📖 SERMON 202 — THE FINAL OUTPOURING OF GOD’S WRATH
Preacher: Rev. G. S. Kok
Date: December 26, 1965
Text: Revelation 16:17–21 (Read: Luke 21:25–38)
Subject: THE FINAL OUTPOURING OF GOD’S WRATH
INTRODUCTION:
Nothing is so astonishing as the lovingkindness, mercy, longsuffering, and patience of our God. At times it seems as though His patience has no end. Year after year people experience His kindness as He sends pleading ambassadors and repeated warnings to repent and believe—yet they refuse. They stubbornly resist the Holy Spirit, continue in sin, and will not receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.
But though God’s patience lasts long, there comes a day when God says, “It is done.” Then His long-restrained but absolutely just wrath is poured out. This is what John describes when the seventh angel empties his bowl.
A. The final judgment stored up for the ungodly.
1. It is poured out at God’s command.
2. Perfect justice is now executed.
B. The bowl is emptied into the air.
1. Air—the element upon which all life depends.
2. The realm in which principalities and powers of darkness operate.
3. Its effects reach every living thing.
C. A loud cry accompanies it: “It is done.”
1. These same words were spoken by Jesus on the cross—but with a different meaning.
2. Here:
The outpouring of God’s wrath upon those who dwell on the earth is now complete.
The day of grace is ended.
The antichristian world is finished.
3. This is D-Day for the unrepentant sinner who has resisted every call of God.
A. A universal upheaval.
1. The entire cosmos is shaken.
2. Lightnings and thunderings—voices.
3. The greatest earthquake in history.
4. Mountains collapse; islands vanish.
Nothing remains stable.
B. Great Babylon collapses completely.
1. The pride, wealth, and security of the world system are destroyed.
2. The antichristian world falls—economically, politically, socially.
3. The “great city” and all its lesser cities crumble.
4. Babylon is broken into three parts.
5. She must drink and drain the cup of God’s fury.
C. Those who dwell on the earth are crushed.
1. Their life was wrapped up in the ungodly world.
2. They gloried in its wealth and pleasures.
3. Now their world perishes—and with it, their hope.
A. A crushing hailstorm from heaven.
1. They unjustly stoned God’s people many times.
2. Now hailstones of about one hundred pounds fall upon them.
3. There is no shelter, no defense.
B. They blaspheme God.
1. They know this is God’s doing—they are no longer atheists.
2. They now acknowledge God as Creator and Sovereign over history.
3. Yet they do not repent:
Their heads are crushed,
But their hearts remain hard.
4. They resisted God’s calls to repentance; now it is too late.
“It is done.”
CONCLUSION:
When does this happen? In a sense, it happens every day. Many die suddenly—after resisting God’s warnings again and again. For them, the words have already sounded: “It is done.”
How long before it happens to you, unrepentant sinner? How long before your world collapses? How long before you fall into the hands of the living God?
It could be this very night.
For the last time this year—and perhaps for the last time in your life—God calls you to repentance, promising forgiveness and eternal life.
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