Let's pray shall we. Our Father and Our God as we have considered,
in these days the perfection of your being, the excellence of your character, and the
majesty of your holiness, we ask that we may be brought afresh to the foot of the cross,
where our souls may become as white as snow, and we maybe clothed with an alien righteousness,
not our own, which is our only hope to stand in your holy presence. Thank you for the perfect holiness of Jesus
that through your grace you have bestowed upon us. Help us now to think even more deeply about
who you are, and what you have done for us, we ask it in Jesus name, Amen. The text that I am going to be looking at
this afternoon is a couple of texts that I have preached on many, many times. And I am sure that some of you at some point
have heard this message on the holiness, justice, and wrath of God. But if it is repetitious for you, I only half
apologize, because these are things that we must examine over and over again. We live in a culture, and sadly in a church
that, if they believe in the existence of God, does not consider God to be holy. But if, per adventure, some may acknowledge
that he is holy, they don't add to that holiness any idea of divine justice. And if, with the lamp of Diogenes we are able
to find a handful of people who agree that God is both holy and just, it is next to impossible
to find someone who will add to these elements the idea that God is a God of wrath. The assumption in the world and in the church
today is that the love of God, the mercy of God, and the grace of God either swallow up
the justice and wrath of God or certainly trump it. Even on national occasions where noted people
are buried out at the national cathedral in Washington, it is commonplace to hear choirs
sing, or bagpipers play a hymn called "Amazing Grace." But nobody believes that grace is amazing. It is something we assume. Again the assumption is that God is not holy,
God is not just, and God is not a God of wrath. Now, this I know. If Thabiti's mother was here, and heard somebody
say that, she would say, "That's a lie." And not just a lie, but a bald face lie. And not just a bald face lie, but what - a
brazen lie. Yes, you've been listening. I'd like to read a passage to you from 1 Chronicles,
that is a book that is found in the Bible, and it is in the Old Testament. And if you are having trouble finding 1 Chronicles,
I'll give you a hint as to where it is located. It is right before 2 Chronicles. Chapter thirteen, and for my Baptist friends,
and verse one. We read the following narrative: - notice
I didn't take my watch off. Would you like to know why? Say "Yeah we want to know why? - Tell us." You see all these guys come up here, and taking
their watches off. Because someone from Scotland just said, "Why
are you men always standing up there taking off your watches, don't you know that there
is a clock right down there in front of you?" He pointed it out, and there it is, just as
he said. So I'll just look at that thing, except when
I look at that clock I have to see myself. I think I'll take my watch off. Now that I've given you time to find that
reference, we read in verse one of chapter thirteen of 1 Chronicles, this narrative:
And then David consulted with the captains of thousands, and hundreds, and with every
leader. And David said to all of the assembly of Israel,
"If it seems good to you, and if is of the Lord our God, let us send out to our brethren
everywhere who are left in all the land of Israel and with them to the priests and the
Levites who are in their cities and their common lands that they may gather together
to us and let us bring the ark of our God back to us for we have not inquired at it,
since the days of Saul." Then all of the assembly said that they would
do so, for all the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. And so David gathered all Israel together
from the Nile in Egypt as far as the entrance to Lebo-hamath to bring the ark to God from
Kiriath-jearim. David and all of Israel went up to Baalah
that is to Kiriath-jearim, which belonged to Judah to bring up from there the ark of
God the Lord. The ark of God the Lord who dwells between
the cherubim where his name is proclaimed. So they carried the ark of God on a new cart
from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio drove the cart, and David and all of
Israel played music before God with all their might. This was a glorious occasion, a festive occasion. The throne of God was being returned to the
holy place where it belonged. So the whole nation joins in celebration,
singing with gusto, playing their music on harps, stringed instruments, tambourines,
cymbals, and with trumpets. "When they came to Chidon’s threshing floor,
Uzzah put out his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was aroused against
Uzzah, and he struck him because he put his hand to the ark and he die there before God. And David became angry because of the Lord's
outbreak against ASSA. There fore that place is called Perez-uzza
to this day, and David was afraid of God that day, and he said, 'How can I bring the ark
of God to me?'" When I was in seminary, I was taught that
these Biblical passages that refer to the sudden explosion and paroxysms of rage that
God manifested in the Old Testament such as this episode of the sudden killing of poor
innocent Uzzah with no significant warning, manifested the truth that the Old Testament
is not the inspired word of God, but is simply an example of popular religion of a tribal
deity from a semi-nomadic group of people who were pre-scientific and unsophisticated. They would say that these episodes recorded
in the Old Testament such as the sudden execution of Uzzah are totally incompatible with the
New Testament portrait of the love of God revealed in Jesus. So, what I experienced in Seminary was a revival
of the Marcionite heresy with an attempt to expurgate from the Bible all references to
this Old Testament angry deity. I thought that this episode and others like
it, since it was recorded in the pages of sacred scriptures at least deserved the philosophy
of a second glance. So briefly this afternoon, I would like you
to give that second glance to this particular narrative you've just heard, and see what
is going on. David assembles the whole nation for this
celebration they are going to bring the most sacred vessel of their religion to the holy
place. After the ark had been captured by the Philistines,
and then later restored, it had been stored, in storage as it were, removed from the life
of the people, and now David is going to restore the glory to Israel. He is going to restore the throne of God to
its proper place. And so he has a brand new cart made in order
to carry this precious cargo of the Ark of the Covenant, and he has Uzzah and Ahio to
lead the oxen that are carrying the box - or carrying the ark. I don't which side of the ox cart Uzzah was
on. My guess is he stood by the nigh-ox, which
would make him on the right side. I thought it was on the left side? I got guy here in the second row who has a
Ph.D. in cows, can you believe that? I know other guys who have Ph.D.s in bull,
but I don't know anyone else who has a Ph.D. in cows. He keeps telling me all about this ox. But anyway, here comes this jubilant procession
accompanied by choirs singing their anthems and all the musicians playing the cymbals
and the harps and all the rest, and this great procession, this great parade is moving wonderfully
until suddenly one of the oxen stumbles, and when that ox stumbles the cart is tilted on
its side. And the sacred Ark of the Covenant begins
to slide and is in immediate danger of falling into the dirt - into the mud, where it would
be surely desecrated. I think probably, instinctively, out of a
sense of respect for this sacred object, lest it become marred in the dirt, Uzzah stretches
forth his hand to steady the ark. What does the scripture say? As soon as he steadied the ark and kept the
ark from falling into the mud, the heavens opened and this deep shouted to him from heaven,
"Thank you Uzzah!" Not how it happened. As soon as he touched the ark, instantly he
was stricken. Instantly, God executed him. Oh the gymnastics my Old Testament professors
went through in seminary saying, "Well, that's the way it seemed to these unsophisticated
Hebrews who were watching this incident. Surely the man just dropped of a heart attacked
generated by his terror that he would venture to touch the sacred object." Or they would say, "This is evidence that
whatever portrayal we have of the wrath of God in the Old Testament portrays God's wrath
as being arbitrary, whimsical, capricious.” And it was an example of what one professor
even called the "dark side" of Yahweh, the demonic element within the nature of God himself. You know what I thought about that professor
who said this represents the dark side of Yahweh? I thought, "What an oaf." What a line that was. It’s too late for me to use it. I'm preaching through 1 Samuel too, and I'm
already past that. I'd like to weave it back in. Evidently these people never read the fourth
chapter of Numbers. You realize that when God divided the tribes
and he gave the responsibility of the priesthood and the teaching to the tribe of Levi, that
the tribe of Levi was a pretty large tribe and it was broken down into clans, and clans
into families. And among the Levites there was the can of
the Kohathites, and the sole responsibility of the Kohahthites was to look after the sacred
vessels for the tabernacle. And you recall, that when the Ark of the Covenant
was built it was designed by God himself. And it was this square-ish object with gold
and great woods and everything. But it had rings on the end and in the middle
and the purpose of those rings was to use long poles or staves so that when it had to
be transported, as the tabernacle was moved from place to place, the Kohathites would
take these lengthy rods of wood and would insert them through the rings and then they
would carry on foot, by the way, not on carts, this sacred object with these wooden poles. The whole purpose of those rings, and the
whole purpose of those poles was so that they as human beings would never, ever, ever come
in contact with the holy throne of God. Now, I like the way it was taught us this
morning, how every detail of the building of the tabernacle was designed to make manifest
the holiness of God. And so this clan of the Kohathites, they were
instructed from father to son to grandson about how they were to treat the sacred vessels. And in Numbers chapter four - that means do
I need something to drink right? I do but I'm not going to interrupt this for
it. They were instructed in order to regard the
vessels as holy, and under no circumstances were they ever to touch the Ark of the Covenant. And again, in Numbers four it says explicitly
that He who touches the Ark of the Covenant, the holy throne of God, must die. Every Kohathite knew it. Now we don't know for sure that Uzzah and
Ahio were Kohathites, but they probably were, or they wouldn't have been assigned this task. And so, when the ark began to fall, Uzzah
touched it. Jonathan Edwards has a sermon about this. He said that the sin of Uzzah was the sin
of arrogance. Arrogance? Looked to me like a heroic act of humility. He risked his own life to make sure that the
Ark of the Covenant would not be marred or spoiled by being brought in contact with the
mud. Edwards says that herein was the arrogance,
Uzzah assumed that contact with the mud would be a greater sacrilege than contact with the
hands of a sinful human being. Edwards says - wait a minute. What is mud but the earth mixed with water? There is nothing innately sinful about dirt. There is nothing innately corrupt about the
mixture of dirt with water turning it into mud. If the Ark of the Covenant - if the throne
of God touches the ground, it's not going to do any damage. What desecrates the throne of God is not the
touch of the earth; it is the touch of man, because there is no sin in the dirt. There is sin in the hand of Uzzah. So God executed him for profaning the most
holy object in Israel. Turn with me briefly, to another passage in
the Old Testament, to Leviticus chapter ten and verse one. Did you catch that Steve? See I colonize the Baptists. Did you ever hear a Presbyterian minister
say, "Turn in you Bibles to 1 Corinthians thirteen and verse seven? We don't talk like that. That's the way Baptist preachers say, chapter
thirteen AND verse seven. We're not all that verbose. We have an economy of language, so we simply
say, chapter thirteen, seven. We don't have to say, AND verse seven. It really doesn't add a whole lot to the discourse
but you take that away from Steve Lawson and he can't preach. Stop me if I'm lying Steve. Now, if you've found Leviticus chapter ten. Every time I have a scripture reference for
the Presbyterians, I have to filibuster to give them a chance to find it. Chapter ten, verse one - you know I don't
know how to pronounce these guys names. I'm not a Hebrew scholar. When I came back from my graduate work in
Holland, I was at overweight at Schipohl airport, and in order to avoid the fine, I had to reduce
the weight I was carrying. So I left my Hebrew Bibles in Schipohl Airport. I think it's still there. "Then Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron, each
took his censor and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the
Lord, which he had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured
them. And they died before the Lord." Somebody asked me this morning. "R.C., What was that strange fire that they
offered on the alter?" I don't know. I'm only going to explore this passage for
a few moments. If you want a much more comprehensive examination
of the significance of this text in the Old Testament, I can recommend to you a Puritan
work, called Gospel Worship by Jeremiah Burrows. How many of you have read that book? Let me see. I know that some of you have. Yes there are people around here. I see that hand. Joel you've read that? Have you ever seen a better exposition of
this text than what you find there? In the crisis that we face with worship in
our day, this is a book that every Christian needs to read - Gospel Worship by Jeremiah
Burrows. Whatever was in this fire that made it strange,
or whatever was in this fire that was offered by the sons of Aaron that made it profane,
it did not please God. These young priests were simply involved in
experimental worship. Maybe to try to change the liturgy that God
had ordained in such a way that would be more appealing to the congregation. They missed the fundamental principle of worship. Worship is to be determined not by what is
pleasing to us, but what is pleasing to God. God never counts noses in the Old Testament. Thank you - keep going. The most successful worship service ever recorded
in the Bible was found in the Old Testament. It drew more people in attendance, broke all
attendance records and the singing was so full of gusto that when the voices of the
singers were heard, miles away on a mountain, one of the men who heard the noise of this
celebration and this singing thought a war had broken out, and thought that the noise
that he was hearing was the tumult that accompanies battle. When he took time to investigate it, it was
not a war; it was a worship service with a golden calf. Nothing attracts greater crowds than the practices
of idolatry. But these young fellows were just trying to
improve on the worship of Israel; they offered a new way to sacrifice. They offered strange fire upon the altar. And as soon as they did it, that fire came
out from the altar and consumed them to a crisp. I want to ask you this question. What do you suppose Aaron's response to this
was? Let's go back a moment to the death of Uzzah. Uzzah was killed according to the text because
God was angry for his touching the ark. And when Uzzah was executed by the wrath of
God, who else got mad? David. Even David had trouble dealing with the wrath
of God. Even before David we have this incident where
the very sons of Aaron are executed by God in his wrath. What's going on in Aaron's mind? He's a father. I can see him say, "God what are you doing? These are my sons. They are walking in my footsteps. All they did was tinker a little bit with
the fire on the alter." So he goes and he speaks to Moses. And you know the Bible is the master of understatement. You have to read between the lines an awful
lot because in verse three we read this, "And Moses said to Aaron, (in Aaron's obvious distress)
'Aaron this is what the Lord spoke. Do you remember what the Lord said? Do you remember what he said at your ordination? Do you remember what he said when he set you
apart and consecrated you to a holy vocation?' Moses had to remind Aaron - this is what the
Lord said, 'By those who come near me I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people I must be glorified.' Don't you remember that Aaron? 'Anybody who comes near me, they must regard
me as holy. And in front of the whole congregation
I must be glorified.' But instead of regarding God as holy, Nadab
and Abihu came in profanity. Do you realize how the Lord God omnipotent
considers our profane worship, when we dare to come into his presence without considering
him as holy, and without seeing our primary responsibility in our celebration of worship
as displaying before the whole congregation the glory of God? Do you remember Aaron when the Lord spoke
those things? What does it say that Aaron did when Moses
gave him this reminder? Again, masterful understatement. So Aaron held his peace. You better believe Aaron held his peace. There was nothing else for Aaron to do. There was no room here for debate. “I am the Lord, there is none other. And I will be regarded as holy by anyone who
comes near to me.” The story goes on that Moses called Mishael
and Elizaphan the sons of Uzziel the Uncle of Aaron and said to them, “come near and
carry your brothers from before the sanctuary out of the camp.” This seems like God is being a little bit
gracious now, he’s just killed these young men, and he's said, now come and get your
relatives body here and take them out and give them a proper burial. No - he says, “‘Carry your brethren from
before the sanctuary out of the camp.’ So they went near and carried them by their
tunics out of the camp as Moses had said. Moses said to Aaron and Eleazar and Ithamar
his sons, 'Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, lest you die and wrath come
upon the whole people. But let your brothers, the whole house of
Israel bewail the burning which your Lord has kindled. You shall not go out from the door of the
tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. For the anointing oil of the Lord is upon
you.' And they did according to the word of Moses." I don't even wan their bodies in the camp. And I don't want anybody rending their garments
and lamenting in dust and ashes - I don't want a wake for these guys. They are polluting my sanctuary. I want their bodies and everything associated
with them carried outside the camp because they have profaned me with their false worshipping. You know the most famous sermon ever preached
in America was preached in the eighteenth century in Enfield Connecticut by Jonathan
Edwards. You all know the name of that sermon, "Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God." I had to read that sermon for the first time
in college where it was required reading as an example of sadistic preaching. I thought even then, if Jonathan Edwards was
sadistic, which he wasn't, and if he believed in hell, which he did, a sadistic preacher
would do everything in his power, gleefully to tell his congregation that there was no
such place, and secretly enjoy the inevitability of their being plunged into it. Edwards was no sadist. He loved God and he loved his people. He cared about their ultimate destination. Almost everybody in America has heard the
title of the sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” however, almost no one
is aware of the text for that sermon. The verse from the Old Testament upon which
Edwards preached, "their feet shall slip in due time." Edwards’s sermon has been used also in classrooms
because of its graphic imagery of the wrath of God. Where most people who hear these images that
Edwards expounded had no idea that the vast majority of the images he uses to describe
the perilous situation of impenitent people are images drawn from the scripture itself. The text, "their feet shall slip in due time,
" draws a picture of a man crossing a deep chasm on a rope bridge where the planks that
are swinging to and fro in the breeze on that rope bridge are rotten, covered with moss,
slippery, where you can't even see which planks have rotted through so that every step you
take on the bridge may be your last one before you slip and fall into the abyss. Because their fall was not simply probably,
it was inevitable. For God warned the sinners that if they did
not repent, “their feet would slip in due time.” Another metaphor was the metaphor of the dam
- the dam that was built to hold back massive volumes of water. I remember thinking about this sermon when
we were watching the televised images of Katrina. When the dams around New Orleans - notice
how I said that - New Orleans, been there. Not New Orleans - that's the Northern way
- New Orleans. Where the news was constantly showing the
increased volume of water with the imminent threat moment to moment of the dam cracking,
and if it cracked at one point tons and tons and tons of water would burst the dams and
engulf the people. Edwards says that the wrath of God is stored
up like water behind a dam. Noting the apostle Paul’s teaching that
we are storing up, heaping up, treasuring up, racking up wrath against the day of wrath,
where the unsuspecting person goes to bed at ease in Zion, with no fear that the dam
will ever burst. Then he used the metaphor of the bow, again
barrowing from Old Testament imagery where Edwards said to the people, "God's bow is
bent." It's not that he just has his fingers on the
string, and is thinking about drawing it. The bow is already bent and his arrow is aimed
at your heart. And the only thing that is keeping that arrow
from piercing your heart is the hand of God that holds it. But it is inevitable that if you do not repent,
he will release that arrow of his wrath. Of course in that sermon, the most vivid imagery
was that of that of the spider in the web. When Edwards was still a teenage he wrote
a technical essay on the behavior of spiders. So he knew something about spiders and their
webs. He knew for example that if a spider spun
his web, and you dropped a big heavy stone on that web, the web could not hold it back,
but the stone would burst right through. Edwards looked at his people in Enfield and
he said, "Sinner, you hang over the pit of hell by one slender thread, not a whole web,
but one thread. And every second the flames of divine wrath
are burning all around that single thread ready to singe it and burn it at any second. And the second that thread is burned you will
fall into the pit of hell. The only thing that keeps you from falling
is the hand of God." Now, everybody thinks that sermon is a sermon
on the wrath of God, and it is. But I think, more importantly, it is a sermon
on the grace of God, on the hand that keeps us out of there. That sermon wouldn't scare anybody in our
culture, or in our churches, because nobody believes in hell anymore. The greatest lie, the most monstrous lie,
the most brazen lie of all is the lie that people tell themselves, "I have nothing to
worry about, from the wrath of God. My God is a God of love." Your God is an idol, and no God at all. Edwards challenged the congregation. He said, "Come on, let's reason about this. Can you give me any reason, since you got
out of your bed this morning why you haven't fallen into hell?" Apart from the gospel dear friends, I couldn't
answer that question. I couldn't give any reason why I am alive
this afternoon and not in hell, apart from Christ. My favorite illustration of how callus we
have become with respect to the mercy, the love and the grace of God, goes back to the
second year of my teaching career when I was given the assignment of teaching two hundred
and fifty college freshman a course in the introduction to the Old Testament. And on the first day of class, I gave them
their syllabus, and I said, "Now, here is how many tests we are going to have, when
we're going to have them and you have three short little term papers, five pages each
is all - little ones. The first one is due September the 30th when
you come to class, the second one October the 30th, and the third one November the 30th." And I said, "You have to make sure that you
have these papers done, because if you don't, unless you are physically confined to the
infirmary or in the hospital, or unless there is a death in the immediate family, you will
get an F on that assignment if you don't have that paper here on time. Does everybody understand that? Yes." September the 30th came and two hundred and
twenty-five of my students came in with their term papers with them. There were twenty-five terrified freshmen
who came in the back of the room trembling. "Oh Professor Sproul, we didn't budget our
time properly. We haven't made the transition from high school
to college the way we should have. Please don't flunk us. Please give us a couple more days to get our
papers finished." I said, "Okay, this once, I will give you
a break. I will let you have three more days to get
your papers in but don't you let that happen again." "On no - thank you so so so much." Then came October the 30th. This time two hundred students came with their
term papers, and fifty students didn't have them. I said, "Where are your papers?" They said, "Well, you know how it is proff. It's midterms, and we had all kinds of assignments
for other classes that we are taking. It's homecoming week and we're just running
a little behind. Please give us just one more chance." I said. "You guys don't have those papers? Do you know what I said the last time? I had said, don't even think about not having
this one in on time. And now, fifty of you out there don't have
them done." "Oh yeah we know." I said, "Okay, It's the last time, I will
give you three days to get in your papers." And you know what happened? This really happened. I preached on this three years ago, and there
happened to be somebody in the audience that was in that classroom, and he hasn't forgotten
it. They started this thing spontaneously, two
hundred and fifty voices. "We love you proff Sproul, Oh yes we do." And I was the most popular professor on that
campus until November the 30th. This time one hundred of them come with their
term papers and a hundred and fifty of them don't have their term papers. And I watched them walk in as cool and as
casual as they could be. And I saw one of them who was a Marine veteran,
and he came walking in the room. So I said, "Johnson!" He said, "What?” "Where is your paper?" He said, "Hey"
I said, "Hey" - Happy Days, "Hey" you know? He says, "Don't worry about it proff, I'll
have it for you in a couple days." I picked up the most dreadful object in a
freshman's memory. A little black book, and I opened it up to
Johnson, and I said, "Johnson, you don't have your term paper?" He said, "No"
I said, "F, - Nicholson where is your term paper?" "Don't have it." "F"
"Pratt, where is your term paper?" "Don't have it." 'F"
And then out of the midst of this crowd somebody shouted, what you know they would shout, “That's
not fair.” And I turned around, and I said, "Fitzgerald,
was that you who said that?" He said, "Yeah, it's not fair." I said, "Right, weren't you late last month
with your paper?" He said, "Yeah,"
I said, "Okay, Fitzgerald, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. If it's justice you want. It is justice you will get.” And I went back, and I changed his grade from
October to an F. And there is this gasp in the room. I said, "Who else wants justice?" I didn't get any takers. It was like a song similar to one out of My
Fair Lady. "I've grown accustomed to his grace." What had happened was that the first time
they were late, they were amazed by grace; the second time they were no longer surprised,
they basically assumed it. By the third time they demanded it, and believed
that grace was an inalienable right, and entitlement to which they all deserved. I took that occasion to explain to my class,
I said, "You know what you've done when you say, 'That's not fair.' You have confused justice and grace. The minute you think that anybody owes you
grace, a bell should go off in your head that reminds you that you are no longer thinking
about grace, because grace by definition is something you don't deserve. It is something you can't possibly deserve. You have no merit before God, except demerit. And if God should, ever, ever, treat you justly,
outside of Christ, you will perish, and your foot will slide in due time. Any time there is a group this large assembled,
I don't care for what reason, whether it's a church service, or a Christian conference,
I know that there are people in this room, right now, who are that far away from hell,
and they are assuming they are not going to go there. But if there is a God, and there is, and if
He is holy, and He is, and if He is just, and he is, he could not possibly be without
wrath. And if you have not been reconciled through
the blood of his son, the only thing you have to look forward to is his wrath, which is
a divine wrath, which is a furious wrath, and is an eternal wrath. God must be regarded as holy by anyone who
comes near him. So my beloved, if you would come into the
presence of God, consider the nature of the God whom you are approaching, that you may
come covered by the righteousness of Christ. Let's pray. Father, there are times when we don't like
your holiness. Sometimes we say with Luther, "love God sometimes,
I hate him." But as much as your holiness intimidates me,
we cannot think of anything worse, O Lord than if you weren't holy, or if you had no
justice, or if you were utterly indifferent or unconcerned toward evil. So we thank you that you are altogether holy,
altogether just, and that your wrath is a righteous wrath, and that you have given us
your grace to save us who cling to Jesus from the wrath that is to come. Amen.
