II Corinthians 5:11
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.
If you have never read Jonathan Edwards sermon “Sinner’s In the Hands of an Angry God” then you have never read one of the most famous sermons ever preached about the wrath of God.In its use of the various Scriptures about God and His wrath it paints a very vivid picture of what awaits the sinner on Judgement Day. We see in these verses that the apostle Paul was writing to the church of Corinth about what awaits all of us at the end of our lives and at the end of time, the Judgement of Almighty God.
For the Christian as we’ve already discussed, it is the judgment of our good works after we became Christians for our reward in Heaven. But for the unbeliever, for the poor soul that rejected Christ, rejected God, and lived a life of sin, there is only the judgement of their sin. Many lost people have this false hope that they will go to Heaven because they are a good person. But we know the Bible says in Romans 3:10, As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: The Bible says in Isaiah 64:6 that all our righteousnesses, “our good deeds,” are as filthy rags. When God looks upon a saved person, He see the righteousness of Christ, which was imputed onto them. But when God sees a lost person, he sees a sinner, which has yet to pay for their sins.
That is why Paul called it the Terror of the Lord. Imagine the exceeding fierceness of the wrath of the God of the Universe. The Almighty God that had the power to speak all things into existence, that took the very dirt on the ground and fashioned a full grown, fully functional, perfect human man, that took the rib out of that man’s side and fashioned a full grown, perfect human woman. Imagine the infinite awesomeness of His Justice. I’m sure Paul quivered as He wrote these words. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…
Paul was saying that because he knows how awesome God is, how powerful, and mighty, how just, how vengeful, and how wrathful God is, that because he knew this, this drove him to persuade men, to preach the gospel to as many as would listen. Because he knew that a day would come when all men would stand before God that he made it his life’s ambition to make sure that every man had a chance to prepare for that day.
What about you believer, do you quiver at the thought of your loved ones, standing before God, answering for their sins? Do you have compassion on the stranger at the counter of the check-out line? Do you pray diligently for the lost people in your neighborhood that live down the street from a gospel preaching church yet have never been invited there? Do you care that there are billons of souls around the world that don’t even know that one day they will experience the Terror of the Lord? We have an awesome responsibility, those of us that are saved, to share the gospel with a sinful, unbelieving world; who, unless we do everything we can to reach them, will go straight to that day where they will experience the Terror of the Lord. God is a God of justice. Sin has a price, it must be paid. It was already paid by Christ on Calvary, but as we know, it must be received. What will you do today that will help someone receive that gift? Will you go, will you tell, and will you pray?
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