This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding and accepting the wrath of God as a reflection of our sanctification and true feelings towards Him. It highlights the significance of the gospel and the beauty of the cross in relation to God's holiness and wrath. The message encourages believers to rejoice in God's holiness and not be reluctant to consider His judgments, pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. It challenges listeners to pray in faith for others, believing in the power of Calvary and the redemption it offers.

Thank you, Albert. Our speaker tonight is Al Whittinghill. I had a little bit of a delay getting here last night, but he's been with us, I believe, all four years he's been with us. Three? He's not a four-star, he's just a three-star, okay. But I have appreciated Al as he's been with us, and so he'll be bringing our session tonight to lead us, and then to take us into our prayer time. Al, God bless you, brother. Well, I want to commend you all for sticking with it. I'm always amazed and blessed when we come to this conference because I just know that the spirit is willing, but sometimes the body is weak. And just even this afternoon I was bowing my head in the back to pray for John, and a couple minutes later I said, where am I? I remember. And so I want to commend you for sticking with it. You've been with this a lot of days now, really, and it's not the easiest thing, but the implications of this conference, though it looks small to some, are tremendously huge, and it's a blessing to me, to my heart, to be here, and I thank you, whoever invited me. I don't know who did, but I appreciate it, and I counted a great joy to have you all as friends, and blessed to be with you. It's a glorious thing the Lord is doing, you know. He is working in us to will and to do His own good pleasure, and we don't understand all that. We have to work out with fear and trembling what He works in, in grace and mercy, and as we do that and find where He's really sending us into His purposes and His grace for this hour, it's a marvelous thing. I think of each one here, and when you meet someone here, you know they have a unique purpose that God has in this hour, just like Esther. I don't think she, even though she was queen, she probably didn't realize as much as we do for her, that she did have indeed that purpose, that really no one else could do that God had fashioned her. It is true that God does have a plan for our life. It may not, it may be a guillotine to show forth His glory. It's not all that we crack it up to be sometimes on a human level, but He has a glorious opportunity for us to share who He is. Now tonight, I just want to start off by saying we not long ago went to Fiji, my wife and I, and it's out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's a little dot out there, just inside that little bump in the date line, and the reason I want to tell you about this is because you'd think that out there, you know, it's the islands like on this, the beauty of the islands. Of course, the city where we were, the capital city, is not like the islands. It's like a third world city, and this is a pastor's conference for the pastors that are in that nation, and they picked as their theme this theme, the second coming of Christ. Now I thought that was pretty interesting that out there, separated from everything, they're sensing an urgency that the King is coming, and my particular responsibility was to, for my portion, there were several Australians preaching, and I had the privilege of preaching, and my particular assignment was getting ready to meet the King, and one of those messages that I brought is the one that the Lord, as soon as I knew I was coming here, I really tried to talk him out of having me preach it here, but could not do it. I remember the night I preached this message. That night, a man who'd been preaching the word for about 40 years went home, and the next morning, I did not know this till the afternoon, he came back, and he addressed one of the men from Australia, and he says that last night, after hearing that, I went home, and the Lord showed me that I was not really his, and I became a believer last night, and it was a glorious thing, and needless to say, made no small stir among some of the other pastors who looked up to this man. It was a marvelous thing, and I think the reason these kind of things can happen is because we have neglected such a great salvation. We tend to humanize what God's miracle does in the heart, and we tend to let people get by with what looks like, and maybe even feels like to us, the real thing. So I want to just read a few scriptures with you. I want to pray, and then I want to read some scriptures, and then we're going to dive in to a wonderful truth that I pray that you will stir up your heart and make yourself jot down these scriptures. These are the kind of things that you're not to take my word for, but we're going to cover a lot of ground tonight. So if you turn in your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 3, I want to just take you there, read a few scriptures, and said a few things before your mind and heart, before we launch into the scripture. Let's just pray though. Father, we have nothing to offer to one another except for what you give to us. We live in a day of the opinions of man, and the assumptions of flesh, and so much going on around us, and many of your precious ones don't know what to believe. Because of this, our trumpet is uncertain in many places. We have mixed truth and light and darkness in some places. So I pray this night, this evening, that you will really lay down a foundation again in our hearts, and we might see something of who you are and the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus. The good news for bad people. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen. When 2 Peter chapter 3, Peter says, this second epistle, beloved, I now write to you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. This is not some theological ignorant pool he's writing to. These are pure minds, and God wants to stir us up to remember these same truths he's setting before them right here. We tend to forget these, and maybe it's because we might want to forget some of these things, but he says, that you may be mindful, verse 2, of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior. Knowing this first of all, that there will come in the last days scoffers who will walk after their own pleasures or lusts, and they will say, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of the Lord the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was, was overflowed with water and perished. Perished. But the heavens and the earth which are now by this same word, same word, are kept in storage, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and the perdition of ungodly men. But beloved, do not be ignorant of this very one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Here it is. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise. Singular, his promise. But as some men count slackness, but he is long suffering towards us-ward, not designing, the word is bulome, he's not designing, he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And there you have two possibilities. You have repentance or perishing. But the day of the Lord will come, that's his promise. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with a fervent heat, and the earth also and the works that are in it shall be burned up, seeing then that all these things are going to be dissolved. What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy lifestyle and godliness looking for? This is the attitude. It's the appearance and the shape of our life and the attitude of our heart looking for and hastening unto. We know we're moving quickly. To the coming day of God, wherein the heavens will be on fire, they'll dissolve, and the elements will melt with a fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness. All things new, all things righteous. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you're looking for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless. And count this, that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation. He has a plan and he has something in mind. Well, look at 2 Thessalonians, and I'm reading several scriptures to just set the tone for where we're headed. This may be akin to going to a dentist this session. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 7. And to you who are troubled, rest with us. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God. It's quoting from Jeremiah. And that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will be punished with eternal or everlasting destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. That's quoting from Isaiah 2. When he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all of them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed in that day, in that day. He's talking about a coming day. And then you read one of the first writers in the Word of God who someone else wrote down, Jude chapter 1, of course, there's only one, but verse 14 and 15 and 16. But we'll read just 14 and 15. Listen to Jude 14. Enoch also, seventh from Adam, prophesied of these. And these refers to the false prophets and others who are giving an appearance. And it says, saying this, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly, count the ungodlies in this verse, all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which the ungodly sinners have spoken against him. So it's clear evidence and clear prophecy, twice as many of the second coming as his first in the Scripture. Yet he fulfilled so all that we understand of his first coming, and so many loom before us of the second. You see, what my job was in Fiji was to, from the Lord, was to stir us up in way of remembrance. Because, you see, the gospel in our day has become, for many, just a reminder of Jesus wants you to have a more meaningful life. He wants to make you happy, as we just heard in that revival hymnal. It's more man-centered for many than as it is in the Word of God, truly for the glory of God. You see, not everybody's going to be on shouting ground, even in the church, when he comes. We are not to be ashamed that he's coming. We ought to be walking in the fear of the Lord and in respect of what he's saying, and the world knows us not because the world knew him not. Behold, beloved, what manner of men we ought to be, seeing how these things hasten. Now, the fearful thing is, though, that as we talk about the coming of the Lord, and the church rejoices in that Jesus is coming for the wedding, the thing we often forget is, for the world, it's judgment time, and that it is not going to be wonderful. It is going to be terrible, and this is meant to be a balance in our heart and mind, and a growing sense of urgency is to come to us. Just listen to what it says. I'll read you these, and you don't need to turn there, but Psalm 96. Listen to what it says, beginning in verse one. It says, Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name, and show forth his praise from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, and his wonders among the people. The Lord is great. He is greatly to be praised, but he is to be feared above all gods. Then, in verse eight, it says, Give to the Lord the glory that's due his name. Bring an offering. Come to his courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Fear before him all the earth. Say among the nations that the Lord reigns. The world will be established, and it won't be moved. He will judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice. Let the earth be glad, and let the sea roar in the fullness thereof. It's talking about, in verse 13, in the presence of the Lord, rejoice, because he is coming. He's coming to judge the earth. He'll judge the world with his righteousness, and the people with his truth. Psalm 98, verse 9. Before the Lord again, he will come to judge the earth with righteousness, and he shall judge the world and the people with equity. The next Psalm says, The Lord reigns. The Lord reigns, and exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his footstool, for he is holy. We're called to give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness over and over and over again in the Scriptures. So, I want to go to one more Scripture before I jump into my message. I know you say, that's a lot of Scripture. Well, I can't think of anything better to say. John chapter 3. Very familiar. You know the verse, but I want to read it in its context, because if you see in the Scripture, when the Scriptures say, when Jesus was begotten, it wasn't before the foundation of the world, and it wasn't at Bethlehem. It was at the resurrection that he became the firstborn from the dead, and he was begotten by the Spirit, by the resurrection, and we too enter that same experience. When you read these verses in John chapter 3, it says, as Moses, verse 14, lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, this is the cross, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Then the familiar verse, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Begotten Son. See, the first verse talks of the cross. This one talks about the resurrected Son. You study that and see if it's not consistent. And whosoever believes into him should not perish, but have eternal life. And he's saying God sent his Son not to condemn the world, but on that cross where he would die. And then you read verse 36. He that believes on the Son has everlasting life, but he that does not believe the Son will not see life, but here he is. The wrath of God remains on him. Remains on him. In the book of Romans, and we'll go there in a little bit, it says that while the gospel is the power of God to salvation, God's wrath is presently at work. What we don't have to ask is are we under judgment, because the whole world is being judged, but it's reserved to a greater judgment that's coming. Now, in our day, now here we jump into it. In our day, it's very unpopular to talk about the wrath of God, and this will be an excuse for some of you to go to sleep tonight and say, I don't need to hear about that. But I'll just say, you see, it makes people nervous when you talk about the wrath of God. And you know what? It rightly should make people feel nervous. How can a living God and a loving God have a wrath? If he's able to have all power, you hear it in theological circles. If God is all-powerful and God is loving, then how would he and why would he allow sin, and how could there ever be a wrath? And so we get that confused, and so what happens is we don't usually bother to do any deep scriptural study to answer that question, and we let other people answer it for us, you see. Let me ask you something tonight, young people. I can see that this is not your favorite subject, but you see, you're born for this hour. You're born for this hour. Let me ask you a question. As a Christian, as a Christian, what do you think of God's wrath? As a Christian, do you realize that he has a wrath in the scripture? Do you feel like, like some people feel like they must apologize for it? Like it is like a zit on the face of an otherwise perfect complexion of a loving God. We don't like this part of him, and when it comes up in circles or discussion, we almost feel like sometimes we have to apologize to the people that are there for the wrath of God. I've felt like that. Haven't you? When you get in a forum on the internet, they're talking about the love of Christ, and it's way out of balance. You feel like you're just an ogre, you see. Maybe you have an uncertainty in your own heart as to whether the wrath of God is a little too severe. I'm serious. I mean, and I see these are thoughts that people have. It's just too severe. Everlasting destruction away from the presence of the Father? That's just a little too severe. Even some very good theologians have come to say hell doesn't last forever. You know, they believe in the annihilation of the soul. Maybe you kind of feel like if you ignore God's wrath, it might go away. Do you think that God's hatred of sin has lessened since now Jesus has died on the cross? Maybe that now that man's kind of on a probation since sin's been paid for so much since Jesus died on the cross, maybe he's changed his view of sin. Maybe that's kind of what some people think in the church, or maybe he's gotten more lenient since Jesus has done this. Do you think that? It's easy to think that way, you see, but let me just say God's wrath, dear friends, is one of the clearest attributes in Scripture about him. 580 times in the Old Testament, and over 20 different words for wrath in Hebrew. Did you know that? Over 20 different words, and it pervades the New Testament. We just read a lot of those as well, and do you realize that Jesus spoke more about hell than even heaven? He did, and why did he do that? John the Baptist trumpeted, flee from the wrath to come. The day is coming, says Malachi at the end of the Old Testament. The day is coming that will burn like an oven, and God will appear, and all the ungodly will be like scubble, and it will burn. That's the last thing he said in the Old Covenant, and Paul spoke of when Jesus, we just read it, would be revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance on all who know not God, and to show him synonymously those who obey not the gospel. There's an obedience, a heart, and response to what they know of God that's required, you see, with his mighty angels he'll come and take vengeance, and so the day is coming. In fact, in Romans chapter 2, listen to what he says to people that know the truth, but don't bother to really ever really walk in the reality of it. You see, in Romans 1, he condemns the non-saved because of all their perversities, but in Romans 2 also, like religious people who don't really know Christ are condemned, then you see where it says in verse 3 of chapter 2, do you think this, O man, that you that judge those other people that do such things, and you do the same things, that you will escape the judgment of God? Do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance? See, he's suffering long, long suffering and holding back. Do you despise that, not knowing that the goodness of God, this forbearance is meant to lead you to real repentance? Listen to what he says, after your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every person according to his deeds. Everyone, everyone, even Christians will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, except for the fact that it won't be the judgment of a criminal like the lost, it'll be the discernment of a loving father, where there's still a lot of difference, but we are to have a given answer for the deeds done in the body and as even as a believer of those who have truth and long to walk in all the truth. I can see some of you in your very eyeballs pulling back from this truth, but I'll tell you what, you do it to your own peril and to the lack of health of your own soul, you see. We've got to hear it clearly. God's wrath is just as much a part of his divine perfection as his love and as his faithfulness and as his power and as his mercy. In fact, he even swears in the scriptures by his holiness, but he swears by his wrath also. Did you know that? It's such an unbreakable, unbendable reality about his very nature that he swears by it. He swears by his own existence, he swears by his holiness, and he swears by his wrath. Now that's serious, you see, and so let me just say this and let this jolt you. My readiness or my reluctance, whichever one it is, to think about and accept the wrath of God shows how I really feel about him. Whether or not I'm really sanctified or just sentimental, because, you see, there's a lot of sentimentality that's not based on truth, but when I accept this and understand the beauty of what it really means with the cross as its juxtaposition, it makes the gospel precious like it's meant to be to me as his child, you see. The Bible says that the saints are to rejoice at the remembrance of his holiness, and you see in Revelation chapter 15, and you see in Revelation chapter 19, they are rejoicing as the judgments of God are made manifest in the earth. You see, they're not reluctant to think on his wrath. In fact, they're singing around the throne about the answer for his wrath. When you see into heaven and you see what they're really occupied with doing and the fire and the furnace of their worship, it has to be that they've seen what we're talking about here first, and they've seen the beauty of the precious blood. That's what they're singing about at the right hand of God. Around the throne they're singing about the blood of Christ. Well, the Old Testament and the New Testament unapologetically verify the terror of God's wrath, and we don't ever hear, when was the last time you heard a message on the wrath of God? I mean seriously, but you see it's not the whole counsel of God, nor is it the whole being of his nature if we haven't one of his attributes set forth and kept it hidden. God's made no attempt to conceal his wrath in Scripture, has he? Not any. It's right there, and it's clear, and so we must not apologize for it. The Apostle Paul said, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Because we understand what we're really saying here in the light of the whole word of God, it gives an incentive. Jude chapter...Jude verse 20 says, some save with fear, hating the garment even spotted by the flesh. Others, you come in with the loving heart because they've already been broken by God, but there's a need to have this balance, you see. Well, who is God angry with? Who is his wrath toward? That's what we've got to ask. Well, it is very simple. In the Scriptures it says, in Psalm 7 and Psalm 5, that he hates all workers of iniquity, and God is angry with the wicked or the sinners every day. All the time, every day, God has a plan for their life, and it is a serious matter. He's angry with that, and it clearly teaches that God hates sin. Now, it's getting heavy in here. I can sense it, but you see there's something inside. If you'll hang with me, our age does not like to talk about or think about the wrath of God. We do not like it, and so what I've heard so many times is, I mean, I don't preach on this a lot. I preach on revival. I preach on the cross, but I hardly ever have ever gotten up and preached a word like this. This is unique. Say, we need to hear about the life of Christ. There's so many discouraged people. We need to hear about the love of God. This wrath you mentioned will turn people away, so what happens is, we go with a lopsided message to a sin-loving, God-hating world, and we give them a message that says, God loves you. That's all we say to them, and so the difference, what happens is casual indifference, like an indulgent parent, like a child looks at a parent kind of indulgently and just kind of takes advantage of them and whatever else. Well, see, God is light. He's consuming fire as well as love. That's what makes his love potent and glorious, you see, so here's the thing. To warn about wrath to a man-centered, respectable, sophisticated-in-the-flesh generation, a society church that's concerned with nickels and noses, it is a tall order for us to come and give a contrary, but you see, sin is rampant. Iniquity abounds. Truth has fallen in the streets. God's ways are being ridiculed. His commandments are being scorned, and his character is being assailed, and his promises are rejected, and his mercy is taken for granted. All of this that's happening, and his threatenings are being ignored. We've dismissed him as natural disaster or unfortunate person in the wrong place or something, and we fail to see that God, he says, when these things are in a nation, prepare to meet God. That's what he says in Amos, and when these things are happening in the world, and it's in line with Scripture, you need to have an urgency from the Holy Spirit of God that lets you understand what is really happening, that the end of all things is at hand. Be sober for the purpose of prayer, it says in 1 Peter 4, 7, because the end of all things is at hand. Now you know what? I would rather be mistaken and have a hundred years and be urgent in my day and be ready than presume and sit around and start taking my ease and doing like it says in the Gospels. He begins to eat and drink and be merry with all the servants, and the Lord comes and finds him in an hour that he's not ready. I don't think we are going to have that long, but you see, sex and greed and pride and selfishness and immorality, the statistics on that stuff is even as equal in the church as in the world today, and the divorce rate among pastors is one of the highest in America. In America. I got to calm down because y'all are sympathetic people, I don't have to drive this in. We must boldly proclaim to our generation that the wrath of God is ready to be revealed. That it's just, as someone says, like a silk thread can be snapped, and there we are. He's coming to judge the earth, so failure, I believe, the Bible teaches this, I believe, failure to preach this or understand it is precisely why there is very little fear of God in secular society, and the gospel seems to have a take-it-or-leave-it impact on people, and they think they can ignore God's call, because it's all for men, you see, but listen to what it says in Ezekiel. He says this amazing verse in that famous text that talks about us being a watchman in Ezekiel chapter 3. Listen to what he says to people who see the evil coming and see a day like the one we're moving into and don't say anything about it. Ezekiel chapter 3 in verse 18. Listen to what he says. When I say to the wicked, you will surely die, and you don't give them warning or speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life. The same wicked men will die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. This is what Paul meant when he said, I declare to you I'm pure from the blood of all men. I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God, and then if you were to read on there and in chapter 33, you'd see the warning given again in chapter 33, but the Lord says in Ezekiel 33 11, say to them as I live, saith the Lord God, Ezekiel 33 11, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn from your evil ways. Why will you die, O house of Israel? People that were in the right place that weren't real in their relationship with God. Now, I'm not preaching this tonight because I think that there's a lot of lost people in here. There may be one or two. There may be some of you, but I'm preaching this because I believe we have left this out of unconsciously, perhaps, but we have not allowed the balance of this to come into our gospel message, and make no mistake about it. It is the message of the gospel that is the real issue of the hour. In the church, it is not just that we're not preaching this or that. It's the whole understanding of who God is and what he has done with the Lord Jesus in his timeless, wonderful, glorious revealing of himself and coming to die and then going back as Lord of all and coming again soon. That whole good news of who he really is has been misunderstood, and therefore, we don't really preach with power. So, the fear of the Lord, remember that, is the beginning of wisdom. And so, let's quickly add, before we lose everybody here, that God's wrath, the reason we have a hard time thinking about it so often is that his wrath, we tend to project our own wrath as his wrath. And see, God's wrath is not like man's wrath. Man's wrath is fleshly and vindictive and full of revenge, or it's unpredictable, but you see, God's wrath, it says he is righteous in all of his ways and he is holy in all of his works. Psalm 145, verse 17. God's wrath, you see, get this. Now, here we're getting down to it. God's wrath is his expression or his response to sin. That's what it is. He hates it. You see, sin is not just a thing we do. Sin is a condition. It is independence from God. It is man going his own way. It's man acting like God and not letting God be God. And it's transgression of what God has made as a revelation, his law, and I think I can shoot past the mark, or fall short of what he wants, or let my perverse nature come out, and no one's going to, I won't surely die. It's just one big picture, you see. It's independence from God and selfishness and pride. So, what is wrath? Here's what wrath is. It's God's holiness, his nature, stirred into activity against unholiness. That's what wrath is in the Scripture, and it's wrath is the disposition of God against that which is contrary to his nature. Is this too theological for you? It's God expressing himself against that which is against his nature. One old Puritan said it this way, it's a settled disposition, his wrath, a settled disposition toward all moral evil, and it arises out of his nature. Do you see that? It arises out of his love, and his goodness, and his awesomeness, and his holiness, you see. And it's been revealed even now, because you can't go against God. You can't live and depart from him, because in him we live and move and have our being. Even the lost man, when he shakes his fist at God, God keeps those atoms going around. His fist could fall off, you know. God's mercy is upon this whole earth. The earth should have been destroyed, but he didn't destroy all the earth. He's long-suffering, you see. So, here's the bottom line where we're talking about his wrath. God must destroy all that is contrary to himself. So this helps us understand what it means in Revelation chapter 6, when it talks about the wrath of the Lamb. Infinite holiness stirred into activity against unholiness. The great day of the wrath of the Lamb has come, and who can stand? Fall on us mountains, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, because even as the mountains are shaking, and the islands are removed out of the sea, and there's a great awareness God is coming to do exactly what we're talking about tonight, people say, I don't want to face it. That's how perverse. Yet they repented not, it says. But God waits, and soon there comes a line that you cross. This old world, and there's a day, he's reserved it, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man that he has ordained, by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the quick and the dead, not just the dead without Christ, but even his own will give an account by the holiness of his indwelling life, and all that he's done. And there'll be rewards. We don't ever hear that preached much, and there'll be loss. Some will have their whole life work. It'll just disappear, as by fire. And they will enter heaven with a smell of smoke, and then God will wipe away tears. But there are going to be differences in heaven, friend. Don't think that the casual, indifferent, carnal, take-it-or-leave-it person that's kind of coasted along, and kind of had to always be an isle athlete. I call them always running down, the isle athletics, you know, just always down doing aerobics, going down and rededicate. Not even in the Bible, you know, the word rededicate. It's not even in the dictionary. But you think that person's going to have the same reward as someone like a martyr who gave everything in his family, like Adonai Judson or something, who went to Burma and lost his wife, and lost his children, and said this is, you know, it's just incredible. Yes, there'll be great reward, but you see, here's the thing. No one will ever taste God's wrath who does not completely deserve it, and he has all the facts, and he never makes a mistake, and he's absolutely just. Here it is. God's wrath is judicial in character. It's judicial in character. It's carried out in complete justice, and so his eternal kingdom, get this, is eternal and just, and it is based upon who he is. His eternal purpose in his kingdom is based upon his character, and his nature, and all that he is. God is light, and in light there is no darkness at all, and his face is going to be the light in the new Jerusalem and in all eternity, and so God is love, and in love there is no selfishness at all, and his God is truth, it says, and in truth there is no lie or falsehood. That's why there's no liars in heaven, it says, and God is fire. He is a consuming fire, and in fire there's no impurity. The word in the Greek for fire is puree. We get our word purified from it. It burns away, draws, and it blends in that which is good. So see, this helps me understand why he says, become holy. It's a present tense going, become holy, because I the Lord am holy. Holiness is not a look I get on my face, or the way I act, or carry a big black Bible. Holiness is only possible one way. It's by the Holy One being in you, and the word holy in the Old Testament means a reserve for the exclusive use of. So you have holy vessels in the tabernacle, only meant to be used in the tabernacle. So holy hands, holy eyes, it means they only belong to him, and God is the only one that has the right to look through my eyes, and use my hands, and become holy, for I the Lord am holy. In all of your conversation, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, so that it's not just you trying to live for Jesus by your own power, but rather you going to the cross realizing who he is, and now letting him live his own life in you. The Christian life is not me living for Jesus, it's letting Christ live his life in me. He who has the Son has life. He who doesn't have the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. It's just a matter of time until it breaks forth. So we're going to fit into his eternal order. Makes sense, doesn't it? It's a moral kingdom based on himself. He's not only preparing a place for us, he's preparing you and me for a place. He's preparing his people. He's preparing a bride. She's making herself ready. She's responding to him. I don't know why he wants us to walk in the invisible by faith and not by sight. I don't understand. That's his choice. It pleases him that we believe him. It's all about him, not about things he's promised even. It's all about his character and his faithfulness, and everything else emanates out of that. So here's what we're saying. A kingdom must have order or it will collapse. Look what's happening around us here in USA. There's no order and it's collapsing. See, any kingdom, even an earthly one, must have order or it will collapse. Justice and judgment are the base of your throne, it says in Psalm 89. You read it this morning, I think. And in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8 and 9, it says that thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness. You hate iniquity. Therefore God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above all your fellows. God loves righteousness. He hates iniquity. So when he laid before the foundation of the world, this is now, this is hard to describe, and I'm sure it's just like a firefly compared to an exploding nova. But God in his matchless perfection, when he laid the foundation of his kingdom, he actually made his own character the basis of all, and without respect of persons, he would regard the interests of all in that kingdom. And he would be righteous and holy and without any respect of persons, all by his holiness. And he swore this by his own holiness. Justice demands, then, the carrying out of that moral law. And forever settled in the heavens, his word is, otherwise his kingdom will collapse. It's got to be based on truth. Whatever's not inconsistent, whatever's inconsistent with him must be destroyed. So when Adam violated the moral law, we don't have time to go as deep as I'd like into this, but when he violated God's moral law, he came under the sentence of death, and there was no option. And God removed his spirit from Adam's spirit, and death passed upon all his offspring, and there was a moral leprosy and a poison of the me first attitude that came into all his offspring and came into you and to me. Moral lepers, born that way, in sin conceived, and so we became, it says in the scriptures, by nature a child of wrath, Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3, and Ephesians 4, and having our understanding darkened and alienated from the life of God. Is this making y'all think too much? It says stir up your pure minds. Stir them up. Hey, it says be sanctified by the renewal of your mind, not removal. Renew your mind. It's got to be renewed. So how could a morally perfect God remain perfect if he didn't judge sin? How could he? God must deal with sin. He must carry it out. See, Satan's rebellion had carried a third of, they think that's the number from one scripture, but a large number fell of angels, and God had judged them severely before pride and the same infection that came, the poison that came to Adam, and so then it affects Adam. Can God just let it go and remain righteous? Can he? Romans chapter 3 says the truth about us. There's none righteous, no not one. There's none good, no not one. The poison of a snake is under my tongue. My mouth's like an open grave, and it goes on, and I'm like sour milk, and I'm a grumbler, and there's no fear of God before their eyes. Do you believe that's true about you? I read that, and I say, Lord, do I really believe that's true about me? Because if I don't, I haven't seen it yet, but just give it time, and then the milk will become more evidently sour. You see, that's true. So you see that all have sinned. Romans 1 is the lost that aren't in religious circles. Romans 2 is the church circles and the Judaism circles, and then chapter 3 is the whole world. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, so my crimes must be judged. The wages of sin must be death, and so do you realize what my crimes merit before a holy God? What your crimes do in the light of who He is and what He's done, even in our own governments, and this is a great illustration today. When something is wrong, and we know it's wrong, like that commercial, if you've seen it on TV about this, they have two children, and said, how would you like a pony? They give one to the other, and gives the other this little something, and the kid looks at him like, that's not right. You know, even a kid knows when something's not right, and you look at the government, and when there's a judge is considered unjust, when he allows a true criminal to be pronounced moral. If you let off a child molester, and because of a under-the-table bribe, what would the hardest person on earth say about that? That's just not right. That's wrong. So see, God's broken law had to be dealt with. Man's moral rebellion had to be dealt with. The price of sin had to be paid, and now here's the part, you see. What God's justice demanded, His grace provided. That's the beauty of it. That's the beauty, and this is what makes the gospel precious, you see. I want you to turn to one of the most important passages in the book of Romans, chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. Y'all need to come up for air for a second. Romans chapter 3. Listen, there's only two alternatives tonight. The goodness and the grace of God received by grace at Calvary, or the absolute judgment and wrath that awaits every person without Christ. The people you love the most in your own family without Christ. It's not going to be a relative judgment. It's a total judgment, and that's what we're saying here in Romans chapter 3, verse 21. But now a righteousness, the word is a righteousness of God, without the law has been manifested and has been witnessed to by the law and the prophets. He showed it in the tabernacle. He showed it in the temple by the offerings and the feasts. Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. There is no difference because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And here we go into this passage. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, who the Lord Jesus God has set him forth. Now that word set forth is a word that's very similar to what we call like putting up a billboard beside the highway. If you're riding down the highway, there is a billboard, especially when you get over by the outlet mall. Every mile it says up ahead, up ahead, up ahead, and it's advertising to all. God billboarded the Lord Jesus in history to be a propitiation. Some translations say expiation, but propitiation carries the idea of turning away wrath as well as just kind of winking at, you see. But he set forth the Lord Jesus to be a propitiation. How? Through faith in his blood. And here's what he was doing by doing that. He was declaring his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the toleration or forbearance of God. See, it says in the New Testament that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Do you think that anybody's ever been saved by coming to the tabernacle or temple and offering a lamb by just that? No. It's like you come into church and thinking you're saved because you go to church. It all points to him. And God, through all those putting up with the blood of bulls and goats and all that, he says he tolerated it. He put up with it, and he justified his forbearance for doing it when Jesus died on the cross. He waited, and he waited, and he waited, and people could say, well how could God forgive these people of all? If you really see how hideous sin is, how could he forgive their sin by coming and offering a lamb? And God winked at it, and he tolerated it, and it says in verse 26, to declare, I say at this time when Calvary happened, his righteousness. Don't get confused. God is not a weak person when it comes to hating sin. The reason he could wait is because this was prophesied, and this was going to take place, and that God might be just and still be the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. You see, not only was the sinner justified at Calvary, but God was justified at Calvary. This is a key part of this verse, that God is saying, listen, it's not just the sins that are being forgiven. It is, you see, God justifies sinners, and it's more than forgiveness. He just, he adds his righteousness as well. It's not just forgiveness of sin, it's righteousness given as a gift on top of it. And how does he do it? The word in the Greek is dorian. It's freely. He did it freely by grace. It means without a reason. There's no human reason why God would do this, except what's also birthed out of his nature, his grace and his mercy through the blood. By himself he purged our sins. It's not just pardon. You see, the governor may pardon a vile criminal, but it doesn't cost him anything. He just signs something, and the criminal walks. It's a pardon. But God doesn't just pardon sin. Sometimes he says pardon, but it's more because, you see, he purges our sin. To purge it means with the blood of Jesus, with the blood of Jesus, not by statement, just signing like the governor, not by sentimental, oh, this is such a nice girl, I hate to do this to her, but by sacrifice of his own son. That's how he justifies sin. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. That's what it says. And he will by no means pardon the guilty, says that there as well. You see, his holiness must be answered. God cannot ignore sin then or now, and only through the blood can God forgive, and can he still remain holy and just and not be an immoral judge. God billboarded him. He put him up before all of history. The most disgust person by any even lost people in all of history is the Lord Jesus that man would try to offer all these excuses and substitutions, but it wouldn't satisfy. They would never pay for sin. So that's what God did, a public spectacle of blood, a public spectacle to say, listen, this is why I could overlook and put up with all those things that it hurt me to do, but I did it in light of the cross. This is why it says in Hebrews that the people who went to Abram's bosom waited there for the reality of Jesus coming and dying on the cross, but when he went and preached victory because of his actual bloodshed, he took captivity captive, and took him on high because now it was literal, and it's done forever. Forever your word is settled in heaven. He put up with the tokens and the symbols until Jesus came. So let's just suppose that I'm a judge, okay? This is what Romans is teaching. I'm a judge, and I have a son that I love. I love my son, but I'm a judge. I've been entrusted with keeping the law, and upholding it, and magnifying it, and making it honorable, and my son violates a serious sanction in the law. As a father, I don't want to see him find a great amount of money. I don't want to see him even go to jail, but so he comes in, and I recognize it's my son, but you know what I have to do? I'm the judge, and everybody's saying, oh, he'll let him off because it's his boy. He loves this boy. He's gonna let him off. So my son comes before me, and I hit the gavel down, and I give him the most severe ruling, and the sentence, and absolutely the absolute letter of the law, and the courtroom gasps. Oh, how could he do that to his own son? And then I take off my robes, which is a good time to do this here. I take off my robe, and I lay it aside, and then I come down in front, and I take my son, and I give him all that I have, my wallet, and everything else, and I say, as a judge, I had to uphold the law, and magnify it, and make it honorable, and make sure that it is the foundation of our all that we are, but now I've stepped out. I've emptied myself, and come around, and as your father, I'm gonna take your place under my own sentence to show you the love that's in my heart for you, and the love that I have for the kingdom and the purpose of all that it is. That's a picture, but the judge pays to the fullest. That's why the Bible says in Psalm 85, mercy and truth have met together. Truth, you know, demands justice, but mercy can meet truth at the cross, and righteousness, God's holy righteousness, and peace with God for sinners have kissed each other at Calvary. It says, righteousness shall look down from the sky, and truth will spring up from the earth. What a description of Calvary, with the Father God looking in his righteousness at the Son, paying to the uttermost, and I'm the truth, springing up out of the tree of life, the Lord Jesus on the cross, springing up. Can you imagine how it must have been in the invisible? This is why angels desire to look into this. They're astounded. This is why with that atonement, they're singing around the throne, or saying around the throne. Saints are singing. They're saying, myriads and myriads, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing, for by your blood you've redeemed us out of every territory, and trade, and tribe. We have been made kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign forever and ever with you. Can you imagine, I mean, not having that revelation, and just kind of the angels are amazed at this, and God has magnified his law and made it honorable at Calvary. What love that the very God that I have offended would himself empty himself, and be found the servant of Jehovah Father God, and then be found in fashion as a man, and be born in the most humble of circumstances, and then be obedient unto death, but not just obedient like we would be obedient to what God should, but even the death of the cross reserved for the vilest offender, that he would die for me, and that God would then, as he was placed in that ground, he would raise him from the dead to say, payment in full. What he said, it's finished, has been truly made as righteous. See, Jesus was ordained to be that propitiation, to pacify, to appease. It's the same from the root word that daubed the inside and outside of the ark of Noah. They kept out the judgment, and they went through the door in the side. Isn't that just awesome? It had a window above. It's a perfect picture of hiding in Christ, and when you see man hiding from God in Genesis, now it's hiding in God, in the ark of Jesus on the cross. So his blood stands for the life laid down, and that's why we sing about it. So now at Calvary, you see, what's happened is that his honor has been vindicated. He's uphold the law and make it honorable. His kingdom will stand forever. His holiness has been satisfied at Calvary. His love has been expressed. You'll never know the love of God until you see Calvary. You can't just know it by a Christian being nice to you. I mean, you can know part of it, but you only understand the real love when you understand what we're talking about here. Righteousness has been exalted at Calvary, and his wrath has been expended, and Satan has been judged all at Calvary. That's why they're singing about it on the throne today, and you see, he did it for me and for you. It's for you. It's not just a faceless humanity. I like that song that says, when he was on the cross, I was on his mind. We can't comprehend that because we have a finite mind, but he has every thought of every person who's ever lived before him, and all at once, and he's not confused. Every atom that goes in it has electrons, and all the math, and I mean everything is all before him, and it's all present tense right now before his eternal throne, and he's not tired. He's not weary. He's not confused. He's not even upset in the sense because it's all under perfect control, and this is the same God that emptied himself for you and for me. So you see, he had to come and seek and save that which was lost, what his righteousness demanded only God could provide, but God spared not his own son. See, don't let anybody rob you that he spared not his own son, but he delivered him over to what? To the tormentors, to the people to demons. In Psalm 22, and it says, while bulls of Bashan gaped upon me, it's an expression for, in the spirit realm on Calvary, it was like God took Jesus and tossed him to the wild dogs, and the devil had a party, and he stuck him in the ground saying, this is it. All of humanity belongs to me now, and there'll be no more way for them to escape, but if the God of this world at that time had known, he would never have engineered the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory. Oh, because what he thought was his greatest victory was his greatest undoing. Can you picture with me tonight, I hope I can say this, that lone figure in Gethsemane, the one who'd never had, from eternity past, one millisecond separate from fellowship with his father. He had always done the things that pleased him. In him was no sin. He was like Adam was, though because of love, he became like Adam before he fell. That's why he's called the second man. He didn't come as a fallen man. He came, he bypassed the sinful race in one sense, and he came through the seed of woman, and there was a perfect man who'd never sinned on his knees in the garden. Can you imagine that, that he was there, and he was in Gethsemane? You know what Gethsemane means? Olive Press. There in Gethsemane, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, and he was pressed beyond measure. He could have backed up. He could have said, just a second, you don't know who I am. Instead of, it is finished, he says that I'm out of here. He could have gone, but you see, he pressed it all the way in, and he was there, and suddenly in your mind, you see the sinless Son of God writhing in agony, and the weight of the sin coming on him, and great drops coming out, just like pressing out the presses of that pain, and as the Father lays on him my sin and yours, and the sin of the whole world on the Lamb of God, and in a sense you can see, if you can just let it happen in your mind, a hand coming down to him in that garden, and there's a cup there in that hand, and it's full to the brim, and Lord Jesus looked at that cup, and a holy Savior grows pale, and his eyes perhaps with horror. He looked at that cup, and as the perfect man, he looked at that in despair, blood pressing out the pores, and he says, my Father, if it be possible, can this cup pass? Now he wasn't asking to sidestep Calvary. That's the mystery of it all. Here he is as the perfect human being, the perfect man, but he's facing, what was it in that cup that could make him draw back like that? What could make Jesus Christ shrink back from a cup like that? Do you think that the devil frightened him? No way. He wasn't afraid of the devil, and he wasn't intimidated by the starchy Pharisees, or the Sadducees. That didn't bother him, and he didn't shrink from a jeering mob. He wasn't afraid of that. He wasn't even worried about the Romans, and the tormentors, and his executioners, and he certainly wasn't afraid of the personal pain. What was it that was in that cup that he drew back? I'll tell you what was in that cup. Your sin and my sin. There's the cup of iniquity that you see through the Old Testament. It's the cup of the demons. It's just like bringing covenant with the devil, when you take that cup, and he looked in that cup, and the only thing that Jesus ever feared was sin, and he looked at that cup, and he must I drink? No, you don't have to, but it's the only way that John cannot perish. It's the only way that Al won't have to pay the wages of sin. It's the only way that you can save Dan. It's the only way. So infinite love and incalculable pain took that stench-filled cup, and drank all of it in a picture. It would be a lot less gruesome to imagine you going out here to the city sewer plant that someone referred to this morning, and taking a cup of raw sewage, and drinking it. This is infinitely more serious than that, so that he who knew no sin became the essence of what he took of in that moment. He became sin. He didn't just take of it. He became sin, and he became the object of his father's loathing, and he who has never lost sight of it, on the cross when he says, my God, when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken? It was the only time he ever addressed his father face to face where he called him God and not Father, but it was still my God, and he's becoming the sin of the world right there, and it's like the Father says, if I can't...he turned from man. He blew out the sun, and put the shutters down of the universe, and in silence the Son of God suffered alone with the weight of all the sin, and all the judgment. You think war is hideous, and all these other things we see? That's peanuts compared to what happened in the invisible realm to our Lord Jesus. No wonder we love him. No wonder we have a sense of urgency for our ones in our family, and those that are close to us. We ought to have a sense of urgency because we know our own sin like that for the people that are erring, and that are out of the way. It ought to put us on our face in adoring worship. That day when we go to be at the throne, we'll join those myriads and myriads. Do you think they'd ever get tired of praising him for the blood and the atonement the only time it ever shows that? I mean you'd think they would, but they don't because it's infinite in its beauty and application. He spared not his own son from wrath when sin was on him, but God delivered him over. So I heard this story about your neck of the woods up there in the prairies, brother. There's some prairies up there near you, huge prairies near Prairie Bible Institute up there, and there was a man who had his family, and some years ago he was going in a wagon out across one of those huge prairies. It has grass, golden grass, maybe five feet high, and up in the wagon you can drive, but it just looks like those amber fields of grain, and he's crossing this huge prairie, and he gets out about in the middle of it, about ten miles out, and suddenly he sees on the horizon what looks like an orange sheet and smoke, and all of a sudden deer are running by him, and all these animals are running this way, and he realizes he's out in the middle of a prairie, and there's a prairie fire coming toward him, and sometimes they can go like 50 miles an hour, and even a deer will get overtaken and burned. So he realizes that in just a matter of moments, very soon, he and his family will be engulfed in flames. So in a quick, quick moment of thought, he goes down this next little incline and up a little lower, a little hill in the prairie, and he gets out of the wagon, he takes out a match, and he lights down around the wagon, and controls the burn of the grass around the wagon, and he sees as the flame spreads out from the wagon, it makes a growing larger black circle that goes down around that wagon, and it makes a black circle, and his wagons right in the middle of it. Then he says to his wife and children, get out of the wagon. He puts them down beside the wagon. He digs a ditch and puts them in it and covers them with wet blankets. Very, very soon, this huge wall of fire comes down, hits the edge of that black circle, and goes around, because you see, it can only burn once, and that is the picture of what is coming to this world sooner than we like to even imagine. He's coming to judge the world in flaming fire, taking vengeance, and there's no hiding place from it. There'll be no escape. Even mountains and rocks won't hide from this, you see. Is there any place, as John the Baptist said, to flee from the wrath to come? Is there? You see, only once in all of history has God's wrath ever fallen in full fury on this planet. It wasn't Noah's flood, because some were spared. It wasn't any other thing except for at Calvary when Jesus absolutely paid the full portion of all the wrath of God. Is there any place to flee from the wrath to come? Yes, only one, to the middle of that blackened-out circle where the fire of God fell upon our Lord Jesus and consumed the Lamb on his altar of the cross, and if I will flee to the cross and make a beeline for there, there's hope and righteousness and peace, and God is satisfied, and he's justified in doing it. You see, now get this. This is the pinnacle of where we are tonight. You too tired? Can I go a little further? Once and for all, God has declared the absolute righteousness of his kingdom and his moral law. It will never be changed forever. Oh God, your word is settled in the heavens. A scepter of righteousness is the very scepter you hold in a picture of your kingdom, oh God, and here's the part that you need to understand. God is holy, and if, hear this, if the Father would not rescind the law for his Son, when sin was on him, when he became sin, do you think he'd ever do it for an indifferent sinner? Do you? This is a fearful thought for the Christ rejecter, maybe my best friend that doesn't know Jesus. I don't know why I'd be my best friend if he doesn't know Jesus, but he'd be a friend of mine, but a religious trifler, a one who just can't tolerate that slaughterhouse religion, that his blood, I just can't go there. You know, I kind of worked up about this because I was talking on the internet with some of these emergent church guys who think that the cross was God showing, this is how far I will go in love to show you that you are good. You don't believe what the Word says, that it's very good, and the reason you act bad is because you have a wrong self-image, and you judge yourself, and you act out this badness, and you need to quit believing a lie and start believing the truth that you're good, and that God is love, and they're preaching this on the internet, and you know what? The adults aren't aware of it, and young people are hearing it, and they don't have enough theological understanding from their parents, and they're getting swept into it. It's happening to some people you know, and God wants us to understand this. It's a, God is obligated, obligated to judge the Christ rejecter. To do less than that would be to insult his son. It would be to say to the Lord Jesus, his son, you did not mean to die, because I forgave this man over here, because he made an appeal to me on the basis of, he says he was ignorant, or he was sentimental, or whatever else, or he just didn't want to go to hell, and so I forgave him, and so he would backhand his son. It'd be like slapping his son, saying that all you did, and all you paid didn't mean a thing. It was just an appearance to talk people into following your example. You see, the blood not only justifies man to God, but the blood of Jesus Christ justifies God to man. There'll be no one around in that day when we can see that can point to the cross and say, you didn't take sin seriously, Lord. You didn't, you didn't, he did, he paid every bit of it, you see. So the question is now really, we know this, not how can a loving God send anyone to hell. The question is rather, how can a loving Father do any less if someone rejects the Son who paid for it all? How can a loving Father do any less than satisfy righteousness? If you refuse the Lord Jesus and his blood, if my best friend refuses, if my mother or my father refuses, then they will perish. And you know, and people say, I don't like to hear that. Of course we don't. And now you're getting close to burden. God wants to burden us. He's given us prayer. He's given us his promise that we can deal with the enemy who, if the gospel is hidden, it's hidden to those that are lost, whom the God of this world has blinded their mind, lest the light of the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus would shine into them like, let there be light, and they become a new creation. You see, they're not only blinded, they're bound. But he says to prayer, he says, listen, whatsoever you, plural, shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and you will discover that you have been given authority. The kingdom, when a strong man comes into a house like the devil, he binds this person, he blinds him. And only when stronger than he comes upon him, the Lord Jesus, the church, in prayer, and takes from that the violent, take it by force, can there be in this mysterious methodology of God praying for the lost. Do you realize that the reason that the church doesn't have more power over the masses when it preaches, and it doesn't go out and have a penetration of the gospel, is because we're prayerless. And God says, now you have righteousness. The gospel is not just a means to happiness, but it's to give us righteousness. And the Lord wants, he will never change his mind. He wants us to apply the promises of scripture, and to realize that for God not to throw sinners into the lake of fire now would be the height of injustice, to what really is going to last. He's cleared up all misunderstanding for all eternity about this, and so his wrath for sin has not grown less. In fact, it's more intense, because it involves rejection of Jesus. So let this get inside you tonight. This will hit you tonight, later, but you go home and lay on the floor, and you pray for those in your family that don't know Jesus, and realize that it's not just kind of an either or thing. I mean, this is serious, and this urgency, this burden that's meant to capture, this is why people don't become soul winners 24-7, because they may go out one night a week, because it's their duty to tell others about Jesus, but they're not constrained to see that their mother or their father are perishing without Christ. I prayed every day for my dad for 26 years, and you know what? I think I might have missed some days, actually. I can't say every day, but I'll tell you, after 16 years, my kids have been praying, and they said, will Pop ever come to know the Lord? And I remember that story about Mueller, who said he prayed for his brother for 62 years, and his brother did get saved, but he was looking down at Mueller's coffin. He got a better view. He got to check it out from the higher perspective, but you see, I remember in prayer, the Lord gave me my dad. He gave me my dad in prayer, and I had a confidence to know that when he gets to the edge of the end of his life, this scientist, this evolutionist, he taught genetics at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he thought he really was just a humanist. He was a nice humanist, and he cared about us, but I knew when he gets to the end of it all and sees things clearly, God can get his attention. So if you can store up wrath, you can store up prayer, and you see it in the book of Revelation. You see vials full of incenses, which are the prayers of the precious ones and broken before the throne, and we need to understand that. Let me read you a last scripture before we get to prayer. Listen to this scripture when it talks about the end times in which we are. In Hebrews chapter 12, verse 25, You know that it's speaking? It's the Lord saying, repent. It's the Lord saying, trust Jesus. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, how shall we escape if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven? With all the clarity of the book being given, how can we be indifferent to the Bible? How can we be indifferent to all this stuff? His voice then shook the earth, but now he is promised, saying, once more I'll shake not only earth, but also heaven. This word, listen, verse 27, signifying the removing of those things shaken as things that are made. This creation is going to get replaced, and it says, verse 28, Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. Let's have grace. Let's choose grace. Whereby we may serve God acceptably. This is not legalism tonight. This is a trumpet call to accept grace and serve God acceptably with reverence and with godly fear. Why? Because our God is a consuming fire. That verse troubles me, doesn't it, you? Not that I don't understand it, but that I do understand it. God is shaking everything. In the U.S., we won't listen. He's going to shake us till we get on our knees, and then the church that's really His, the remnant, is going to say, I think that we are so far gone that we're gonna have to wait till there's no other remedy but Him. There is no other remedy but Him, and not everybody that you think is a believer is going to make this transition. There's going to be a lot of disappointments, but that's why we've got to get the urgency back in it, and the reality back in it, that it's not whether they like it or not. That's why they killed the prophets, because they came with this message. This is why preaching has always had a cost to it, and witnessing, and there's always been an offense of the cross until the last 20 years. We've made it easy. We spent more money on evangelism and programs than any other time or country in history, but North America is the only nation on earth where Christianity is in decline. God is saying something to us by that. So if a soul ends without knowing Jesus, that's it. There's no hope. Forty years this man had been preaching. He went home, this Fijian pastor, wonderful man, and he realized that he didn't know this God. He'd come just to have Jesus help his life out, and he'd been serving him in the flesh all those years. He had never taken his whole life to the cross, and been crucified with Christ, and really given everything, and received it all. I don't know if you're here tonight. Maybe there's somebody here like that, but if everybody here is a believer, I know one thing the Lord does want to do. He wants us to have a prayer time now that really has unction in it, that has burden. I hope he brings the faces of your precious loved ones before you, and you can pray knowing what awaits people who take their last breath out here, who've not really come to a legitimate relationship with Christ. You say, that's putting a big burden on me. Well, I can't put that burden on you. If you see truth, and God burdens you, you finally have the fuel for prayer that you've been praying for and wanting. What about our churches? How could we not have tears? How could we not be contrite if we understand what we're talking about here with weep and tears in our churches, and if we realize that if we pray that the Lord says, listen, whatsoever you ask the Father in my name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son, because I'm with the Father. Now you can ask in my name. Up till now you've never asked, but ask in my name, and I'll do again anything you ask. And if you see a lost person, if the Lord's given you a burden, then press it through. Last thing I'll say. You know, Jesus said in Luke 18, men ought always to pray and not to faint. And then he gives a picture there of a little woman who was in a desperate situation, and she was about to lose a huge court case for her, for a little widow. She drew a judge by lot that didn't fear God and didn't care about widows, and she was worried. And Jesus tells this story to illustrate men ought to always pray and not give up, not faint. This little widow, you can see her outside the courthouse, and the judge comes out, and she's shaking maybe her umbrella at him. Avenge me of my adversary! Do the right thing! And this judge begins to get irritated. You can see the picture of it, and soon everywhere he turns, here's this little woman. Avenge me of my adversary! And he actually says, Jesus has this judge say these words, I, even though I don't fear God or regard men, I'm going to give in to what this little woman says lest she hit me beneath the eye. She's being violent. She's taking it by force. She's pressing in, and he gave in to her. And Jesus then said, how much more shall your heavenly Father hear you and avenge your case, even though he makes you wait a long time for an answer? And then he adds this strange word. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith, and it means that kind of faith on the earth, that kind of faith that presses in, that kind of faith that says, my daddy's lost, and devil, in the name of Jesus, I'm not giving him up. I'm not going to become passive. I'm going to pray for my dad. I'm going to lose sleep over it. I'm going to do whatever it takes, but I will not, because they call me names or think I'm weird, give up in the name of Jesus. That kind of faith is the gift of God. Have the faith of the Son of God. Speak to him out, and say, come down, be cast into the sea. Say it in prayer. Speak it, and believe God, not because we're great prayers, but because he's a great king, and he is all-powerful. Nothing is too hard for you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right, and because of the blood of Jesus that I take, and take it in? You see, I go out and preach the word, but I go in before God, and present man's needs to God, and sprinkle the blood by faith on the throne, that Jesus is, and I come to the blood of sprinklings, and I come boldly with the unveiled face to the throne of grace, but the real powers will come together. Let us go into the throne of grace. Let us, it says, not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. Let us press in, and press on, and hold God to his word. I mean, this sounds almost irreverent, but God's method is a Isaiah 45, 11. He says, concerning the works of my hands, command ye me. Tell me what to do. It's not telling God to do what I want him to do. It's based on this word that he's shown me, that I see, oh, this is what you want to do. This is who you are, and we come to him. We say, Lord, this is what you're like, and we're not going to believe what we see. We're a hundred years old, and my wife is barren, and I'm barren, but there's no way to have kids, but you said that you want us to have a child, and I'm not going to consider my situation. I'm dead, but I'm going to consider God who's faithful and can't lie, and God said it was written for your sake, so that we also could partake of that kind of righteousness. So what have you given up on in prayer? Who is it that's lost? I just, I felt this afternoon as I prayed about this, that there's so much that God wants to put urgency in your heart, young people, for your friends that are so bound and blinded by things, and God says, I'm going to let you take the blinders off in prayer. I'm going to let you cut Lazarus and let him go. I'm going to let you do these things that seem so impossible, because the things that are impossible with man are impossible with God. You must believe that he is, and he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, and you must come bring words, and come with the sacrifices of praise to the altar, and remind God, you who are God's remembrances, remind me of my word, because it honors me. That's what he wants us to do in prayer. Well, you've been very great to listen. It's been intense. I know it's been intense. Nobody likes to talk about wrath or judgment, but I pray in the name of Jesus that it will grab our hearts like this. One last thing. I remember the night I was praying for my dad. I was laying down on the floor in my living room alone in the old house we were in up in Chattanooga, and I was praying for him, and there was a fire in the fireplace, and I looked up, and I saw those coals, and I just, it was a beautiful fire, but for about 10 minutes, I looked there, and the Lord made me so aware that that's nothing. That is so nothing compared to what we're talking about here, and I began to realize, I said, it's not real to me. It's not real to me that whoever doesn't believe in him is already under judgment. Wrath is already being expressed, and we need to rescue the perishing. We need to care for the dying. We need to pay a ransom for them based on his ransom and be sent as he was sent. So tonight, is there somebody here who's reluctant to say yes to him, that they're willing to go wherever he says, perhaps across the street to your neighbor, and after prayer, and tell him the gospel? You say, I don't want to go. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you want to do, because you'll learn to love what he loves as you do what you don't want to do. Trust in him, and soon you'll love what you used to hate, and you'll hate what you used to love, and you'll look in the mirror, and you'll say, could this be really this possible that Jesus could change me, and that I could really be? Thank you, Lord Jesus, and you will fall on your face by amazing grace alone, and join in right now with those people and those angels around his throne that without ceasing, when they see him on the throne, they fall off theirs, and there they're on their face before him. That's what we need to be like. We need to be instant in praise. What I want you to pray together for a moment in small groups, and we're going to pray, and then after that, I want you to each one think of two or three people that God, he'll put them on your heart, and then I want those people that have prayed with you about this word. You know, you don't have to accept this. This word is for you to test it with Scripture, but when you pray about it, if you receive it, tell him you receive it, and let it penetrate, and then based on that, then pray for people that are in your circle that God has given you. He'll give them to you. Can you believe God and pray, not just hope and pray, and leave it to some distant, but can you believe God and pray on the basis of Calvary, the blood that he paid for them, and can you take them, and then begin to act in faith toward it?