Fear of Wrath!

Revelation 6:15-17

Sixth seal/Fear of Wrath!

Revelation 6:12-17, I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. ¹³ And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. ¹⁴ Then the sky]receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. ¹⁵ And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ and said to the mountains and 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 His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

The sixth seal opens another force. There is a seven-sealed book or scroll that contains the information about Christ taking over the universe.

As each seal is broken, another scene develops. These seven seals unfold in a seven-year period yet to come in the future that we know as the time of tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble, Daniel’s seventieth week. During this period, the Lamb, the Son of God, is unrolling the scroll because he has both the authority to do so as the heir of everything and the power to do so as God.

The Lamb of God, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ here in this vision that John sees, is unrolling this scroll which describes the events as He takes over the universe from Satan and the demons and sinners who occupy it and control it.

Seal one introduced peace, which was quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a false peace. Seal two brought war, setting the stage for global conflict. Seal three released famine, creating widespread hunger and economic instability.

Seal four brought the pestilence, further exacerbated by war, famine, and the general breakdown of society. The fifth seal is vengeance. A vengeance driven by the prayers of the saints in heaven is what gives this seal its power.

Now man is having his day, but soon it will be the Lord’s Day, the day of the Lord.

One of the central prophetic themes in Scripture is the coming of the great day of God’s wrath, also known as the day of the Lord. A frightening, inevitable day in the future of the world. We need to understand what the Bible teaches about this very important event called the Day of the Lord.

The sixth seal really initiates the day of the Lord. There have been already judgments that could be called the wrath of God, but this is the great day of wrath. This is the culminating day of the Lord to which all those things that have happened by way of judgment prior have been preliminary warnings.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-3, But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. ² For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. ³ For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.

The term “times” is Chronos it has to do with time itself. The term Kairos is that has to do with the events that take place during that time or those times.

Many different events that make up the time of the return of Christ. The Thessalonians wanted to know all the details.

How long until the day of the Lord? When will the rapture of the Church take place?

When will the kingdom be established? They wanted all the details to be filled in. Paul’s response is that spiritual preparedness does not involve date setting. It does not involve clocks and calendar watching. It does not involve sign seeking as such.

He says that you have no need for anything to be written to you. You don’t need to know any more than you already know. It isn’t to your advantage. More details are not available. Jesus had given many in answer to the disciple’s question in Matthew chapter 24.

The disciples asked the similar question to Jesus, which really triggered this sermon that we call the Olivet Discourse. They really wanted to know the same thing that the Thessalonians wanted to know.

Jesus went on to give them certain signs, certain things that they could look for, but never gave them the specific time as to when it would happen.

Acts 1:6-7, Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority

God has chosen not to disclose the timing of the return of Christ. God has not disclosed to us when the day of the Lord will come, when the events associated with the day of the Lord will come. When the seals will be open, when the trumpets will be blown, when the bowls will be poured out. We don’t know specifically what time, at what age, in what year, or at what date the rapture of the Church will take place.

We don’t know when the tribulation time is going to come, followed by the setting up of the glorious millennial kingdom of Christ. The reason we don’t know is because the Lord has not revealed it. People continue to predict a date and time.

Literally millions of people had been engulfed in a Korean ministry that believed that the event was going to happen on a certain date in 1992.

Our Lord says, and the apostle Paul says, and it’s recited to us again, obviously, through all the prophetic literature, “We don’t know when. We know some general events. We know some sequence of things. We don’t know when this is going to happen. Therefore, all generations live in a certain amount of anticipation and a certain amount of expectation.

I1 Thessalonians 5:2, For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

How does a thief come?

• Unannounced,
• Unexpectedly,
• Suddenly, and
• Harmfully.

We can’t put into your calendar book the day and the hour in which the thief is going to come. He doesn’t give you that information. That is how the Lord’s going to come. Unexpectedly. Be alert.

Matthew 24:42, Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. That is not something that the Lord has chosen to reveal.

Matthew 24:50, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of,

Matthew 25:13, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.

Luke 12:35-40, “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; ³⁶ and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. ³⁷ Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. ³⁸ And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. ³⁹ But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. ⁴⁰ Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

We don’t know the specific moment which will trigger the events of the day of the Lord. We don’t know the specific moment when the first seal will be opened and the following seals as well. Those things are not revealed to us.

Revelation 16:15, “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” Suddenly, unexpectedly, and harmfully.

We don’t know when the rapture will happen. We don’t know when the wrath of God will be released in the beginning of the birth pangs Jesus talked about. Therefore, we don’t know exactly the timing of the great tribulation so we don’t know in what age, what century, what millennium the sixth seal will be broken, and the day of the Lord will strike.

We don’t know when that seven-year period of divine wrath is coming. Therefore, it is imminent. It could come at any time and all generations live, to some degree, in expectation of it. Every generation is warned that the wrath of God is coming, and they should be ready for it, and we do not know the exact time.

Even people who will be alive during the seven-year tribulation, after the Church has been taken out, people being redeemed, There will be a vast population of unredeemed people, even the people living during that time, who can see the first seal, and

the second seal, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth will not know the exact time.

• They will not know the exact time when the sixth seal will be opened.
• They will not know the day.
• They will not know the hour.
• They will not know the specifics of that judgment.

It is not given to us to know precisely when that is going to happen.

Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. That is a secret event known only to God.

We don’t know the exact moment. So, even if people are living in the tribulation and seeing these events going along, they are not going to know exactly when the sixth seal is going to come. In fact, the believers may be trying to guess because they may be able to see what’s going, and they may say that it has to be soon.

The unbelievers, on the other hand, are going to be so deceived they don’t even recognize that it’s coming at all.

1 Thessalonians 5:3, For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.

The unbelieving world is going to be listening to the false prophets and the false teachers. Jesus talks about them in Matthew 24. The false prophets and teachers will deceive people. They will be saying, ‘Peace and safety, all is well.’

They will be killing Christians and killing Jews and telling the world, “If we can get rid of these people, we will enter into utopia and peace will be ours.” They are much like the false teachers of Jeremiah’s prophecy, who keeps saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

The same Ezekiel 13 talks about saying “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace. The same ones of Micah 3:5, “Peace, peace,” and there is no peace. The same ones of 2 Peter 3:3, the scoffers who say, “Where is His coming? Everything is going on like it’s always gone on.”

They will effectively deceive the whole world.

So, the whole world, even though they have seen the five seals open, and someone can show them a Bible and describe it to them, will be so deceived by Satan and the Antichrist and false teachers who are in accord with them that they will not expect the day of the Lord.

Even believers who know it’s coming won’t know the exact moment of its arrival.

Matthew 24:27, For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

When the moment comes to inaugurate this great day of the Lord and the fury of God’s wrath and the wrath of the Lamb, it will come suddenly and shockingly, even to believers who will not know its moment. And then comes judgment.

What comes is called in the Bible as the day of the Lord. Mentioned 19 times in the Old Testament. Mentioned 4 times in the New Testament. What did the Old Testament prophets say about the day of the Lord?

Isaiah 2:12, For the day of the Lord of hosts Shall come upon everything proud and lofty, Upon everything lifted up— And it shall be brought low—

Isaiah 13:6, Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

Isaiah 13:9, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it.

Jeremiah 46:10, For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, A day of vengeance, That He may avenge Himself on His adversaries. The sword shall devour; It shall be satiated and made drunk with their blood; For the Lord God of hosts has a sacrifice In the north country by the River Euphrates.

Joel 1:15, Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

Joel 2:11, The Lord gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?

Joel 2:31, The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

Amos 5:18, Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, and not light.

Malachi 4:5, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Zephaniah 1:14, The great day of the Lord is near; It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. Six times it is referred to as the day of doom. Four times it is called the day of vengeance. Always it is identified as a time when God unleashes His final fury.

Ezekiel 30:3, “The day is near; even the day of the Lord is near.”

Joel 2:1, “The day of the Lord is coming; it is at hand.”

Joel 3:14, “The day of the Lord is near.”

Obadiah 1:15, “The day of the Lord is upon all the nations and it is near.”

Zephaniah 1:7, “The day of the Lord is at hand.”

Zechariah 14:1, “The day of the Lord is coming.” Every generation has lived with the reality that it could come at any time.

The prophets have warned, and the New Testament writers have warned that the day of the Lord is coming.

It is a day of fury. It is a day of judgment. It is a day of wrath. All of that in mind let us come to Revelation chapter 6. V 17, “the great day of their wrath has come,” It is only reasonable to assume that this is describing the day of the Lord.

The sixth seal then opens the day of the Lord, the final fury of God’s wrath. Though all that has happened prior has been the wrath of God preceding it, this is the final day of God’s wrath. In the Old Testament, there were some historical days of the Lord. That is when God intervened in powerful vengeance, and they, too, had preliminary indications and warnings as God gave certain judgments which led up to His final fury.

So, the historical precedence for the same pattern here, where we have a series of judgments leading up to the final fury called the day of the Lord. This day of the Lord comes in two waves.

• The first part of it comes to the end of the seven-year tribulation.
• The second part of it comes at the end of the one- thousand-year millennial kingdom.

So, it comes in two phases, with a thousand years in between.

2 Peter 3:10-13, But 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 fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. ¹¹ Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, ¹² looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? ¹³ Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

The day of the Lord stretches all the way from the end of the seven-year period where it starts, to the coming of the new heaven and the new earth, which is after the thousand-year millennium. The day of the Lord comes in two phases: one at the end of the seven years, and then a final phase at the end of the millennial kingdom as He consumes what is existing then as the millennial earth. Inaugurates the new heaven and the new earth which is the eternal state.

How could one great day be separated by a thousand years? Peter gives us the answer.

2 Peter 3:8, But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

When the day of the Lord comes, the fact that there’s a thousand-year interval in between is not difficult for God to deal with. He is above and beyond time. With God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. So, that is the larger context biblically in which we must see the sixth seal.

The sixth seal in our study. The force here. The force here is fear. What really comes through here is fear. Like no fear the world has ever known. It will lead to the world’s largest prayer meeting, only they are not talking to God.

They are praying to the mountains and the rocks as verse 16 says and asking them to crush them.

Luke 21:26, men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

The word “faint” means to die. People will be literally scared to death. Fear is the essence of the sixth seal. The Lamb, taking the title deed to the earth and unrolling it one more time, breaks the sixth seal. This is the title deed that describes His takeover of what is rightfully His as the heir of God to the whole universe, which is in the hands of the usurper Satan and his minions and men.

AS He unrolls one at a time and the sixth seal brings the day of the Lord. The world refused to believe the warnings of Christians. The world has tried to, under the leadership of Antichrist, destroy Christians, kill them all, to wipe out the people of God.

They have been deceived by Antichrist to believe that what is happening is caused by Christians and Jews, and if they can massacre all of them and remove them all. Suddenly they know that isn’t true because of what starts to happen in the sixth seal.

As Jesus said, like lightning, six things take place. Seismos the word “earthquake. The whole universe begins to shake.

Then the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair. But because of the break-up of the planet earth and other bodies in space, the exploding earth sends fire and smoke into the atmosphere which obscures the sun. It may be that the sun itself starts to smoke as somehow it starts to disintegrate.

The moon becomes like blood. It is eclipsed in blackness and perhaps the red fringes of the fire of volcanic action on the earth. V 13, And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

Obviously, it can’t mean just a star, because if a star hits the earth, they are so massive millions of times larger than our own sun. It would consume us before it ever landed here. Fair to assume that this has in mind asteroids, meteorites, whatever other objects are flying around in space that begin to pummel the earth. Possible that even the stars begin to fall out of heaven toward the earth.

But all these things coming out of the sky are like a fig tree casting its unripe figs when it’s shaken by a great wind. The sky starts to fall. The earth is bombed by careening bodies in the disintegrating heavens.

V 14, Then the sky]receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. If you took a scroll and stretched it all the way to its limit, it would be like a canopy. The sky as we know it disappears. The earth begins to tremble.

The shifting crustal layers of earth begin to move. Now, this is what is described as the sixth seal. These are what Jesus meant when He said in Luke 21:11, “There will be terrors and signs in heaven.” What is so predictable will instantaneously become unpredictable.

The world now knows who’s doing it. V 16, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! When you preach a message like this, you assume people are going to say that it is absolutely ridiculous.

The scoffers have always said, “Everything continues as it has from the beginning. Nothing ever changes. The sky is always the same. The planets always move in the same orbit; everything is fine.”

On March 23, 1989, an asteroid, a half mile across, missed the earth by just 700,000 miles. No one saw it coming. If it had arrived a mere six hours later, it might have wiped out civilization. Astronomers are scurrying to start a census of just what threats lurk in the solar system.

Sooner or later our planet will be struck by one of them. If you turn to the article, you’ll find a copy under the picture that they give. The copy says this, “A deadly collision could suck out the atmosphere, scorch the earth, and shroud the planet in dust.”

The earth starts being pummeled by asteroids, and meteorites, and comets, and whatever else of bits and fragments of stars and suns come plummeting into our space, and when the colliding galaxies do what God intends for them to do I the moment of His wrath, the world is going to know that it is God.

The range of fear.

How widespread is it? V 15, And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, Those five categories you have the elite of the world.

The kings, the great men, the commanders, the rich, and the strong all describe the upper class, the elite. Everybody all over the world is going to be involved in this fear. He starts with the elite. They are going to see it.

They can’t avoid it. It is going to be visible. Going to leave its tremendous impact even as the Chernobyl thing left its impact on the world in a small way, or as the explosion of the volcano in Alaska, or any other of those kinds of things did.

This is going to be way beyond anything ever imagined by men, and the whole world of elite people will have absolutely no way to deal with it.

The last two classes

“Every slave and free man” Just divide the common people into the two categories that common people in ancient times were divided into, either slaves or free men. Whether you are the elite or the common man, you are going to know it is going to come.

Nobody’s going to be left out. Everybody is going to see it. Everybody is going to feel it. Everybody is going to experience it.

Isaiah 2:10-11, Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty. ¹¹ The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

Isaiah 2:19-22, They shall go into the holes of the rocks, And into the caves of the earth, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily. ²⁰ In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver And his idols of gold, Which they made, each for himself to worship, To the moles and bats, 21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, And into the crags of the rugged rocks, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily. ²² Sever yourselves from such a man, Whose breath is in his nostrils; For of what account is he?

Luke 21:28, “When these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing nigh.”

When the redeemed see this, they know the kingdom is coming. The King is coming.

The kingdom is as follows. But the rest of the unredeemed of the world, all of them, the range of it, everybody is going to be in fear. Some will be scared to death. Those who don’t die from fear are noted in V 16 and 17.

The reaction. We saw the reason for their fear, the range of fear, now finally the reaction. V 15, And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, It says they hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, just as Isaiah said.

We wish we could have read they repented! We wish we had read that they saw their sins, and they cried out to God for mercy. They certainly have been warned repeatedly. They have heard the gospel. They have tried to stamp out its preachers.

We wish they had cried for mercy.

Revelation 9:21, And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

They didn’t repent even though the trumpet judgments were on them.

Revelation 16:11, They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.

They should cry for mercy, but like the demons of which James wrote, they believe and tremble, but they don’t repent.

Why don’t they repent? Because they have followed the path of Satan.

• They are deceived.
• They believed the lie.
• They identified with the Antichrist, and God has left them in that delusion. He has left them in that deception. He has turned them over to wrath.

2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, ¹² that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Like Pharaoh, who hardened his heart and had his heart hardened by God finally, they who harden their hearts will have their hearts hardened by God. They cannot believe it. In their terror they hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains.

Silly place to go, because all that stuff’s coming apart, but it really doesn’t matter.

Where are they going to go? They can’t escape. They can’t get away. It is not possible because God is breaking up everything. Furthermore, you can’t go anywhere where the Lord can’t find you.

Psalm 139:7-13, Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? ⁸ If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. ⁹ If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, ¹⁰ Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. ¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; 12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You. 13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

Exactly mountain and caves are the places they are going to be crushed, because the mountains and the rocks and the caves are collapsing under the judgment of God. And I think that is their intent, “Destroy us. First, hide us and crush us. Don’t let us live to face God.”

They would rather be dead than to face God, not knowing what that death will mean is that they will face God. V 16, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!

They are praying to Mother Nature.

Hosea 10:8, Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, Shall be destroyed. The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!” A death wish. It isn’t rational, but they would rather die than face God.

They know God is angry, and the Lamb is angry, and they know what has come.

V 17, For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

What is the answer? No one.

1 Thessalonians 5:3, For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.

Nahum 1:6, Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, And the rocks are thrown down by Him. Nobody will survive. So, the fear. It is a terrifying, terrifying scene.

Hebrews 10:26-31, For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. ²⁸ Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of

grace? ³⁰ For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” ³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. If you know the gospel - if people hear the gospel today or even in that time and they go on sinning willfully after knowing the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. What does remain?

If you reject the gospel, this is what you must look forward should you be alive in the day of the Lord. Should you miss the day of the Lord on earth, you will still experience eternal damnation. It will be severe. They think if the mountains will crush them, and if the rocks will crush their lives, they won’t have to face God.

Are you saying that nobody is going to repent? No, during this period of time, there will be innumerable Gentiles converted.

Revelation 7:9, After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the

Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, Also, the Jews will be converted. Romans says, “All Israel will be saved.”

Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.

There will be salvation during this period of time among Gentiles and among the Jews as the Jews finally see their Messiah, believe in Him and receive the kingdom. But the vast people of the world will be crushed, their own wish coming true.

They won’t escape, for they will meet their maker after death, to be sent forever into eternal hell.

Conclusion

What is the importance of all of this for us? It should be obvious. If you are an unbeliever, be warned.

You are, according to Romans 2:5, treasuring your wrath against the day of wrath. You are accumulating a debt which God will pay you back for with His wrath in the day of wrath. You need to be warned. If you know the truth of the saving gospel, and you go on sinning willfully and reject it, the only thing you can look forward to is a terrifying expectation of judgment.

If you are a Christian, first you can be thankful for what you are going to escape. But we are going to be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. We are going to be with Him, coming background with Him in glory to reign.

Secondly, you are not only to be thankful but need to be faithful to evangelize. When I understand what is coming, I must warn men. On the one hand, I am thankful that I am going to be rescued from wrath, that I am not destined for wrath to come. But on the other hand, there is a world of people that are, and I have the saving message of Jesus Christ to bring to them, that they might be delivered from that.