Will you pray with me this morning? I don't have my mic, so you'll just, all right, good, good, good, good. Father in heaven, we are dependent upon you. We speak of that dependence when we say we have no other plea. It literally is Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone. And we do this for the glory of God alone. We recognize our desperate need of you, not only in order to receive new life, salvation, but to live out the righteousness that you so graciously given to us. We need you. We need your grace. We need your mercy. We need your forgiveness. Father, we confess we struggled this week in our weakness. We have sinned against you. In our times where we have tried our best to do what's right, the battle raged in a warfare. Even though, Father, we understand theologically that you have won it all, we still fight that battle. And I pray God for those who are weary in the battle this morning. There are some who've gone through great disappointments this week. We've seen nationally how horrific life can be. It can be snuffed out at a moment's notice. Lord, I pray for the families that were aboard the planes that went down this week. Lord, what tragedy abounds. Lord, a number of folks had some sort of connection to Christianity and their families are hurting today, but many of those families are standing tall in the confidence in Christ. And I pray that the message of the gospel will rule and reign in our nation. and in our hearts here in this building, but also in our city. God, I pray for our city. Lord, we ask for mercy as a people of God. We need your mercy. And Father, we pray that you would show mercy to our community, our city, our nation. Lord, help us to make right the things that we have done wrong throughout the years. And I pray, Father, that your hand of blessing would not be taken away from us. Now, Father, we recognize the good news of the gospel. It is good news. that Jesus Christ would come live perfectly for us, die sacrificially on our behalf, be risen from the grave triumphantly, and now sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. This is our salvation. We have no other. And so our confidence rests in you. But as we serve you today, we need your abiding grace and your mercy. And so we're looking to you. Now, Father, take the word of God. Run it to our hearts. We're grateful this morning for the way the gospel is going out around the world. Lord, I can't help but pray for my friend Jed Gillis down at Berean Bible Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, as he stands and preaches there. Would you strengthen him in the word of God? May those people hear God's word and may they turn from their sin and trust you. Lord, I pray also as the gospel goes out in Dominican Republic through Richard and Nicole Soriano. Lord, thank you for the privilege of helping share in that ministry there. Would you give Richard the words to say as he speaks the good news there in the Dominican Republic? Lord, as we hear today, Come, may your power and your presence be with us. Father, keep distractions out and away so that we hear the Word of God this morning. May our minds listen and listen well. And Father, most of all, may the Spirit of God come in, change us, make us less like ourselves and more like Christ. And we ask these things all because of what Jesus has done for us. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. I jokingly mentioned this morning that today is Groundhog Day. And that just simply means if I see my shadow, we have six more weeks in Isaiah. Yeah, we will have six more weeks in Isaiah, whether I see my shadow or not. But so glad to have you here this morning. Every one of those hymns today, as you were reading through those, they just go right to the heart of where life is, don't they? Whatever my God ordains is right. Do you believe that this morning? Are you convinced that the God that we serve is the God of all things, and everything He does is right? He's sovereign, He is wise, and He's good. Let your heart rest in that this morning. So good to see you. Isaiah chapter nine, Isaiah chapter nine this morning. Fabulous text, but brace yourself, okay? This is the word of God. Let's read, beginning in verse eight, and we'll go through chapter 10, verse four. Hear God's word this morning. The Lord sends a message against Jacob. And it falls on Israel, and all the people know it. That is, Aphraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, saying, in lofty pride and in arrogance of heart, The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with cut stones. The sycamores have been cut in pieces, but we will replace them with cedars. Therefore, Yahweh exalts them adversaries against them adversaries from resin and incites their enemies, the Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west. And they devour Israel with gaping jaws, with mouths open. And in spite of all this, his anger does not turn back. And his hand is still stretched out. Yet the people do not turn back to him who struck them, nor do they seek Yahweh of hosts. So Yahweh cuts off head and tail from Israel, both palm branch and bulrush in a single day. The head is the elder and the highly respected man, and the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail. For those who guide this people are leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are brought to confusion. Therefore, the Lord is not glad in their choice, men, nor does he have compassion on their orphans or their widows. For every one of them is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth is speaking wicked foolishness. And in spite of all this, his anger does not turn back, and his hand is still stretched out. For wickedness burns like a fire. It consumes briars and thorns, and it even sets the thickets of the forest aflame, and they roll upward in a column of smoke. But the fury of Yahweh of hosts is the land is burned up, and the people are like fuel for the fire. No man spares his brother. They slice off what is on the right hand, but still are hungry. And they eat what is on the left hand, but still are not satisfied. Each of them eats the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, and together they are against Judah. And in spite of all of this, his anger does not turn back, and his hand is still stretched out. Woe to those who enact evil statutes, and to those who constantly record mischief. so as to turn the poor away from their cause and rob the afflicted of my people of their justice so that the widows may be their spoil and that they may plunder the orphans. Now what will you do in the day of visitation and in the day of devastation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your glory? Nothing remains but the crouch among the captives or fall among those killed. In spite of all of this, his anger does not turn back, and his hand is still stretched out. In high school class, two days ago, no, many years ago, Each year we were required to read certain amount of classic literature. Some of you may have had that same kind of high school experience. I remember my English teacher telling me that anyone who's had any kind of education should be able to recognize certain classics in literature and know when they were written and how they were used in their day. I don't remember all of them, but I do remember memorizing some of them. One in particular is the one I wanna share with you this morning, because it fits well with our text. On July 8th, 1741, a substitute preacher stood up to preach a sermon in the parish church of Enfield, Connecticut. The preacher chose as his text Deuteronomy 32, verse 35, which says, their foot shall slide in due time." It's a passage that makes plain the inevitability of God's judgment on sinners in Israel. The preacher laid out his doctrine clearly, said this, quote, but the mere pleasure of God. And by the mere pleasure of God, I mean His sovereign pleasure, His arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty. He then went on to describe the almost indescribable wrath of God against unredeemed sinners. The result of that sermon was extraordinary. People gasped in horror, pleading that there might be some escape from the seemingly inevitable wrath of God, and revival broke out that day in Enfield, and the sovereign grace of God rescued many from his own wrath through faith in Christ. The substitute preacher's name was Jonathan Edwards, and his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, became one of the most famous in the history of the American church. But some would say it was one of the most infamous sermons in the history of the American church. For like maybe some of us, many struggle to accept the underlying premise of Edward's sermon, that God has a perfectly righteous wrath against sin. And that he steps into human history to pour out that wrath whenever he chooses. We wrestle with that, don't we? It grates against our inner souls. So let me ask you a question this morning. What is the wrath of God? Why do we talk about that? His wrath is His active, resolute opposition to all evil. His active resolution to all evil. His love is often spontaneous, intentional, and intrinsic to his very being. But as you go through scripture, his wrath is provoked by the defiance of his creatures. His love will never make peace with our evil. And what we must understand is that God's wrath is perfect, it's holy and just, and no less perfect than the richness of his kindness and forbearance and patience that Romans 2.4 talks about. His wrath is not a moody vindictiveness. It is the solemn determination of a doctor cutting away the cancer that is killing his patient. And we typically have simple thoughts about God, don't we? It's kind of a white robe, bearded, harps and clouds type of thing in our culture where wrath and anger and true justice are not thoughts of the God that is. The thoughts of God's wrath in our text are often shoved in the back dark corners of our minds. We can't put it together. And so we just don't want to think about it. But then comes along the gospel with its very intentional designs to set us in front of us a mirror to see, help us to see what is really true in our lives. The picture of Christ, the God man, hanging on the cross, sobers us. The cruel death, The utter pain, the nakedness, the shame, the blood, the smell, and the mocking sickens us on the inside, and it gives us a different picture of God. It makes us swallow hard, and it causes our eyes to glare up and stare. And Isaiah chooses very strong words to show us what he's talking about today. The words translated anger is used elsewhere to mean no, suggesting anger is a fuming rage. The word translated wrath means outbursts or outpouring. The word translated fury means a burning indignation. And these are very human words. And we don't readily associate these words with the God of our imagination. But yet in texts like we have today, we're forced to take a long look at what God says about his wrath. Isaiah uses these words to show us God's burning passion to overthrow evil and its seeming power and bring us into his divine grace. The Apostle John tells us of God's love, that God is love. But John also gives us this very important expression where he says, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Darkness, in fact, he says, runs away from light. God is absolutely pure and holy and perfectly just, and in our text, God sends a word to the church. It's a word that you, if you listen carefully, will find repeated in verse 12, 17, 21, and chapter 10, verse 4. We read it. And here's the word for all of this. His anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. This is not a hand that is stretched out to bring mercy. It is his hand of wrath. And in verse seven, we learned that God is zealous. God feels. God's anger is passionate, it's zealous. His anger is personal because he takes our sin personally, our rejection of him, our abuse of him and his gifts and our abuse of other people. God takes that personally and he takes our disobedience personally because he's gone to the bother of writing his laws in our hearts and on our consciences. Every human being has God's law written on their conscience. And the church today, the people of God, have this law written in their scriptures. It's put in books. It's in your lap right now. It's in your hands or in the rack in front of you. It's called the Bible. And there is this law of God written there so that you may know it. And in it, you will find what he wants and how his righteousness is to be lived out and how he wants us to relate to him because he hates sin. He cannot be detached or clinical about his love or his wrath. And our text today gives us one message that I want you to see this morning. And it's very similar to other texts and other messages that we've heard, but hear it yet again. Hear God, submit to him, and turn to him for your salvation. This is a serious text. Last week it was very bright and beautiful. Here's this baby that's gonna be born. And then all of a sudden the clouds come back in and we see the sinfulness of humanity. And Isaiah says this by giving us two pictures this morning that I want you to see. First of all, God in the hands of rebellious people. And then I want you to see a rebellious people in the hand of God. So notice first, God in the hands of rebellious people. And we see this in verse eight, all the way down to verse 21. And I wanna just show you this to you as it unfolds this morning. God is speaking to his people Israel. You see that, right? Then Lord sends a message against Jacob. Jacob is another word for Israel. and it falls on Israel. This was the people that were given to their own sin that caused a deep split in Israel's family, in Jacob's family. The 10 tribes to the north had decided to reject the house of David. And understand that the house of David is God's appointed path for the coming of the Messiah. So they have turned away from the house of David, which means they have rejected God. They've kept God away. They've kept God's word at bay. And they've kept a lot of the word of God, but by rejecting the house of David, they've rejected Jesus, the coming Savior, the coming Messiah, as being from the house of Judah. And even though it's in their Bible, They reject that. And God has been patient, very patient. Isaiah just climbed Mount Everest of a text. Chaz kept calling that last week. This is the Mount Everest of a text, and it is in verses one through seven. And Isaiah came with slides to show the pictures that he climbed, the slides of God's grace, and gave them to us, these gorgeous pictures of the Savior that is to come. And it would have been a glorious time of hearing the gospel message of grace. Unto you is born, a son is given, all sweet grace. But they rebelled against God, and they pushed back on his word. And now in our text, even without catching a breath, Isaiah brings them down to reality. They've gone increasingly more and more what we would term apostate. More and more hard-hearted, more and more disobedient to the truth of God's Word. God sent them prophets, but they have not listened. And they hold God at arm's length. And instead, they've bought more and more into the idolatry of the nations around them. This is an obedient, a disobedient, and stubborn people. So the first thing that we see in verse eight is the Lord sends a message against Israel. The word of God works like a mirror. And it reveals what is going on, and it's a supernatural work. When God's word is spoken, it supernaturally works in our hearts through the spirit of God that dwells within. And notice, if you would, this message falls on Israel. Falls means to bring or to come down. And God's method of helping humanity to learn of him is called humility. And this is a picture of the way of sin, to bring one down. Sin has a way of working out in us in a way that brings humility. And this message was intentional. It was a sharp arrow pointed to the root result of man's sin. And so I want you to notice how he describes their own way of holding onto God. First of all, they are self-exalting, and you see this in verse eight and nine. The Lord sends a message against Jacob, and it falls on Israel, and the people know it. That is Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria saying in lofty pride and arrogance of heart, the bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild and cut stones. The sycamores have been cut in pieces, but we will replace them with cedars. Here's where man's biggest war happens every day. It is man's own desire to be God. Thomas Watson said this, pride seeks to un-God, God. And this message is from God and the people know it. Self-exalting people are not necessarily people who disavow God, but are people who pick and choose God. They use God for their own purposes. And it's often the people who have studied scripture the most who become so caught up with their knowledge, they don't realize that they actually ignore parts of God's word. And so notice God describes their knowledge. They have lofty pride and arrogance of heart. This is hard to understand unless you see it in your own heart. Because we have been reading scriptures, we've had God revealed to us. What place does lofty pride and arrogance have in our hearts? They push certain parts of God. And they know and they love that part of God and so they sound very spiritual. But when God shines the light of his truth on parts of God's word that they're ignoring, they become very defensive. They don't need God as he is. They resist the humility that God seeks to work in their heart, and they continue to grow, and that's a humility that God uses to continue to grow us and change us into the image of Christ. They resist the change. unless it follows their path and their thinking, and their hearts grow cold and hardened, and they're self-exalting. Notice, secondly, we see in verses 10 through 12 that they are self-assured. Do you see that in verse 10? The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild. The sycamores have been cut in pieces, but we will replace them. Therefore, Yahweh exalts against them adversaries from resident sites, their enemies, and he goes on to explain this. But apparently, Israel had already experienced the woes of battle. I mean, their homes have been demolished, their business structures have been demolished. Instead of stopping and taking notice that this is something that God has done, they quickly take to their pride, oh, we can fix it. Like, we didn't do so good with the brick. We could do better with stones, of course. The stone ones would be much better. Sycamores? Ah, we don't even need those. They're weak trees anyways. What we will do is we'll plant cedars next time. I mean, they're better anyway, right? You see, my friend, proud people don't value God's gift of grace. What many don't realize is they've become so self-assured, so smug and so self-reliant that God is minimized in their lives. The self-righteous always quickly point to themselves that they know how to do it better. The self-assured are not learners because they always have the answers. You never hear the self-assured person admit their own sin or their own struggles, why? Because they don't have any. And God stirs up the Syrians, and even the Philistines once again, come out of hiding, to go up against them. And scripture says, but they remain hard. They remain hard. They're self-assured. Bennett goes on to teach us that these people are also self-deceived, because God is in the background. They think they have it all. And so look at verse 13. Really, verse 13 says it all. Yet the people do not turn back to him who struck them, nor do they seek Yahweh of hosts. I mean, they don't recognize God's work in their lives. They don't see this as a thing of God. They just think, oh, you know what? Life is bad sometimes, but we can get it better. And they're self-deceived. Some of the hardest people in the church today are self-deceived people, people who, in their own righteousness, push others out of their lives. They're easily offended and often play a very divisive role in the church because they don't even know God is at work in their lives. Scripture says here that God has struck them, yet they're oblivious to it. I mean, this kind of pride shows up in every area of the church. Notice, Yahweh cuts off head and tail from Israel. I mean, this is simply another way of saying from top to bottom, God is at work from top to bottom. The head is the leadership, who are probably self-deceived. And this is most likely dealing with a social structure within, maybe the heads of villages and towns, maybe the army generals whose leadership and influence really is unraveling. So then God sends in prophets, but these prophets are the tale. And scripture says here that these prophets are false prophets. They're in teaching what is false. And so here, under the guise of a people of God, why, these people are being taught all the wrong things. And I took to heart, this is a message to the leadership of CBC even now. how careful we should be that we're living what is true and are teaching what God says. But notice, God also includes those who would follow, those who are being guided. That includes what I call the followership, and how are they faring? Scripture says they're confused. Of course they are. So much confusion in Israel. The word turn in verse 13 is often used in the Bible for repentance. turning around, turning towards God, despite all the warnings they received, despite all the preaching they heard, and despite of all the smitings from God's hand that had been done to them, they had not turned to God in repentance. Charles Spurgeon writes this about repentance. Repentance is to leave the sins we loved before and show that we in earnest grieve by doing them no more. My friend, when God strikes you, the biggest mistake you could make is to turn away from him instead of turning to him and inquiring of him. Yet even today, so many turn from him. And then look, They're also self-consuming. If you read verses 18 through 21, you can hardly get through it. Notice what he says, "'For wickedness burns like a fire. It consumes briars and thorns. It even sets the thickets of the forest aflame. It leaves nothing open. And they roll upward in a column of smoke, and the fury of Yahweh of hosts The land is burnt up, and the people are like fuel for the fire, and no man spears his brother. They slice off what is on the right hand, but are still hungry. They eat what is on the left hand, but they're not satisfied. Each of them eats the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh, and together they are against Judah. Can you see the picture that he uses here? Notice the words, the outworking of this sin. He calls it burns and consumes and sets aflame and rolls upward in columns of smoke. My friend, there's pain in burning like no other pain. And there's this deeper meaning in that wildfire sweeps through a life, sweeps through a family, a church, or a nation. We've seen pictures of this, what took place even in California. That's the real picture of wildfires. He is talking about here the wrath of God working itself through his people. Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts, this land is scorched, verse 19. God's wrath leaves a scorched earth. You see, my friend, the wrath of God is seen in the damage that sin afflicts. But notice how this works out in the people. They devour one another. I mean, no man spares his brother. That means everything is, I'm looking out for me, number one. I don't care about my brother. This is the opposite, the way God's people are designed by God. We're in foundations class today, we're talking about the one another verses. And here, let's say no man spares his brother. Sin brings this desolation. brings us destruction, especially in relationships. History tells us of the last six kings of Israel, five came to the throne by assassination. They didn't care. They didn't care about people. People who are exalting themselves and refusing to repent eventually turn on each other. And like a fire, in verse 18, it begins to burn and consume everything and everyone around them. It's a consuming evil that spares no one and no thing. The desolation is personal. But I want you to see it's also corporate. It can devour a church. Human sin was unleashing itself onto humans. How does that work its way out in us? Does this address us? You read what Paul says in Galatians 5.15 and you kind of wonder if he didn't read this text. God surrounds them with the enemies and God says this, If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. And this is what can happen in the church. And so God does come in and he allows their enemies, he reworks those enemies into their lives, hostile enemies to devour Israel. And notice that these are enemies that are coming in with an insatiable appetite, their mouths are wide open. The rebellious people push God aside and the results are tragic. So the big lesson here is when God comes against you, the only way to run from God is to run to God. And four times, Isaiah says these words, the hand of God is stretched out still. The implication is God's wrath at this point in time still not quenched. Something still had to be done. Here is yet one more seemingly insignificant arrow pointing to something to come. And from verses one through seven, it was someone who would come that would quench that wrath. But all they needed to do, get this, all they needed to do was turn back to God and not push Him away in every area of their life. But the people who pick and choose God pick and choose areas of their life that God can rule in. You're not getting this area. And God sends people by to talk and you go, Oh, no, no, no, you don't understand. And we move people away, we move God away, instead of hearing from God. This is God in the hands of rebellious people. This is how it works. Look at our world, look at our nation, look at our city, look at our country, look at our churches. But there's another picture that I want you to get, that Isaiah wants us to get. A rebellious people in the hand of God. This is verses one through four of chapter 10. Man tries so hard to be God. You struggle this week ruling your own life. And when God brings people and circumstances, you're not even aware that this is God at work. And sin so inflicts us, destroys us, and yet we still don't get it. And so now Isaiah explains rebellious people in the hand of God. What is God's reactions to all their sin? Well, the first word we see here in chapter 10 is what? Woe. You see that? Woe. We've seen that word before here, haven't we? God uses this word intentionally and often. It literally means sorrow's coming. Be alert. Hear what I'm saying. And it's sorrow. God then points his words to his people and begins to reveal to them how things really are on the path that they're going. God lets sin take its course. And here we see three things God sovereignly allows to happen, hopefully to teach them who He is. And one of the things that we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. And humanity remains stubborn. Humanity remains rebellious. Humanity remains, even in our best days, push God back. And so God unfolds how this will work. And we see sin depletes and destroys human structures. Will they learn? Notice in verses one through two, God allows their sin to end them up with no leadership. Do you see that in verse 10? Woe to those who enact evil statutes and those who constantly record mischief. so as to turn the poor away from their cause, and rob the afflicted of my people of their justice, so that the widows may be their spoil, and that they may plunder the orphans." Who's doing that? Who's he speaking to here? It's been said when God wants to judge a nation, he gives them over to wicked leaders or to no leadership at all. And what's happening here is what Isaiah alludes to in verse 13. The people did not turn to him who struck them, nor did they inquire the Lord of hosts. So the Lord cuts off from Israel head and tail. That's top and bottom and everything in between. Or he says it again, palm branch, That's the top branches of the tree and the reeds, that's the lower small shoots from the bottom of the tree. And what God is saying here is he's removing from them the right kind of leadership. And now these leaders actually aren't very helpful at all. They're corrupt leaders. They're deceiving people, they lead them astray. And God removes and leaves them defenseless as a people without any competent leadership whatsoever. It's like a decapitation. Take the head or the leadership and you take it out. So he says in verse one, woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and writers who keep writing oppression. Who's he talking to? Here Isaiah is addressing lawmakers. The lawyers, those who write out the laws. And notice, these are wicked ones. They write laws that are inherently evil. The way the laws were worded, oppress and intentionally inflict injustice upon those who desperately need justice. Who were those people? The poor, the widows, Orphans, these are people who desperately need right, but instead they're making laws that will oppress them. And they do this simply to preserve their own power. Does this sound familiar? And accumulate greater personal wealth at the expense of the common people. They rob, that is they take by force, and they steal away the rights of the poor. God just lets this evil run rampantly with all of its consequences, and then that removes leadership from godly ways. And so they're left really without any good leadership at all. God says, this is what happens. But notice secondly, in verse three, there's no security. Do you see that in verse three? Now what will you do in the day of visitation? In the day of devastation, which will come from afar, to whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your glory? Biting questions. And notice it always progresses from bad to worse. a natural consequences of dismissing God, is the loss of true, good, humble, right leadership, and we pursue self-exaltation, is this diminishing security all around. When God is left out of the picture, insecurity grows into no security and no protection. The nations from afar will come, and guess what? You will not be protected from them. And where will you hide all the money you stole from the needy? Where's that going to go? In other words, when you as a leader are evil and you steal from the needy, where are you going to go when you are the needy? We never realize, we never think that our own sin could put us in great need. And that's his point. Their day of need and their punishment is the appointed day with Assyria. Assyria is coming. You'll have to run. And it talks about the idea that you will leave your evil spoil, and it will become the spoil of the enemy. It's amazing how sin never does what it advertises. Instead, you believe the lies of your heart, and it will come back to devour you. Oh, my friend, take this warning. Whoa. Sin never works according to your own plan. May God grant us eyes to see this. And then finally we see, really, no escape. Look back again at verses three and four. To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your glory? Look at verse four. Nothing remains but the crouch among the captives. or fall among those who are killed. It's an ugly picture, isn't it? Sin, running rampant, leaves nowhere to go. But the lie is you'll have everything and God really has no jurisdiction on you because you're God. You can make the laws how you want them. You're God. It's an awful lie. And it's been proven over and over and over throughout history that it doesn't work that way. Why? Because God is the God of his story. And so he says it will be a day of punishment. Why don't we listen to God? Why aren't we trusting him? Instead, we so often argue with God, don't we? We bicker with God back and forth. We try to barter with God. What's wrong with us? While studying this text, my mind was drawn back to a video by a long time teacher, pastor and scholar, R.C. Sproul. Let's hear him this morning. If God is slow to anger and patient, Excuse me. Since God is slow to anger… We're always learning. Since God is slow to anger and patient, then why when man first sinned, was His wrath and punishment so severe and long-lasting? Time out. Didn't we just have that question a second ago? We did. It's a little nuance. Yeah, I think we did, that God's punishment for Adam was so severe. This creature from the dirt defied the everlasting holy God. After that, God had said, the day that you shall eat of it, you shall surely die. And instead of dying thanatos that day, he lived another day and was clothed in his nakedness by pure grace and had the consequences of a curse applied for quite some time. But the worst curse would come upon the one who seduced him, whose head would be crushed by the seed of the woman, and the punishment was too severe? What's wrong with you people? I'm serious. I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are. The question is, the question is, why wasn't it infinitely more severe? If we have any understanding of our sin and any understanding of who God is, that's the question, isn't it? You know, Isaiah asks the question that should burn in every one of our hearts after reading this section of Scripture. And it's repeated statements of God's wrathful hand continually raised. What will you do on the day of punishment when devastation comes from far away? Who will you run to for help? If the God you've created in your own mind, you're not going to run to him and he's worthless. You have to run to the one true God, which one are you gonna run to? Is there a refuge from the terrifying wrath of God? The judgments described in this section are actually nothing compared to the infinite eternal wrath of God poured out on sinners in hell. Revelation 14, nine through 11, listen to this. And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath. poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night. That's sobering, isn't it? Their unforgiven sinners will forever experience God's raised hand, striking them in righteous wrath for their sins. Is there a refuge to which we can fly to escape hell? The constant teaching of this chapter and of the Bible is that only God can turn his own wrath away. But the magnificent good news of the gospel is that God has provided in Jesus Christ her only refuge to which we better run and find hiding. He alone is our rock. He alone is our fortress. He alone is our true deliverer. He is the wonderful counselor. He is the mighty God. He is the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. Jesus Christ is the propitiation, the very wrath bearer himself for our sins, Romans 3.25 tells us. He is the one who drank the bitter cup of God's wrath so that there is no more wrath left for me. Flee to Him. Escape to Him. Christ is the only refuge, the only hiding place from the coming wrath. Listen to Him. Rest in Him alone for your salvation today. Shall we pray? Dear God, what's wrong with us that we who have tasted The grace have been given new life in Christ. And yet so often we find ourselves pushing you into the dark corners of our mind because we can't understand it instead of receiving it by faith, knowing that you are the good God, you are the wise God, you are the kind God. We have a different picture and we insist upon our definition of who you are. Father, forgive us this morning. Give us courage, Father, to see You as You really are, high and lifted up. And Your train fills the temple and causes us to see the greatness of Calvary, of redemption. of sacrifice, of substitution, the greatness of propitiation, the greatness of the fact that you have saved us into a family to become children of the Holy God. Father, open our eyes. Lord, if there's someone here this morning who's not born again, Their heart is resisting right now. They don't want to hear God. May the Spirit of God run past that rebellion. Grant them repentance that they might believe. Grant them the faith that is necessary. to begin to live out your gift of righteousness. Oh, Father, remove that hardened heart of stone. And then for the one, Father, who's struggling in life because they've so often reverted to their own way, Father, would you first of all grant them repentance too, that they may continue to believe and turn from their sin and trust the goodness of God. And know that even in divine wrath, there's always these pictures of grace. There's always these little nuggets that are pointing us to redemption, that you have brought a Redeemer. You have covered everything that we need if we would but trust you and lean into you instead of our own understanding. Father, this is a hard message, but it's so necessary. You've put it in Your Word. It's not something we can ignore or we should ignore. So Father, in Your kindness and in Your mercy, awaken souls today. For Your honor and glory, we pray and ask these things in Christ's name, amen.