The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow of justice is aimed directly at your heart, and the bow quivers with pent-up power. And it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, an angry God, who owes you nothing, that keeps the arrow from getting drunk on your blood. Thus all of you whose hearts have never been softened by the Holy Spirit, all of you that have not been born again, and made new creatures, and raised from the dead in sin, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have changed your ways, and maintained a religious façade, bringing your family to church on Sunday, and sitting in the house of God with your most pious Sunday face, it is nothing but God’s mere pleasure that keeps you this moment from being swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you are hearing, there is coming a time when you will be fully convinced. Those who have gone before you in similar circumstances can testify to that, for destruction came suddenly upon most of them, when they expected no such thing. And while they were saying, “Peace and safety,” they now sadly know that the things that they depended on for peace and safety were but thin air and shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell like some spider or loathsome insect over a fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath burns like fire and he considers you worthy of nothing else but fuel for the fire.  His holy eyes cannot bear to even look at you. You are ten thousand times more abominable in his sight than the most hated venomous snake is to us. You have offended him infinitely more than the most stubborn rebel ever did his earthly prince, and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you above the fire at every moment. There is no other explanation why you did not go to hell last night when you went to sleep. There is no other explanation why you were allowed to awake this morning, and no other reason why you have not dropped into hell since you arose this morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason why you have not gone to hell since you sat down in your pew in God’s house this morning, provoking his pure and holy eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yes, there is no other reason why you do not drop down this very moment into the depths of hell. 

Oh sinner, think about the fearful danger you are in. It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hand of God, whose wrath is as provoked and incensed by you as any of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath licking about it, and ready at any moment to burn it in two. In spite of that you have no interest in Christ the Mediator, and nothing with which to save yourself, nothing to keep away the flames of wrath. Nothing of your own, nothing you have ever done, nothing you can ever do will induce God to spare you one moment. Now consider these four points very carefully: 

1. Whose wrath is it? It is the wrath of an infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, even the most powerful man on earth, it would be insignificant by comparison. In the olden days that wrath of absolute monarchs was dreaded since they had the possessions and lives of their subjects completely in their power to do with as they wished. Proverbs 20:2 says, “A king’s wrath is like the roar of a lion; he who angers him forfeits his life.” Anyone who enrages the monarch is apt to suffer the most extreme torment the human mind can conceive and inflict. But the most powerful despot on earth, in his greatest majesty and strength and armed with his greatest tortures is but a feeble despicable worm in the dust compared to the great almighty Creator and King of the universe. All the worst kings of history are as grasshoppers before God…they are nothing…they are less than nothing. The wrath of the great King of kings is as much more terrible as his majesty is greater. Jesus tells us in Luke 12:4-5, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear:  Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”

2. It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God, as in Isaiah 59:18. “According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies…” And in Isaiah 66:15, “See, the Lord is coming with fire, and his chariots are like the whirlwind:  he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.” And, among many other places in the Bible, Revelations 19:15, “…He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.” The words are exceedingly terrible. If it had only said, “the wrath of God,” the words would have implied something infinitely dreadful, but it says, “the fierceness and wrath of God.” The fury of God! The fierceness of Jehovah! How incomprehensibly dreadful must that be? Who can conceive what that means? But it also says, “the fierceness and wrath of ALMIGHTY God.” Oh, what will be the consequence? What will become of the poor worm who suffers such? To what dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery will the object of such wrath be sunk?

Please carefully consider this, you who are here today who are not saved. That God will execute the fierceness of his anger implies that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God sees the indescribable agony you are in, and the torment that so vastly exceeds your ability to endure, and when he sees how your poor soul is crushed, he will have no compassion on you; he will not call off your torment, or even lighten it. There will be no moderation of mercy, but he will see to it that you will NOT SUFFER BEYOND WHAT STRICT JUSTICE REQUIRES. Nothing will be withheld because it is so hard for you to bear. God says in Ezekiel 8:18, “Therefore I will deal with them in anger:  I will not look upon them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears I will not listen to them.” Today God stands ready to pity you. This is a day of mercy. You may cry now with some hope of receiving mercy. But once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and mournful cries and shrieks will be in vain. You will be forever lost and thrown away by God with no regard for your welfare. God will have no other use for you than to serve as a vessel for his wrath. He will be so far from pitying you that when you cry to him, he will only laugh and mock you as it says in Proverbs 1:26.

How awful are God’s words in Isaiah 63:3. “I have trodden the winepress alone…I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments and I stained all my clothing.” It is impossible to conceive of words that could carry any greater intensity of contempt, hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to him for pity, he will be so far from pitying you in your miserable condition that he will only step on you. And even though he knows that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotent God on you, he will crush you anyway under his feet without mercy. He will crush out your blood and make it fly and it will splatter on his robe and stain it red. He will not only hate you he will have the utmost contempt for you, and the only place fit for you will be under his feet, to be mashed down like mud on the streets.