Grapes Of Wrath 2 Series

Dakota Community Church

March 20, 2011

Grapes of Wrath II

Ephesians 2:1-10

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

So far we have covered:

1. Dead in transgression and sin

2. Conformed to the pattern of this world

3. Enslaved to the chief enemy of God

4. By nature objects of wrath

Ephesians 2:3

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Whose wrath are we under, who has been so offended by our sinfulness?

Furthermore; it is the righteous wrath of God that is coming!

God would be unrighteous if he looked with indifference on our sin.

2 Thessalonians 1:6-10

God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

There will be a division of sheep and goats in that awful day. And the Lord Jesus will say:

Matthew 25:41

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Those who follow the prince of the power of the air and submit to him in this life rejecting the offer of salvation and rebirth will continue to follow him in the next life, into the "eternal fire" which was never meant to be inhabited by men.

Lamb (y) wrath

Revelation 6:15-17

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

We will see the indignation of the Son of God against those who spurned his lamb-like meekness and his offer of forgiveness. Soon the age of meekness will be over:

Matthew 3:12

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Matthew 13:40-43

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Revelation 20:15

If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Jesus Delivers from the Wrath to Come

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones died in 1981.

He was a great preacher at the Westminster Chapel in London for 40 years.

The year before his death when he was 81 years old, Christianity Today interviewed him asking:

"Do you have any final word for our generation?"

He answered by quoting

1 Thessalonians 1:10

…and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

Isaiah 66:12-16

For this is what the LORD says:

“I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.

13 As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” 14 When you see this, your heart will rejoice and you will flourish like grass; the hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants, but his fury will be shown to his foes.