Beloved of God, do you have any love for that person that you work with? For that neighbour that God has allowed you to get to know? Any love (as you must) for those future people who one day will mock you? Who one day will perhaps burn your church? Do you have any love for the church member who is forsaking the faith? Do you have any love for your own children? Then warn them to flee the wrath that is to come! These are symbols – but symbols of something real! This is real! This judgement will come! If we are going to claim to believe in Jesus Christ, we must believe in this Jesus Christ too, unashamedly. Warn them now! By this day it will be too late. We don't have the rights over ourselves. He is Creator, He is Sustainer, and He is Lord. And try as men might (and we too, in our sins) to convince ourselves that we are our own masters, that we rule our own lives, that we are our gods, we know deep down that we are not. That we are beholden to Him and that every rebellion is committed against the one who has made me with His own two hands and before whom I owe my life. This is just, pure judgement. And either this just judgment falls on the one whose vesture is dipped in blood or it falls upon you and upon me! Warn them to flee the wrath that is to come!
And I must warn you. If you have sat here for so long and have never taken seriously your own sin before this holy God, I warn you to flee the wrath that is to come. To flee from it and into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a provision that has been made! This just God is also a God of mercy. And that provision is set before you in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ from week to week. Flee to Him for safety! Taste and see that God is good (Psalm 34:8) and His mercy endures forever. Take shelter under the blood of the Lamb! Or you will taste and see that He is just, as you stand before Him with no covering and no shelter, and just you and your sins before those eyes as flames of fire.
It is the most loving thing for the church to speak this. For the church dare not be accused of her God of helping men ignore what is real and true. There is a God in heaven, and it is a fearful thing to fall into His hands. Except if you come before Him in Christ! Then it is a comforting thing to fall into the hands of this God, beloved. There is no greater comfort than to be found on the side of this returning Christ in the way of repentance and faith. The King returns with war and judgment for the world, but war and judgment unto the defence and protection of the church.1
Cory Griess
21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.