God's Wrath And Judgment Revealed

Habakkuk 3:3-15

Habakkuk is praying for revival in chapter 3 .
He was praying for revival at a time of Judah's lowest spiritual ebb.
His prayer was not that the nation would be brought back to life.
Judah was anything but dead.
It had not yet been invaded by the Babylonians.

When you look closely at his prayer you can see that his prayer is for the revival
of God's work among the people.
Habakkuk's prayer was that God's people would submit to His rulership and
be spared from His wrath.
We know from the first chapter why Habakkuk felt that a revival of God's work in
Judah was needed.

Habakkuk cried, "How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And Thou wilt not hear?
I cry out to Thee, "Violence!" Yet Thou dost not save.
Why dost Thou make me see iniquity, And cause me to look on wickedness?
Yes, destruction and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises.
Therefore, the law is ignored And justice is never upheld.
For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore, justice comes out perverted."
(Habakkuk 1:1-4)

When Habakkuk was crying out to God because of the sins of Judah, He did not realize
that the "cure" would be worse than the "disease."
When we deplore the dismal condition of professing Christianity today and pray for revival,
we must be aware that God may do something drastic to purge away our dross
that so revival may come.
It is similar to a patient who is critically ill, and a radical cure may be needed.

And in chapter 3 he prays, "In wrath remember mercy."
Habakkuk prays knowing that they don't deserve revival, so he prays for mercy.
It is like he was saying, "Lord, I know that we deserve your wrath, but in the midst
of your wrath remember mercy and send revival among us."

God had enabled Habakkuk to see truths that inspired him and gave him needed insight.
Habakkuk was reminded that God provides for the fearful and the perplexed.
In this third chapter, Habakkuk learns that God is active in history.
All history is His story.
History is the unfolding of God's plan.
History is the account of God's reign over the world.

This 3rd chapter of Habakkuk presents a picture of the coming destruction
of the Babylonian Empire, (the Chaldeans) which was to happen in the immediate future
of Habakkuk.
This is one of the greatest pictures of the appearance of God that we have in the Bible.
Habakkuk glorifies the power and majesty of God.

These poetic descriptions enabled Habakkuk to sense God's awesome power which was
unleashed in judgment.
We should realize that the historical events, as terrible as they were are nothing
when compared to the burning anger of God.
It will be terrible for those who one day will experience that anger.

We must learn to do as Habakkuk did which will be a strength for us in the future.
Whatever may come, if we should find ourselves in the fearful state that is
graphically described by Habakkuk, then we should take a look back at history.

We must concentrate upon the facts of history.
Habakkuk goes into great detail in telling us of the things that God had done.
Those facts of Biblical history needs to be emphasized today for our Christian faith
is solidly based upon facts, not ideas.
Having established the facts, we must reckon on the greatness of God's power.

Have you ever longed for God to act?
Don't you long for God to show that He is God, and show His power and His glory?
I believe that most of us would cry out to God:
"Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might
quake at Your presence." (Isaiah 64:1)
That was Habakkuk's prayer in Habakkuk 3:1-16.
Habakkuk wanted God to come in power.

God's mighty power is seen in Verse 3 to verse 15.
These verses describe the revelation that God gave to Habakkuk.
As he was praying, God gave him this revelation which is a visible manifestation
of God's power, God's wrath, and God's judgment.

Habakkuk's revelation is a long poetic description of Old Testament events of God's acts
of wrath and judgment.
This begins in verse 3 which says that "God came from Teman, and the holy one
from Mount Paran."
These two places were in the south, so this is a picture of God as a conquering warrior
appearing from the south.

Habakkuk is proclaiming that we have a mighty God.
He is brighter than the brightest lights, and more powerful than anything in all creation.
Verse 4 says that His radiance is like sunlight, with rays flashing from His palms.
Like light, God is completely pure; there is no darkness at all in Him.
His heat is penetrating.
Furthermore, we cannot look at His brightness, since we can't even look at the sun.
And yet, "there is the hiding of his power."
But what is seen is only a tiny fraction of all His brightness

He continues in verse 5 "Before him goes pestilence" which recalls the ten plagues of Egypt.
and plague comes after him.
When God brought His people out of 400 years of slavery into freedom,
He did so by crushing Pharaoh with a succession of plagues.

God displayed His power over the weather, over the animals, and over the pestilence
and plagues.
Pharaoh had opposed God by assuming he was a god himself.
He assumed that he answered to no one but himself.
So God demonstrated that He would even use even a sinful man like Pharaoh
to demonstrate His power. (Romans 9:17)

"He stood and surveyed the earth." (Verse 6)
This shows God standing in preparation of judgment, and the picture is of God taking
giant striding across the earth.
And as He strides across the earth He startles the nations, the mountains are shattered,
the hills collapse, and then we read that "His ways are everlasting."

This was the assurance that God will act in the future as He has done in the past.
He is faithful.
God has done many wonderful blessings and miracles in the past, so He could be
counted upon to do that for Israel in the future.
This is a reassuring truth.
The Lord's ways are the result of His all-wise deliberation, and He orders all things
according to the counsel of His own will.

Then, Habakkuk says, "I saw the tents of Cushan under distress."
Cushan is probably Ethiopia which is west of the Red Sea, so he is speaking about the west.
"The tent curtains of the land of Median" is in the east so he is referring to the east.
Habakkuk is talking about a worldwide trembling that takes place as a result
of the appearance of his great God.

"Did the Lord rage against the rivers, or was Thine anger against the rivers or was
thy wrath against the sea that thou did stride on thy horses on thy chariots of salvation?"
(Verse 8)
The purpose of the power over the elements was the salvation of His people so He was
not raging against the rivers, and He wasn't mad at the streams.
His wrath was not against the sea.
God acted upon the waters for His purposes.
It's not clear what specific past act of God Habakkuk has in mind.

He could have been thinking of the parting of the Red Sea.
That was a time of salvation for the people of Israel, and a time of judgment upon
the Egyptian army.
God held back the waters until exactly the right time, and completely destroyed
Pharaoh's army chasing the Israelites.
"The horse and rider He has thrown into the sea."
He was using these things to express His wrath against those individuals and deliver
His people with His mighty salvation.

Habakkuk continues in verse 10: "The mountains saw thee, and were afraid;
The tempest of waters passed by; The deep uttered its voice, And lifted up its hands on high.
The sun and moon stood in their places."
This verse is probably drawn from the incidents from the book of Joshua, where "Sun and moon
stood in their places, they went away at the light of thine arrows at the radiance of thy gleaming spear."

Verses 12-13 reads, "In indignation thou didst march through the earth, in anger
thou didst trample the nations, thou didst go forth for the salvation of thy people,
for the salvation of thine anointed.
Thou didst strike the head of the house of evil to lay him open from thigh to neck."
Verse 13 said that God did these things "for the salvation of thy people.'

This 3rd chapter that Habakkuk is not only a picture of the coming destruction of the
Babylonian Empire, (the Chaldean Kingdom) but it is also a picture of that in the
immediate future of Habakkuk,

This is emphasized this even more, telling us that even the sun can't look at the light
of God's arrows and spears.
Clothed with glory and majesty and accompanied by pestilence and plague, the Lord marches
through the earth threshes the nations in anger. (verse 12)
And He crushes the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck
as related in verse 13.
The Lord gains a complete victory.

We can also be assured of God's sovereignty and goodness by remembering what God has done
in the past with Israel, with the nations, with the church, and also with our own lives.
When we look only at the present, it will present us with many uncertainties,
but when we look at the past we can be assured that all uncertainties that we have
will be resolved by God.
God's sovereignty will see that His righteousness, and those who follow Him in righteousness
will be vindicated, and the unrighteous will be judged.

God has explained that He will bring about justice, He will punish the leaders of Judah
who have forsaken Him, and He will punish the Babylonians and all those who do not live by faith.

Verse 12 pictures God as marching in indignation, trampling the nations in anger.
Verses 13 and 14 are the most graphic: "You struck the head of the house of evil to lay him open
from thigh to neck."
This is God's justice on the person responsible for evil who is sliced open.
Also notice what instrument God uses for this purpose.
He uses the evil one's own spears. (verse 14).
Just as the evil ones are rejoicing, thinking they have the victory, God destroys them
with their own weapons.

This should remind us of Haman in the book of Esther.
Haman builds a gallows 75 feet high, intending to hang Mordecai, the Jew.
But God works His justice on Haman who is hung from the gallows he built.
God turns the evil intended for others on the perpetrator.
This is true justice.

Habakkuk's revelation comes to a climax in verse 15.
It is a great picture of God the great warrior who exercises His judgment.
This would suggest something as mighty as seeing and hearing destruction
of the Rocky mountains and the rushing waters of tidal waves that engulf all of the land and sea
and overthrow everything in its path.
We are pleased to see God deliver His justice in these acts.
And yet, they are sobering in their severity.
But notice how Habakkuk reacted.

Habakkuk has heard of God's coming and knows that when He shows Himself,
the earth shakes and trembles, the nations bend and yield themselves to Him,
and hills bow down before Him and sink low.
Kings bend and yield to Him in fear and trembling.
Armies bow down before Him.

God is gracious and patient, but one day His patience will come to an end..
He will not let sin and evil prevail, and then, He will come as a warrior to defeat those
who oppose Him.

God's power is seen in His wrath in His revelation to Habakkuk.
When wrath is mentioned many think of uncontrolled anger as wrath, and that may be true
when it comes to human wrath.
But it is not a part of God's wrath.
God's wrath is His holy hostility toward sin in all its manifestations.
This means that God's holiness cannot and will not coexist with sin in any form whatsoever.
God's wrath is His holy hatred of all that is unholy.
It is his righteous indignation at everything that is unrighteous.

God will not overlook sin.
God will not dismiss sin which is against His holy will.
God will not overlook the godliness and the wickedness of men.
God will act in His wrath against individuals and nations that ignore Him and His warnings.
The Bible says more about wrath than about love.
Jesus spoke more about hell than about heaven.
The Bible is filled with warnings about God's wrath and His judgment.

The first chapter of Romans (especially 1:17-32) has some very serious things to say
about the wrath of God.
Paul is saying that when people have determined to sin, God will not stop them.
At the same time, there are consequences of their sins.

Paul talks about impurity and dishonor, homosexuality, degraded minds and bodies.
He wrote: "They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice.
Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent,
haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless."
(Romans 1:29-31)
They allowed themselves to be filled with sins of the flesh rather with than the Spirit of God.

When you come to verse 24, you see what Paul said about God's wrath.
"Therefore God gave them over (because of what happened in Verses 22 and 23).
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity
for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things
rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen."

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
The women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed
with lust for one another.
Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty
for their perversion.

Homosexual and lesbian ministers are being ordained and given places of authority
in several major church denominations.
This is being heralded by them as new concepts of love and evangelism.
Many homosexual and lesbian churches in America and other countries are catering exclusively
to the spiritual needs of their own kind, giving them recognition and support from organized religion.

Students in some cities are being told that homosexual love is normal and that sex acts
between the unmarried is desirable as long as they have a high regard for each other.
This is seen in an article published on January 10, 2007 by the Washington Post.
It says; "The Montgomery County Board of Education approved new sex-education lessons
yesterday for the eighth and 10th grades that teach what it means to be homosexual….
Approved by a unanimous vote, the lessons mark the first time Montgomery schools
will introduce the topics of sexual orientation and homosexuality.
The materials, including a new 10th-grade condom-demonstration DVD, will be field-tested
in a handful of middle and high schools in spring, barring intervention by the courts."

Fox News got it right in a broadcast on August 28, 2009 when they reported:
"When society no longer rejects their sin as abnormal and fully accepts them
and encourages them in their abnormality, and when the church no longer preaches
against it as sin and consoles them in their sexual activities — there no longer exist
any hindering forces...."
The homosexual community has become so militant and brazen that they are flaunting their sin
on network talk shows and many TV programs.

Furthermore, Paul says that since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God,
He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what they ought not to have done.
Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,
they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Three times Paul simply says, "God gave them over."
He turned them loose to do whatever it was that they wanted to do.
Self-gratification became their idolatry

This should cause us to tremble as Habakkuk did.
" When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered
into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble:
when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops." (Verse 16)

Habakkuk no longer has any theological or philosophical problems.
He sees everything perfectly clear, seeing the judgments that are coming,
and he is filled with fear.

God's wrath is already at work in our culture.
We don't have to wait for it -- it is here!
This Scripture in Romans is proof.
Romans 1:24: "Therefore God gave them over."
Romans 1:26 says, "For this reason, God gave them over."
Romans 1:28 says " ... God gave them over."

Romans 1:18 says, "The wrath of God is revealed."
That wrath is defined in 24, 26, 28 as "God gave them over."
God's terrible wrath is His wrath of abandonment.
God is saying: "I have had enough of your sin and now, you will have to care for yourself
and get yourself out of whatever problems you have regardless how severe they are,
and when death comes you will go where you have already determined to go.
You will go to a place of eternal death and hell."

This should cause us to tremble!
I fear and believe that America is experiencing the wrath of God's abandonment.
I believe that we are already experiencing the wrath of abandonment, and not just us,
but many other nations.
Paul said in Acts 14:16: "In the generations gone by, God permitted all the nations
to go their own way."
Did you hear that?
In the generations gone by, God permitted all of the nations to go their own way.

C. S. Lewis, writing in his book, "The Problem of Pain", said,
"The lost enjoy the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are forever enslaved."

God's power is also seen in His judgment.
Habakkuk's revelation is a great picture of God as the great warrior who exercises judgment.
God is gracious and patient, but one day He will come to the end of His patience
because He will not let sin and evil prevail, and then, He will come as a warrior to defeat those
who oppose Him.

God revealed His plan to judge Israel using war-like Babylon.
But the people of Israel probably thought that God would never destroy Israel, His own people.
Amos faced this question as he preached to Israel (the northern kingdom),
and Habakkuk and Zephaniah faced it in Judah some 100 years after Amos.

This time the question was asked by Judah and Jerusalem.
This is God's city that God had chosen so they thought that He would never destroy it.
But they were wrong, and Habakkuk was appalled at God's answer.

Notice Habakkuk 2:3 regarding Babylon's fall: "For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
but at the end it will speak...."
This probably applied to ancient Babylon, the fall of which occurred nearly 70 years later,
and very likely referred to the "day of trouble" here in 3:16 which was the time
of the fall of Babylon.
The ultimate fall of Babylon would come later.

The Lord tells Habakkuk and the people of Judah that the fulfillment of the prophecy
may "linger", but the people can expect it. (3:16)
"Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us." (Babylon)

That day came!
In 539 BC Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon.
The Bible records in the Book of Daniel about the "Handwriting on the Wall" where Belshazzar
who had been ruling in Babylon on behalf of his father Nabonidus, saw the handwriting
on his palace wall during a feast, which Daniel the Hebrew interpreted as the end
of the Babylonian Empire.

It was Alexander the Great who finally destroyed Babylon in 330 B.C., and left it as
a heap of ruins.
Today Babylon is a city of ruins (no one lives there).
It was never again inhabited.
Babylon was completely deserted by the seventh century. (See Isaiah 13:17-20).
War is a judgment of God and the Lord uses blaspheming nations as the rod of His anger
and as the instrument of His judgment.

Shouldn't we be afraid of this in these present days in the life and history of America?
Is God going to bring judgment to the wickedness of a "politically correct" America?

On August 22, 1787, George Mason (1725–1792), Father of the Bill of Rights,
made this statement during the debates of the Constitutional Convention:
"As Nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this.
By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins,
by national calamities."

For the first 150 to 175 years, Americans had a respect for God, His Commandments,
His principles, and for His people. (see Psalm 36:1-4).
Our government, our courts, our schools and colleges, and our leaders made rulings
and decisions based on Biblical principles, but that all started changing about 50 years ago.

All of those solid Biblical principles that were the foundation for our Constitution
and Bill of Rights, and highly regarded for nearly 200 years are now being maligned, ignored,
litigated and judged unconstitutional.
The teachings of the Bible are deemed as being unacceptable and even harmful
by unbelievers and haters of God.

When Christians protest their right to express their views, the atheists, humanists,
hedonists, homosexuals, label Christians as bigots, homophobic, puritanical and intolerant.
These haters of God want their rights to flaunt and to express their offensive views in public.
These heathen rage that the Bible and its teachings corrupt the minds of people
and make them intolerant of others.
But it is when we are intolerant of sin and evil, we are more like our God. (Psalm 97:10; 101:3)

I believe that for many years God has been slowly withdrawing his hand of blessing on our nation.
I also believe that God has already begun to judge this nation.
Look at what's happening to America in recent years.

Remember the 9-11 terrorists attack that took the lives of nearly 3000 people and cost
billions of dollars to clean up and repair the damage.
Billions more are being appropriated to try to prevent another attack.

Then, there was the anthrax scare that took several lives and huge sums of money have been spent
to counter any future attacks.
The Post Master General has said, "The anthrax attack will cost the United States Post Office
billions of dollars in lost trade and the implementation of a screening and sanitizing system."

Western wildfires, covering a third of the nation, have destroyed many homes
and has taken the lives of many fire fighters.
The cost for those wildfires has been in the billions of dollars and creating untold hardship
for thousands of people.
Tornados have brought destruction to homes and lives all across our nation.

There have been floods and mudslides washing away homes and diminishing the hopes
of those who lost all they had and gave them real concerns for their future.
The stock market has dipped to a dangerous low causing thousands to lose their life savings
and decreasing their income.
We have seen the collapse of large financial institutions, and the "bail out" of many banks
by our government.

Just a few years ago 6 hurricanes did billions of dollars of damage to towns in Florida
and many other states.
Hurricane Katrina brought such terrible devastation and New Orleans is still struggling.
Many homes and business were lost forever.

I have read that homosexuals had planned a huge Southern Decadence festival
and were expecting tens of thousands of men and women engaged in public nudity,
prostitution, illegal drug use and destructive public S & M sex.

According to World Net Daily, "Hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans just two days
before the annual homosexual 'Southern Decadence' festival was to begin in the town."
So, could it be that God is judging America?

When Israel turned away from God, God sent prophet after prophet to warn them to repent
from their wicked ways, reject idolatry, and repent of the worship of foreign gods.
When they would not heed His messengers, there came a time when they reaped
the consequences of their sinful ways, and God sent judgment upon them.

America has enjoyed God's gracious blessings for many years because of the Christian influence
of our Godly forefathers.
But, for the last 30-60 years generations of Americans have been promoting evolutionism,
secular humanism, relativism, amorality, immorality, political correctness, and hedonism.

The consequences of these godless practices are growing, and now we are beginning
to reap the results.
We shouldn't be surprised that God would judge our nation when we have been warned
in Galatians 6:7-8: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth
to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

Consider these facts.
According to reports published by Paul Scott's syndicated column,
one million two hundred thousand (1,200,000) abortions took place in the United States last year.
Even more shocking, is the information that the government financed between 222,000
and 278,000 of these abortions.
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) furnished these figures.
Do you think that God is pleased with the murder of the unborn?
I don't think so!

E. L. Bynum, a Baptist pastor has said, "I maintain that this (abortion) may be one of the
greatest crimes in the annals of human history.
This may be a crime so dark, a sin so black, that nothing can stay the hand of
God's righteous judgment upon America."
American is the abortion leader in the world.
How long do you think that God will tolerate abortions?

America is the illegal drug use leader of the world.
There is talk in several states about legalizing marijuana.
How long will it be before other addicting drugs will be leagalized?
How long do do you think that God will tolerate this sinful practice that ruins the lives of so many?

We have an element in our country that has an entitlement attitude.
Then think about the deplorable drug addiction, the appalling alcoholism, the profusion of
pornography, the increasing crime wave, the abominable homosexual movement,
the push for same sex marriage, and the anti-God, anti-Christ attitude of multitudes
in our nation today would cause us to believe that our country is just asking for God's judgment.

What God did to the city of Jerusalem in the time of the prophet Zechariah,
He will do again to the cities of America.
When building the temple, the inhabitants were reminded what God did when judgment
was upon them: '…there were no jobs, no wages, no security…crime was rampant'."
(Zechariah 8:10, LB)

This is happening all over America, and New York City is one example.
"To put it simply, New York City is broke. Its economy is still reeling from the slowdown
on Wall Street, and it's still feeling the effects of September 11th.
Now the projected deficit for the fiscal year that begins in July has grown to $3.8 billion."
(NPR Morning Edition, 04/16/03)

"Governor. Paterson, convinced that the state faces its worst fiscal crisis since the mid-1970s,
will deliver the grim news in an unprecedented special address to New Yorkers."
(New York Post, 08/28/08)

"Unemployment last month hit a 25-year high of 8.1 percent and the latest weekly
snapshot on new claims for jobless benefits showed the pain was intensifying as employers
slashed payrolls to cope with the shrinking economy."
(California Jobless Rate Jumps, Wall Street Journal, 3/20/09)

So, there are serious losses, confusion, and reverses that is shattering the thinking processes
of many well-meaning people who falsely believe that their successes and economic well-being
are the result of their own positive thinking.
We are witnessing the bankruptcies of some of this nation's major and most popular corporations.
There is also some difficult days for many major credit corporations.
There are many people unable to pay off their heavy obligations to major credit card
companies and this is causing many serious ripple effects.
Thousands of small businesses are being forced into bankruptcies.

The New York Times reported: "$8 trillion in U.S. stock market losses;
$6 trillion in housing-value declines; about 5 million jobs lost, either 3.6 million lost
or the lost opportunity for the jobs that were necessary for the increased population
during this period; 3 million foreclosure filings..."
(The New York Times, 03/03/09)
Can you not see God's judgment on our country?

The United States Geological Society has reported that:
"88,011 people were killed in earthquakes in 2008, with the largest number dying in China
and Pakistan. In 2000, 231 people died worldwide in earthquakes."

"Last year the number of the world's hungry surged from 854 million to 967 million due to
the steep climb in prices of staple foods." as reported by the UN News Centre, 03/09/09

I believe that any Christian who reads God's Word can see that God's judgment is coming
on America.
America will reap what it has sown.
"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34)
I believe that judgment has begun.

And I also believe that unless we repent as a nation and turn back to God that we can expect
to see more judgment at the hand of God.
As believers we must live righteously, evangelize boldly and pray fervently for a revival
in our country and our world.

We have been warned in Acts of God's certain judgment.
"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men
every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."
(Acts 17:30-31) (KJV)

There is no truth more clearly taught in God's word than this.
There is no fact more firmly established, and no warning more emphatic than the truth of this text
concerning the great Day of Judgment.
God's judgment is a certainty.
God's judgment is as certain as death as Hebrews 9:27 says:
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment"

Rev 20:12 says: "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God;
and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life:
and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books.."

The Great Judgment Morning
"I dreamed that the great judgment morning
Had dawned, and the trumpet had blown;
I dreamed that the nations had gathered
To judgment before the white throne;
From the throne came a bright, shining angel,
And he stood on the land and the sea,
And he swore with his hand raised to Heaven,
That time was no longer to be.

The rich man was there, but his money
Had melted and vanished away;
A pauper he stood in the judgment,
His debts were too heavy to pay.
The great man was there, but his greatness,
When death came, was left far behind!
The angel that opened the records,
Not a trace of his greatness could find.

The moral man came to the judgment,
But self-righteous rags would not do;
The men who had crucified Jesus
Had passed off as moral men, too;
The soul that had put off salvation,
"Not tonight; I'll get saved by and by,
No time now to think of religion!"
At last they had found time to die.

Chorus:
And, oh, what a weeping and wailing,
As the lost were told of their fate;
They cried for the rocks and the mountains,
They prayed, but their prayer was too late."
--- Bertram H. Shadduck, 1894

Our God is gracious and patient and He has been so with us, but one day God will come
to an end of His patience because He will not let sin and evil prevail,
and when He does, He will come as a warrior to defeat those who oppose Him.

Nothing in this life is more important than knowing that Jesus is your Saviour!
Do you believe in Jesus as Saviour and Lord?
"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not
see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." (KJV)

This is the day to trust in Jesus as your Saviour!
Right now, repent of your sins, and ask God to forgive you.
He will give you life eternal and a home in heaven.
Believe trust Jesus as your Saviour and Lord.

John 3:16-18: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world
might be saved through Him.
He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already,
because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. " (KJV)


Sermon prepared by Dr. Harold L, White from multiple resources