stephen continues through this study from Revelation right here on Wisdom for the Heart. you