If you would turn to the book of Romans, chapter one, and also if you would turn to the book of John, chapter three. And then I'm going to read one verse from Psalms 22 before we begin. And so then in Romans, chapter one, verse 18, the Bible says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. And then in John, chapter three and verse number 36, we read these words, whoever believes in the sun has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the sun shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. In Psalm 22, verse one. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? And Father, we do ask for your help, O God, that we might hear the Word of God. Lord, we only want your will to be done, your name to be magnified, your truth to penetrate hearts. Lord, to change hearts. to awaken the dead, revive your people, O God. We ask you to just speak mightily. I want to speak to you on the subject, the Cataclysmic Cross. As I give you that title, there might be a temptation to think maybe that's a little more drama than is required in the title of the message, the Cataclysmic Cross. The church, I think that's simply because we really don't understand what happened there. If it ever would dawn on our minds what transpired at Calvary, it would radically revolutionize the church. When we repent, Part of our repentance is that we had a wrong view of God. Man's mind is distorted. It's warped, perverted, corrupted, dead and insane. Even the believer only sees through a glass darkly. The Scripture reveals the truth of who God is, if you really want to see Him. And it's important to understand that God, who is a being unlike any other being, is not to be compared to man. Neither is God's anger to be compared to man's anger. God is a perfect being. There's absolutely not a flaw in God. He is perfect. in every aspect of His being. He is perfect in holiness. He is perfect in power. His love is a perfect love. And His wrath is a perfect wrath. C.S. Lewis said, God is the only comfort. He is also the supreme terror. The thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally and we have made ourselves his enemies. Some talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either The great safety or the great danger, according to the way that we have reacted to it and we have reacted the wrong way. God is a God of anger and God is a God of wrath. God is a God of fury. And God is a God of terror. God's attributes are balanced in His divine perfection, and they are perfectly balanced. If God did not have wrath, and if God did not have anger, then He would not be God. God is perfect in love on the one hand, and He is equally perfect in wrath on the other hand, just as totally as He loves. So also does he completely hate. As his love is unmixed, so is his hate unmixed. Of Christ, it is said in Hebrews 1.9, Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. I'm talking to you about the wrath of God. In the Old Testament, you'll see a picture of this in the book of Nahum. I've been reading in the Prophets lately, and my understanding of God through reading the Prophets is becoming more and more complete. Would you read with me, beginning in verse 1 of Nahum, chapter 1? An oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps wrath for His enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in the whirlwind and storm and the clouds or the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, the bloom of Lebanon withers, the mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. Nahum describes the wrath that will be poured out upon Nineveh. And as he does so, he is describing God as a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. He is not to be trifled with. He will do what He says He will do. He is perfect in His wrath. In this passage, we see a number of words depicting the wrath of God. Jealousy, vengeance, wrath, anger, indignation, fury. His jealousy is not like our jealousy, but an overwhelming concern for what He loves. His vengeance is a sure avenging of His honor. His anger is a holy anger. The word used here is a hard breathing out of the nostrils. It has to do with a pent up anger. His indignation here literally means to foam at the mouth with rage and fury. Am I painting a picture of your God? If you say no, then you know not the God of the Bible. Fury here means a poisonous, hot displeasure. This word used in Psalms a number of times has to do with a venom from God. Psalm 79, 6 says, Pour out thy wrath, thy venom, thy poisonous hot displeasure upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. Isaiah 63, 6 says, I will tread down the people in mine anger and make them drunk in my fury, my poisonous hot displeasure. I will bring down their strength to the earth. This is not an evil poison, but it is a deadly poison just the same. Isaiah 66, verse 15 says, Behold, the Lord will come with fire and His chariots like a whirlwind to render His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire. People don't like to hear that God is venomous, but He is. To all that reject His Son, His anger is deadly. Would you read with me with the psalmist in Psalm chapter number two? Your Bible says, Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord will have them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell the decree. The Lord said to me, You are my son. Today I've begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations, your heritage and the ends of the earth, your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a powder's vessel. Now, therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him." Do you actually think that your life can be an offense to God and you not be struck by the wrath of God? Do you think that you will not pay the consequences of your unbelief You're trifling with sin, you're unrepentant heart before such a holy and a wrathful God. God has, does and will pour out His wrath. God is holy and He vents His fury upon sin. We have watered down the gospel so that we no longer believe that our God is absolutely enraged with sin. And judgment is coming. And it must begin first at the house of the Lord. Verse 12 in Psalm 2 says, "...kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little." In other words, when God gets just a little angry, people perish. For one sin, death passed on all men, for that all have sinned. God killed in one day 23,000 people for having premarital sex. When David sinned against God by counting the Israelites, God killed 70,000 in one day. When the sons of Korah rebelled, fire came out from the ground and devoured 250, and a plague killed some 14,000 more. In Joshua 22, did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? And that man perished not alone in his iniquity. When Israel went whoring around, God slaughtered 24,000 of them. For the ungodly ways of the Sodomites, God slaughtered everything that was alive in all of their cities. When God became very angry at the sins of man, He killed every living thing on this earth, except the few that were in the ark. Death and life are in the hands of God. And He daily delivers death and destruction. There's a death every 1.78 seconds. Every minute, 107 people die. Most of them will perish and be tormented under the wrath of the fires of God in hell for eternity. That's 6,000 deaths an hour. That's 153,000 deaths per day. That's 56 million deaths per year. And most of these are being tormented in the hells of fire, which are kindled by the breath of God. Isaiah 30, verse 33, For Tophet, literally a place of fire, is ordained of old. Yea, for the king it is prepared. He hath made it deep and large, the pile thereof is fire and much wood. The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, doth kindle it." Your Bible says that the Lord is known by the judgment which He executes. Do you think that Katrina and other catastrophes are merely accidents? Your Bible is replete with admonitions that it is God who sends the east wind. It is God who sends destruction. It is God who is in control of everything. He's the sovereign ruler of the entire universe. There are no accidents. And then Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 5, let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, and he listed a list of sins that are common today. He says, because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience. My friends, like the lion Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, I tell you, God is not safe. But He's good and He's holy and He's just. But he's not safe and needs to be taken refuge from. Other words used for the wrath of God mean an outpouring, an overflow, or an excess of fury and rage. God's wrath is to be trembling or quaking with rage. There is a settled indignation. Your Bible says in Romans chapter 2 and verse 8, Those who are self-seeking, listen to it, those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil. Your Bible says in Romans chapter 7 verse 11 that God is angry with the wicked. That's Psalm 711. God is angry with the wicked every day. He is wicked. He is angry with the wicked. That means that He is enraged with the wicked. We like to think today that God is winking at sin. And we think that He will wink at our sin as though He's powerless to stop it. We're told in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, that those who were attempting to stop the gospel, Paul said, no, they think they're getting away with it, but they are simply filling up the measure of their sins. These were religious and morally right people. And God said, through the Apostle Paul, that they're simply treasuring up wrath as they fill up the measure of their sins. We read in John chapter 3. Now, we like to quote John 3.16, but you rarely hear about John chapter 3, verse 36, which says, He that believes on the Son has eternal life. But listen, he that does not believe in the Son, the wrath of God abides on him. The wrath of God, the fury of God remains on the person who does not believe. And those in this very room, who right now are under the wrath of God, will more than likely burn in hell for all eternity. Because they thought that God was a God altogether like them. That He was this perverted caricature of nothing but love. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about the true love of God. But you can't understand the love of God until you understand the wrath of God. My friend, at the great white throne judgment, Those will be gathered around the throne from every tribe, nation, and tongue to those on the left hand. Jesus will say, depart from Me, you cursed people, you who know iniquity, you who love unrighteousness, you who love your sin. Depart from Me into everlasting fire. And at the sound of His almighty words, those on His left will be flung into eternity, separated from God and hell forever. tormented, their conscience accusing them, lost forever, bearing the fire of the wrath of God for eternity. Eternity. All of eternity. Friends, life is fragile. And if you could somehow just get a view of this holy God, this God whom Isaiah beheld, who caused Isaiah himself to fall down prostrate and cry out, Woe is me, for I am undone, to see His train and His glory fill the temple. More than likely, many of you who are sitting here this morning will fall off of your pews into hell, being presently under the wrath of God, only to endure it forever. You think that because you went to church when you were young and you have just kind of always been saved, you are not safe from the wrath of God unless you have fled for refuge into Jesus Christ. If you've merely been religious, except there's been a miraculous resurrection from spiritual life, from spiritual death to spiritual life, you remain under the wrath of God. We have so changed the truth of God We've convinced people that they are safe when they are damned. And they know that there's never been a conversion in their life, and yet they wink at it as if it's all right. It's just religion. After all, I feel good about it. I'm a very good person. I do all the right things. I have peace. And I'm tired of being afraid not to shake the faith of people who are lost because, my friend, if your faith can be shaken, it needs to be shaken. If God doesn't have you firmly and securely in His hands, you're not safe. You are under the wrath of Almighty God. And this is not just hellfire and brimstone preaching and drama. I'm telling you who God really is. My cousin, Ronnie, we ran around together. And when I was saved, I told him that I had gotten saved, that God had come into my life. He's changed me. I remember him telling me he was going to continue to run around, do the same things that we always did. And he said, you know, that's good for you. He said, but I've got too much living. This is my heaven right down here on earth. It was just a few years ago that Ronnie had a wreck down here on Highway 61, 67. And he died, and he is being tormented right now, enduring the just, holy wrath of a righteous God. vindicating his righteousness because my cousin Ronnie rejected him. He was not safe from the wrath of God. But all his family goes to church all the time. How many times does it have to be preached from this very pulpit if you only went down an aisle and repeated a little Polly Wannacracker prayer, you are a lost person under the wrath of God. It is highly unlikely that man trying to do God's work, man's way, resulted in your true conversion. Jesus said, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. He said, except a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. I'm trying to explain the unexplainable. The wrath and the indignation of a perfect and a holy God upon sin. And then, your Bible says in Romans 3, and I want you to see these wonderful words in Romans 3, in verse number 5, Your Bible says, but if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say that God is unrighteous to inflict wrath upon us? I speak in a human way by no means, for then how could judge the world? But if I threw my lie, but if through my life, God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? Why not do evil that good may come as people slanderously charge us, saying their condemnation is just? Are we any better off? The religious people said, are we any better off? No, not at all. We've already charged that all are under sin, as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understands. There's no one that seeks after God. All have turned aside together. They have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They have used their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And you have never seen yourself in that verse, and yet you claim to be a convert of this Christ. My friend, your Bible says, that God set forth Christ, His own Son. Would you listen to this? God set forth Christ to be a propitiation for sins. That's a whole other message that Scott has went over before. Let me just say that propitiation can best be described as wrath quenching. Wrath quenching. There are two cataclysmic events in history. One of these events was carried out 2,000 years ago at Calvary. The other will last for all eternity as sinners, those who have gone through the wide gate down the broad way, as sinners are doomed and damned forever separated from God. Jesus cried on the cross something that I've studied and studied. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Almost every time this word's used in the Bible, it has to do with man forsaking God. But here, here it is God forsaking God. Somebody told me not long ago that they were seeking God and had asked God to do whatever it took in their lives for them to be saved, and they were concerned for their children. And I said, my friend, I've thought the same thing, but you know, God could take your children. God could take your grandchildren. He could take your wife. your grandparents, God could take all of your family, and it would do absolutely no good. For God took His own life that we might be saved. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verse number 10, let me read this to you. Brig read it this morning in Sunday school. But talking about our salvation, In 1 Peter 1, I've got a new Bible and I have a hard time finding things in it. But in 1 Peter 1, it says, Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. Do you hear that? The Holy Son of God contemplated in eternity and in all of time that holy moment that He would bow to the will of the Father and lay down His life to be consumed by the fury of His own holy wrath. Your Bible says that He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood in Gethsemane contemplating this. But He had contemplated what He would do. as He not just bore your sins so that God could wink at sin. We have this picture of this meek and mild Jesus nowadays. Listen, my Jesus was a man. And when He tore through that temple with the cat-of-nine-tails beating those Pharisees out of that temple and kicking over tables, He displayed just a tiny portion of the wrath of God that would one day vindicate His Father and be poured out on Himself that He contemplated. And He even said, Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me. He was not afraid of the pain. It wasn't that. But it's this mysterious, incomprehensible moment when He, God, in the flesh, bore the wrath of God on himself. He bore the wrath of God. And he cried out, when he cried out, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, left me destitute? as God's wrath was fully vented. Guys, we deserve hell forever. But He actually did take the full fury in that wondrous hour, that ninth hour when the Bible says there was darkness over the face of the earth, damnation and all the pains of hell lay upon the precious, pure Lamb of God. The accumulated vastness of God's fury and wrath because of your sins bore down hard on the sweet rose of Sharon. It was the vengeance of a righteous God who vindicated His holiness by a dreadful curse on His own son. There was nothing. There was nothing that the son of God would not endure for you. There was nothing that he. Would not willingly go through. Except the wrath of the father and to be cut off. This is incomprehensible. for the Son of God to be cut off from favor and fellowship with the Father whom He had ever, forever loved and fellowshiped and contemplated? Would you listen to these words in Matthew 27? Now, from about the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and yielded up His Spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook. The rocks were split. The tombs opened. Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, truly this was the Son of God. The earth shook. The sun and the moon went dark. Those who were dead arose from the grave. And now, your Bible says, since therefore we have been justified by His blood, much more we shall be saved from the wrath of God. Thank God! Thank God that He has caused us to be born again and take refuge in our Christ. Oh, God is a God of love. The Son of God took the wrath of God that was due sinners and bore it on Calvary. Being a God of love does not mean that God will wink at your sin. A God of love must punish sin. I'm going to read this story and I'll be done. I don't know how to better show the practical value and the bearing of this passage of Scripture. than my reading a part of the effective experience of the poet Cowper. It's well known that before his conversion he was oppressed by a long and dreadful melancholy. That this was finally heightened to despair and that he was then subjected to the kind of treatment of Dr. Cotton at St. Albans as a melancholic case of derangement. His leading thought was that he was doomed to inevitable destruction and that there was no hope. From this, he was roused only by the kindness of his brother and the promises of the gospel. The account of his conversion I shall now give in his own words. The happy period, which was to shake off my fetters and afford me a clear discovery of the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus, was now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the window and seeing a Bible there, ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The first verse I saw, the 25th of the third chapter of Romans, whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. Immediately, I received strength to believe and the full beam of the sun of righteousness shone upon me. I saw in a moment the sufficiency of the atonement he had made for my pardon and justification. In a moment, I believed and received the peace of the gospel. Unless the almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have been overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears and my voice choked with transport. I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder. How glad should I now have been to spend every moment in prayer and thanksgiving. I lost no opportunity of repairing to the throne of grace. but flew to it with an earnestness irresistible and never more to be satisfied." What a radical difference of the believer who has fled for refuge from the wrath of God, who has experienced a supernatural work of God, was genuinely converted, brought to repentance, and they are forevermore changed, alive to God, full of joy, full of peace. Not that we're not tested, beloved. It's just that the church in America and around the world because of a blasphemous, perverted gospel where we paint a perverted, wrong view of God and of sin and of His wrath and of ourselves. And we say a little prayer and we just get religious and we believe that we're safe. And most, most, the Scriptures say, will fall off of their seats, Open their eyes in hell. Now, you can take what I've said this morning and reject it as a bunch of drama and nonsense. And you don't believe that God is like that. And you believe that you're safe. And you know in your heart of hearts that there was never a time when the Holy Spirit of God came upon you, brought deep conviction, and He saved you. And you know that you're safe. and will never experience the wrath of God. If there's a doubt in your mind, would you please go home and cry out to God and don't you leave until God has settled it, that you're safe because the wrath of God is alive and well. Let's pray together.