The Great Day Of God's Wrath # 4

 The Great Day Of God's Wrath # 4

"The great day of the Lord is near - near and coming quickly. Listen! That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a blackness. I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath. In the fire of His jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for He will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth!" (Zephaniah 1:14-18).

Oh, the distress that ungodly men will be in, in that day, which will make them cry to the rocks and mountains to fall on them, and hide them from the face of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb! The God of heaven will bring distress upon all the ungodly, and their honor shall not deliver them, for their gold deliver them, nor their silver deliver them, nor the greatness of their multitudes deliver them - but distress will come upon them, as it did upon Saul, (1 Samuel 28:15), "I am in great distress!" See Luke 21:23, "And there shall be a great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people!" Can you hear this, and not tremble at it, oh you who are profane?

Fourthly, this day of God's wrath will be a day of great CONTEMPT to the ungodly. "The Lord Almighty has purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth!" (Isaiah 23:9).

Oh, the enemies of the Lord, and such as oppose His truth, will be then hissed at. Oh, do but see that place, (Jeremiah 11:37), "And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing!" The Lord will pour contempt upon all ungodly men, who have sided with the whore of Babylon, and drunk of her cup; they will not know where to go, nor where to hide their heads - but everyone will hiss at them, and have them in derision, saying, these are those who said, "it is in vain to serve the Lord; and walking mournfully before the Lord Almighty?" who counted saints to be sots, and godliness to the madness. Therefore will they be contemptible before the Lord, angels, and holy men. Oh, think of this, you who speak proudly and blasphemously against God and His people! Know assuredly, that God will speak to you in His wrath, and vex you in His sore displeasure, "The One enthroned in heaven laughs! The Lord scoffs at them!~ (Psalm 2:4).

Fifthly, this day of God's wrath will be a day of great DESTRUCTION. "The wicked are reserved to the day of destruction; they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath!" (Job 21:30). In this day the Lord will destroy both evil people, and evil things, men and their idols, men and their inventions. Every plant which is not of God's planting, shall be plucked up, human pride will be humbled, and human arrogance will be brought down. Only the Lord will be exalted on that day of judgement. Idols will completely disappear. When the Lord rises to shake the earth, His enemies will crawl into holes in the ground. They will hide in caves in the rocks from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty. On that day of judgment they will abandon the gold an silver idols they made for themselves to worship. They will leave their gods to the rodents and bats - while they crawl away into caverns and hide among the jagged rocks in the cliffs. They will try to escape the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty as He rises to shake the earth!" (Isaiah 2:17-21).

All false ways, false worship and false doctrines, shall fall in that day! This will be a reaping day; God will empty the earth, as the prophet Isaiah speaks, "Look! The Lord is about to destroy the earth and make it a vast wasteland. He devastates the surface of the earth and scatters the people. Priests and people, servants and masters, maids and mistresses, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, bankers and debtors - none will be spared! The earth will be completely emptied and looted. The Lord has spoken!" (Isaiah 24:1-3).

~William Dyer~

(continued with # 5)

The Great Day of God's Wrath # 3

 The Great Day of God's Wrath # 3

1. First of all, this day will be a day of ASTONISHMENT to the wicked and ungodly, as it is said, Deuteronomy 28:28, "The Lord shall smite them with madness and blindness, and astonishment of heart!" Oh, it will be with the wicked, as it was with Nebuchadnezzar, who was astonished to behold the works and wonders of God which the Lord wrought for the deliverance of those that put their trust in Him, "Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, O King." He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods." (Daniel 3:24-25).

Oh, sinners! do but see here how this proud Nebuchadnezzar was astonished at the beholding of this sight! Here are three things which astonished this great king:

First, to see the fire, whose nature is to burn and consume, to have no power to seize upon the bodies of these men. Fire is one of the cruelest creatures; it is a merciless creature, and therefore the torments of hell are set forth by fire, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!" (Matthew 25:41).

The second thing which astonished Nebuchadnezzar, was, to see the servants of the Lord walking in the fiery furnace, "Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire." These were cast in bound - but now they are loose; now, that the fire should have power on their bonds, and not on their bodies, oh, this caused astonishment in Nebuchadnezzar.

The third thing that astonished him, was, to see their number not decreased - but increased, "Did not we cast in three men bound into the fire? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and the form of the fourth is like unto the Son of God." Now this astonished this great king. Now, as it was with Nebuchadnezzar here, so will it be with the wicked in this great day. Oh, you who now speak proudly, look highly, and walk contemptuously, it will astonish you to see God's judgments poured out upon you, and His wrath wax hot against you, until there is no remedy. Oh, do but see that text, "Babylon will be a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horrow and scorn!" (Jeremiah 51:37). Thus it will be with the ungodly at that day.

2. It will be a day of TERROR to those who know not God, and that obey not the gospel of Christ! The terror of God will be upon such, as it was upon those cities, (Genesis 35:5). "Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the cities all around them so that no one pursued them." Oh, you graceless people who now have no fear of God, nor tremble at His Word - He will make you then tremble, as He did Belshazzar, when he beheld the hand-writing on the wall, (Dan. 5:6). "His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way!" Oh! you drunkards and swearers, you who despise reproof, and hate instruction, and scorn all God's counsel; know this, that the day of God's wrath will be a day of terror to you, which will make your hearts to sink within you, your countenance to change, your joints to be loosed, and your ears to tingle, when the terrors of the Almighty God set themselves in array against you! Therefore, says the apostle, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." (2 Corinthians 5:11).

3. This day of God's wrath will be a day of DISTRESS to the wicked. "I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you - when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelms you!" (Proverbs 1:26-27).

~William Dyer~

(continued with # 4)

The Great Day Of God's Wrrath! # 2

 The Great Day Of God's Wrath # 2

The words of my text contain two things - a reason and a question.

1. The former part is the ground or reason of this outcry here made by the kings and great men of the earth, together with every bond man and every free man, "For the great day of His wrath has come!"

2. The latter part is a question proposed about standing at that day, "And who shall be able to stand?"

The point of doctrine, which I shall lay down from these words, is this:

DOCTRINE: That the greatest part of men and women will not be able to stand in the great day of God's wrath.

In handling of this point, I shall show you four things:

1. There are some days greater than others.

2. The nature and property of this great day.

3. Who they are that will not be able to stand in the day of God's wrath.

4. The use and application.

In the first place I shall show you, beloved - that there are some great days spoken of in the Scripture.

The first great day you have in Jeremiah 30:7, "How awful that day will be! None will be like it! It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it."

The second great day you have in Hosea 1:11. "What a great day that will be - the day of Jezreel - when God will again plant His people in His land."

The third great day in have in Joel 2:31, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes."

The fourth great day you have in Mal. 4:5. "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."

The fifth great day is this in my text, "For the great day of His wrath has come - and who shall be able to stand?" (Revelation 6:17).

The sixth great day you have in Revelation 16:14, "They are demonic spirits who work miracles and go out to all the rulers of the world to gather them for battle against the Lord on that great judgment day of God Almighty."

The seventh and last great day you have in the Epistle of Jude, verse 6, "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home - these He has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day."

Thus, beloved, you see, that there are some days which are greater than others, which the Scripture calls "great days," because of the greatness of the work which God does, and will do, in those days.

2. I shall now show you the nature and properties of this great day in my text. Oh, my brethren! this will be a very dreadful and terrible day to the wicked, who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness, and put far from them the evil day, which is now hastening upon them.

~William Dyer~

(continued with # 3)