But the main thing I want to talk to you about today is how to escape the wrath of God.
How to escape the wrath of God.
I don't think any of you here today wants to be on this earth when God pours out his wrath.
Do you want to be there when this happens?
None of you wants to face the wrath of God.
I know I don't want to face the wrath of God.
I want to experience the love of God.
I don't want to experience the wrath of God.
I don't want to be on this earth when God is raining hell and fire and brimstone and hail out of the sky and turning water into blood.
Well, the Bible tells us how we can escape God's wrath.
The Bible says in verse number 10 of 1 Thessalonians 1,
"And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."
The Bible says that Jesus can deliver us from the wrath to come.
He has delivered us from the wrath to come if we believe in him.
It also says in 1 Thessalonians 5,9,
"For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."
The way to escape the wrath of God is to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, how do we get salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ?
Well, the first thing we need to know is that we've all sinned before.
Every single one of us has sinned.
Nobody's perfect.
Even if you've never been a murderer or a sorcerer, you've all lied before.
I know I've lied.
Put up your hand if you've lied before.
Everybody has lied before.
Don't talk about it.
Just put up your hand and put it back down again.
So, we've all sinned.
We've all lied.
We've all done bad things.
And the Bible says that the punishment for that is death.
The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
And after the physical death, the Bible talks about spiritual death.
The Bible talks about a second death.
It talks about going to a place called hell where you experience the wrath of God and fiery torment in hell.
You don't want to go to hell, and I don't want you to go to hell, and God doesn't want you to go to hell.
So, that's why Jesus Christ died on the cross for us so that we would be saved and so that we don't have to go to hell.
The Bible says, "But God commended his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
So, even though we've all sinned, even though we've all lied, even though the Bible tells us that all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death,
because God loves us, he came to this earth in the form of Jesus, and he lived a perfect life that none of us could live.
Jesus never sinned, and Jesus performed a lot of miracles.
For example, he walked on water, he healed the sick, he raised the dead back to life, but he also preached the word of God.
And when he preached the word of God, a lot of people were offended and angry by his preaching.
So, therefore, he was arrested, and when Jesus was arrested, they beat him up, they spit on him, they hit him in the head with a stick, and then they nailed him to the cross.
And when Jesus was on that cross, the Bible says that he himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree.
So, every sin you've ever done, and every sin I've ever done, it was as if Jesus had done it.
He was being punished for our sins.
And when Jesus died on the cross, they took his body and buried it in a tomb, and then three days later, he rose again from the dead.
And he showed them the holes in his hands and the hole in his side to prove that he had risen from the dead.
Now, Jesus died for everybody in the whole world, but everybody's not going to heaven.
There's one thing that we have to do in order to be saved.
The Bible asks the question, "What must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house."
The one thing we must do to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3.16, says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
So the Bible tells us that if we believe on Jesus, we'll be saved. We'll have everlasting life.
Now, everlasting means forever. So when Jesus saves you, he doesn't save you for a little while, he saves you forever.
So you only have to get saved one time.
The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
The gift of God is eternal life.
God wants to save you today, and being saved is as simple as receiving a free gift, the gift of God's eternal life.
How do we get that gift? By believing on Jesus Christ.
Now, let's say I were going to give you a gift today. If I were to give you these DVDs, for example, that we're giving out.
If I were to give you a DVD and tell you, "Okay, now you have to give me a thousand dollars," is that really a gift?
What if I said, "Okay, I'll give you a gift, but you have to do some work for me. Come wash my car."
No, that's not a gift, is it?
What if I gave you the DVD and then I came back two weeks later and I said, "I need it back. I need you to give it back."
That's not a gift. So two things about a gift. A gift is free and a gift is yours to keep.
You don't have to give it back. It's yours to keep.
So, God said the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So once we receive that free gift of salvation by believing on Jesus, He's never going to take it away from us.
Once we're saved, we're saved forever. It's impossible to lose your salvation.
Because once you've believed on Jesus Christ, He gives you eternal life and He makes you the promise,
"I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will never leave you nor forsake you."
Jesus said, "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."
Once you believe on Jesus Christ, you are saved forever.
Now, let's say after you believe on Jesus Christ, you do something really bad.
Let's say you commit a really bad sin.
Well, if you do that, then God's going to punish you.
Because God will punish us on this earth for the sins that we do on this earth.
But as long as we believe on Jesus Christ, we will still go to heaven.
Because being saved is not based on how good we are because we've all sinned.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus.
So if we believe on Jesus, He forgives all of our sins.
Now, Jesus died for us 2,000 years before we were even born.
So that means that Jesus died for all of our sins, past, present, and future, before we even did them.
Because He died 2,000 years ago.
That means if we believe on Jesus Christ today, He'll forgive all of our sins and we will escape the wrath to come.
He's delivered us from the wrath to come.
Now, if you believe on Jesus, you're a child of God.
You're a son or daughter of God.
I have nine children.
Now, yes, I really do. I have nine children at home.
This guy in the green shirt is my oldest boy right here.
But he has eight brothers and sisters.
Now, if my son disobeys me, I'm going to punish him.
I'm not just going to tell him it's okay.
He's going to be punished.
But I'm not going to kick him out of the family no matter what he does.
No matter what he does, he's my son and I'm still going to love him.
It's the same way with God.
Once we believe on Jesus Christ, He'll never leave us.
He'll never forsake us.
He'll never kick us out of the family.
So how many times do we have to get saved then?
One time.
Only once because once we're saved, we're always saved.
We're saved for eternity.
But if we break God's commandments after we get saved, He'll discipline us.
He'll punish us just like I punish my son.
And I don't know about you, but I don't want to get a whipping from God.
I don't want to get punished by God.
That's why I want to obey God's commandments.
But no matter what we do, once we believe on Jesus Christ, we have everlasting life.
And He will never take that away from us.
Now today, I want to ask you a question and I don't want you to talk.
I just want you to raise your hand.
If you here today believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins,
that He was buried and that He rose again,
and if you believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven and that you get to heaven just by believing on Jesus,
put up your hand if you believe that right now.
All right.
Now go ahead and slip them down again.
And what I want to do, if you believe that, if you believe Jesus is the only way to heaven,
if you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and was buried and rose again,
and that just by trusting in Him is going to get you to heaven just by believing in Him,
not based on how good we are, but based on how good He is,
let's bow our heads and you can pray this prayer with me and say this directly to God.
Close your eyes, bow your head.
If you want to pray this prayer, if you believe that, just repeat after me and say to the Lord,
Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner.
I know I deserve hell.
But I believe that you died on the cross for all my sins and rose again.
Please save me right now and give me eternal life.
I'm only trusting you, Jesus.
Thank you for delivering me from the wrath to come.
Amen.
Now, the Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
The Bible says that if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart
that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
So according to the Bible, that's the one thing you must do to be saved,
is just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you're saved forever.
Thank God for His love and mercy and grace that saves us from the wrath to come.
Thank you everyone for listening to what we have to say. God bless you.
Thank you for listening to what we have to say. God bless you.