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And now...a message from the past that applies to the present! Here this oh ye backsliders and reprobates. This message comes to you from the grave. The greatest preacher of the past 100 years now speaks to this age of drunken revelry. The preacher of righteousness who is known as The Rev. Charles haddon Spurgeon is about to give you a lesson on the SMOKING WRATH of God that is being revealed against ALL workers of unrighteousness in this modern age. REPENT!

Part I. Charles Haddon Spurgeon on the Instruments of God's WRATH

Charles Haddon Spurgeon SPANKS the new-age, neo-evangelical church with a sharp rebuke and rebuff! Reverend Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, would vehemently disagree with people like Pastor Bill Keller (Live Prayer), Pastor Bill Hybels and many other neo-evangelicals 'pastors' who espouse the false notion that the God of the Bible has reserved His wrath for a single day in the future and that we should not understand the present WAR with the Muslim hoard or the FIRES in California and Georgia or that monster hurricane KATRINA or the present DROUGHT in the so-called 'Bible-Belt' of the Southeast to be the manifest WRATH of God. This is a FALSE idea that has no Scriptural support! It has crept into the doctrines of the neo-evangelical camp over the past 100 years with help from LIBERAL GERMAN theologians of the 19th and 20th Century! The FACT is that God is presently pouring out His wrath on believers and unbelievers alike! It may not be the full scale all-consuming FIRE that the Bible speaks of in Hebrews 12:29 (For our God is a consuming fire.) but it IS in fact, a measure of His wrath never the less! He controls the winds that feed the fires that destroy property and lives and He controls the waves that drown hundreds of thousands of heathen villagers! ( Aceh Tsunami) Observe: Mark 4:41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (KJV) AND "Psalm 104:4 He makes winds his angels, and flames of fire his servants." (BBE)

In the collected writings and sermons of Charles Spurgeon we find the occurrence of the word ‘wrath’ over 5440 times! Contrary to most modern day theologians and doctrines on the subject, Charles Spurgeon considered the ‘wrath of God’ as an instrument of chastisement for believers and punishment for unbelievers in this life. Here are but a few of the quotes of Charles Spurgeon on the subject of God’s wrath. One may surmise that Charles Spurgeon believed in the PRESENT TENSE manifest wrath of God against the backslider and the wicked unbeliever. Mr. Spurgeon did not isolate the wrath of God to a one time event at the final judgment but believed that the this attribute of God should be understood as ’being revealed’ in the immediate context of the present day! According to Charles Spurgeon, unbelievers have reason to fear their exposure to the ‘smoke’ of the wrath of God in this present hour because 'smoke' implies FIRE. Believers should understand that the wrath of God against their willful sin and backslidings remains a means of their chastisement and is to be understood as an extension of the mercy of God in calling them to repentance. I am thankful for the wrath of God and I hope and pray that you will save and study the following...Pay particular attention to Spurgeon's advice for the 'Villiage Preacher' as he calls it...(note)

The OPEN AIR PREACHER is offensive to the wicked and the religious hypocrite alike because he 'blackens' their enjoyment of worldly pleasures!

Study and Observe the following:

THE TREASURY OF DAVID, VOLUME 3, Psalms 61-90, PSALM 74

by Charles Spurgeon

PSALM 74:1 O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?
why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

EXPOSITION

Ver. 1. O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever?

To cast us off at all were hard, but when thou dost for so long a time, desert thy people, it is an evil beyond all endurance--the very chief of woes and abyss of misery.

It is our wisdom when under chastisement to enquire, "Show me wherefore thou contendest with me?" and if the affliction be a protracted one, we should more eagerly enquire the purporse of it.

Sin is usually at the bottom of all the hiding of the Lord's face; let us ask the Lord to reveal the special form of it to us, that we may repent of it, overcome it, and henceforth forsake it. When a church is in a forsaken condition it must not sit still in apathy, but turn to the hand which smiteth it, and humbly enquire the reason why.

There are two questions, which only admit of negative replies. "Hath God cast away his people?" (Romans 11:1); and the other, "Will the Lord cast off for ever?" (Psalm 77:7). God is never weary of his people so as to abhor them, and even when his anger is turned against them, it is but for a small moment, and with a view to their eternal good. Grief in its distraction asks strange questions and surmises impossible terrors. It is a wonder of grace that the Lord has not long ago put us away as men lay aside cast off garments, but he hateth putting away, and will still be patient with his chosen.

Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? They are thine, they are the objects of thy care, they are poor, silly, and defenceless things: pity them, forgive them, and come to their rescue. They are but sheep, do not continue to be wroth with them. It is a terrible thing when the anger of God smokes, but it is an infinite mercy that it does not break into a devouring flame. It is meet to pray the Lord to remove every sign of his wrath, for it is to those who are truly the Lord's sheep a most painful thing to be the objects of his displeasure. To vex the Holy Spirit is no small sin, and yet how frequently are we guilty of it; hence it is no marvel that we are often under a cloud.

EXPLANATORY NOTES (commentary by sources that Spurgeon cites)

But still, though there be expostulations, there is no complaint; though there be mourning, there is no murmuring; there is far more the cry of a smitten child, wondering why, and grieving that his father's face is so turned away
from him in displeasure, and a father's hand so heavy on the child of his love. Or, as we might almost say, it is like the cry of one of those martyred ones beneath the altar, wondering at the marauder and oppressor, and exclaiming, "How long, O Lord, how long?" And yet it is the appeal of one who was still a sufferer, still groaning under the pressure of his calamities, "Why has thou cast us off for ever? We see not our signs, there is no more
any prophet among us." Barton Bouchier.
 
This Psalm, and particularly these words, do contain the church's sad lamentation over her deep affliction, together with her earnest expostulations with God about the cause. Two things there are that the church in these words doth plead with God. First, The greatness of her affliction: secondly, the nearness of he relation.
 
1. The greatness of her affliction. And there were three things in her affliction that did make it lie very heavy upon her. First, the root of this affliction; and that was God'sanger:Why doth thine anger smoke, etc.
Secondly, the height of this affliction; God was not only angry, but he did smoke in his anger. Thirdly, the length of this affliction: it was so long that God did seem to cast them off for ever.
 
2. The nearness of her relation:Against the sheep of thy pasture; as if they should have said, Lord, if thou hadst done this against thine enemies, it had been no wonder; if thou hadst poured out thy wrath against the vessels of wrath, it had not been so much. But what! wilt thou draw out thy sword against the sheep of thy pasture? It were no wonder that thou shouldest take the fat and the strong, and pour out thy judgments upon them; but wilt thou do it to thy sheep? There be several doctrines that I may raise from these words; as,
First doctrine: That God's people are his sheep.
 
Second doctrine: That God may be sorely angry with his own people, with his own sheep.
 
Third doctrine: That when God is angry with his people, it becomes them carefully to enquire into the cause.
 
Fourth doctrine: That when God's people are under afflictions, they ought to take notice of, and be much affected with, his anger, from which they do proceed.
 
Fifth doctrine: That God's people under affliction are, or should be, more affected with his anger than with their smart. This is that which the church doth complain of, not that the church did so smart, but that God was displeased and angry; that did most affect them.
 
Sixth doctrine: That God's people are apt to have misgiving thoughts of God when they are in sore afflictions. God was angry with his people, and their hearts did misgive them, as if God did cast off his people.
 
Seventh doctrine: That God may be angry with his people, so sore, and so long, that in the judgment of sense it may seem that they are for ever cast off.
 
Eighth doctrine: That though the people of God may not murmur against his proceedings, yet they may humbly expostulate with him about the cause. Joseph Alleine. 1633-1668.
 
Ver. 1. Why doth thine anger smoke, etc. Anger is a fire; and in men, and other creatures enraged, a smoke seemeth to go out of their nostrils. John Trapp.
 
Ver. 1. The sheep of thy pasture. There is nothing more imbecile than a sheep: simple, frugal, gentle, tame, patient, prolific, timid, domesticated, stupid, useful. Therefore, while the name of sheep is here used, it is
suggested how pressing the necessity is for divine assistance, and how well befitting the Most High it would be to make their cause his own. Lorinus.
 
HINTS TO THE STREET PREACHER

1. The divine displeasure (Wrath of God) is a fact.

2. Our business is to enquire the reason of it, and act accordingly.

Ver. 1. (second clause). The Lord's anger with his people compared to smoke.

3. It is not a consuming fire.

4. It suggests fear of the fire.

5. It darkens the light of joy.

6. It blinds the eyes of faith.

7. It checks the breath of life.

8. It blackens the beauty of our worldly comforts.

PSALM 73:27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.

EXPOSITION

For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish. We must be near God to live; to be far off by wicked works is death. If we pretend to be the Lord's servants, we must remember that he is a jealous God, and requires spiritual chastity from all his people. Offences against conjugal vows are very offensive, and all sins against God have the same element in them, and they are visited with the direst punishments. Mere heathens, who are far from God, perish in due season; but those who, being his professed people, act unfaithfully to their profession, shall come under active condemnation, and be crushed beneath his wrath. We read examples of this in Israel's history; may we never create fresh instances in our own persons.

PSALM 69:24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

EXPOSITION

What can be too severe a penalty for those who reject the incarnate God, and refuse to obey the commands of his mercy? They deserve to be flooded with wrath, and they shall be; for upon all who rebel against the Saviour, Christ the Lord, "the wrath is come to the uttermost." 1 Thessalonians 2:16.

God's indignation is no trifle; the anger of a holy, just, omnipotent, and infinite Being, is above all things to be dreaded; even a drop of it consumes, but to have it poured upon us is inconceivably dreadful. O God, who knoweth the power of thine anger?

And let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Grasping them, arresting them, abiding on them. If they flee, let it overtake and seize them; let it lay them by the heels in the condemned cell, so that they cannot escape from execution. It shall indeed be so with all the finally impenitent, and it ought to be so. God is not to be insulted with impunity, and his Son, our ever gracious Saviour, the best gift of infinite love, is not to be scorned and scoffed at for nothing. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy, but what shall be the "sorer punishment" reserved for those who have trodden under foot the Son of God?
 
EXPLANATORY NOTES (additional exposition of passage cited by Spurgeon)

Observe what is denoted by pouring out. First, the facility with which God is able, without any labour, to destroy his enemies, as easy is it as to incline a vial full of liquid and pour it out.
Secondly, the pouring out denotes the abundance of his anger. Thirdly, that his wrath is sudden, overwhelming,and inevitable.When it drops, one must take care; when it is poured forth, it crushes the thoughtless. Thomas Le Blanc

PSALM 62:3How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence.

EXPOSITION

Boastful persecutors bulge and swell with pride, but they are only as a bulging wall ready to fall in a heap; they lean forward to seize their prey, but it is only as a tottering fence inclines to the earth upon which it will soon lie at length. They expect men to bow to them, and quake for fear in their presence; but men made bold by faith see nothing in them to honour, and very, very much to despise. It is never well on our part to think highly of ungodly persons; whatever their position, they are near their destruction, they totter to their fall; it will be our wisdom to keep our distance, for no one is advantaged by being near a falling wall; if it does not crush with its weight, it may stifle with its dust.

David's enemies battered him as though they could throw him down like a bulging wall, he, on the other hand, foresaw that they themselves would, by retributive justice, be overthrown like an old crumbling, leaning, yielding fence.
 
EXPLANATORY NOTES (additional exposition of passage cited by Spurgeon)

Christ gave no blow, but merely asked his murderers whom they sought for; and yet they fell flat and prostrate to the ground (John 18), so that the wicked persecutors of the godly are aptly and properly likened and compared to a tottering and trembling wall. For as soon as ever the blasts of God's wrath and judgment are moved and kindled against them, they are so quivering and comfortless, that they would take them to be most their friends who would soonest despatch them out of the world; as Christ said aptly of them, they would pray the mountains to fall upon them. Luke 23. John Hooper.

PSALM 62:8 Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.

EXPOSITION

Faith is an abiding duty, a perpetual privilege. We should trust when we can see, as well as when we are utterly in the dark. Adversity is a fit season for faith; but prosperity is not less so. God at all times deserves our confidence. We at all times need to place our confidence in him. A day without trust in God is a day of wrath, even if it be a day of mirth.

PSALM 66:16 Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.

EXPOSITION

After we are delivered from the dreadful apprehensions of the wrath of God, it is our duty to be publicly thankful. It is to the glory of our Healer for us to speak of the miserable wounds that once pained us; and of that kind hand that saved us when we were brought very low.  

PSALM 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

EXPOSITION

They regard iniquity in their heart, who look upon the sins of others with approbation; or, indeed, who can behold them without grief. Sin is so abominable a thing, so dishonouring to God, and so destructive to the souls of men, that no real Christian can witness it without concern. Hence it is so frequently taken notice of in Scripture, as the character of a servant of God, that he mourns for the sins of others. Psalm 119:136,158. 5.

In the last place, I suspect that they regard sin in the heart, who are backward to bring themselves to the trial, and who are not truly willing that God himself would search and try them. If any, therefore, are unwilling to be tried, if they are backward to self examination, it is an evidence of a strong and powerful attachment to sin. It can proceed from nothing but from a secret dread of some disagreeable discovery, or the detection of some lust which they cannot consent to forsake... There are but too many who though they live in the practice of sin, and regard iniquity in their hearts, do yet continue their outward attendance at church, on the ordinances of divine institution, and at stated times lay hold of the seals of God's covenant.

Shall they find any acceptance with him? No. He counts it a profane mockery; he counts it a sacrilegious usurpation. Psalm 50:16-17.

Shall they have any comfort in it? No: unless in so far as in righteous judgment he suffers them to be deceived; and they are deceived, and they are most unhappy, who lie longest under the delusion

. Psalm 50:21.

Shall they have any benefit by it? No: instead of appeasing his wrath, it provokes his vengeance; instead of enlightening their minds, it blinds their eyes; instead of sanctifying their nature, it hardens their hearts.

See a description of those who had been long favoured with outward privileges and gloried in them.
John 12:39- 40. "Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them." So that nothing is more essential to an acceptable approach to God in the duties of his worship in general, and particularly to receiving the seals of his covenant, than a thorough and universal separation from all known sin. Job 11:13-14. "If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him; If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles."   John Witherspoon (1722-1749), in a Sermon entitled "The Petitions of the Insincere Unavailing."

EXPLANATORY NOTES

 Gevena Bible Notes:

  If I delight in wickedness, God will not hear me, but if I confess it, he will receive me.

  John Wesley:

  Iniquity-Any sin in my heart-If my heart had been false to God, although I might have forborne    outward acts.  If my heart was set upon sin, or I desired only that which I resolved in my heart to  spend upon my lusts...God will not hear my prayer.

PSALM 69:27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness.

EXPOSITION

Unbelievers will add sin to sin, and so, punishment to punishment. This is the severest imprecation, or prophecy, of all. For men to be let alone to fill up the measure of their iniquity, is most equitable, but yet most awful.

And let them not come into thy righteousness.

If they refuse it, and resist thy gospel, let them shut themselves out of it.
"He that will not when he may, When he would he shall have nay."   Those who choose evil shall have their choice. Men who hate divine mercy shall not have it forced upon them, but (unless sovereign grace interpose) shall be left to themselves to aggravate their guilt, and ensure their doom.>
 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTES (commentary by sources that Spurgeon cites)
 
Ver. 23-28. He denounces ten plagues, or effects of God's wrath, to come upon them for their wickedness. David Dickson.
 
Ver. 27. Add iniquity unto their iniquity. This is that retaliation of sin which God returns into the bosoms of those that foster it; since "they loved cursing, it shall be unto them." Psalm 109:17.

The sinner is left with an infusion of wickedness by the subtraction of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord is: 'Causa deficiens, non efficiens': As the recalling of the sun causeth darkness; so the deprivations of grace creates the prevalence of ungodliness.

It is in him: 'Not peccatum sed judicum', --not sin, but judgment. When God leaves us to ourselves, it is no wonder that we fall into horrid and prodigious sins.

'Peccatum est malum in se: effectum prioris mali, et causa subsequentis: est et supplicium, et causa supplicii' : Sin is evil in itself, the effects of former evil, the cause of future: it is both punishment itself, and the cause of punishment. In all the storehouse of God's plagues there is not a greater vengeance!

With other punishments the body smarts; the soul groaneth under this. Hence, sins multiply without limits, that the plagues may be without end. Every affliction is sore that offends us; but that is awful which offends God. Sinners do act sinful and suffer: it is both an active and a passive sin. The punishment they suffer is (in them) sin; the sin they do is (from God) a punishment. Thomas Adams.   

Adam Clark's Commentary: 

Or, as the original signifies, perverseness, treat their perverseness with perverseness: act, in thy judgments, as crookedly towards them as they dealt crookedly towards thee. They shall get, in the way of punishment, what they have dealt out in the way of oppression.  

Ver. 27. Add iniquity unto their iniquity. Sin, carried far enough, becomes its own punishment.
 Samuel Annesley (1620-1696), in "Morning Exercises."

Geneva Bible Notes: By their continuance and increasing in their sins, let it be known that they are of the reprobate.

John Wesley: Wilt add-Give them up to their own lusts. Not let them-Partake of thy righteousness, or of thy mercy and goodness.

PSALM 69:28 "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous."

EXPOSITION

Though in their conceit they considered themselves to be among the people of God, and induced others to regard them under that character, they shall be unmasked and their names removed from the register. Enrolled with honour, they shall be erased with shame.

And not be written with the righteous.
This clause is parallel with the former, and shows that the inner meaning of being blotted out from the book of life is to have it made evident that the name was never written there at all.

From Geneva Bible Notes
They who seemed by their profession to have been written in your book, yet by their fruits prove the contrary, let them be known as reprobates.

From Adam Clarke's Exposition
They shall be cut off from life, which they have forfeited by their cruelty and oppression.
The psalmist is speaking of retributive justice; and in this sense all these passages are to be understood.

And not be written with the righteous.
They shall have no title to that long life which God has promised to his followers.

PSALM 74:20 "Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty."

EXPLANATORY NOTES (commentary by sources that Spurgeon cites)

If they be not in covenant with God, it may be charged upon them. -- "You have violated my holy law, you have incensed my wrath against you by your perverse ways,therefore I will not help you, but give you up;" but now the souls that be in covenant with God will not be put off so (be it spoken with holy reverence), but will cry out, O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, yet have respect unto thy covenant. Yet be sure you walk uprightly before the Lord...With what face can any one say, Lord, have respect unto thy covenant, when he casts his own covenant behind his back, and cannot say with the prophet David, "I have a respect to all thy commandments"? How canst thou say, "Oh Lord, deliver me not up to the many beasts without, when thou art not afraid to be delivered up to thy vile, bestial lusts and affections that are within? Thou hypocrite, first labour the subduing of the monsters that are within thee, then a fair way will be open to have thine enemies subdued round about thee. John Langley.

Geneva Bible Notes: That is, all places where your word does not shine, there reigns tyranny and ambition.

PSALM 75:6 "For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south."

EXPOSITION

There is a God, and a providence, and things happen not by chance. Though deliverance be hopeless from all points of the compass, yet God can work it for his people; and though judgment come neither from the rising or the setting of the sun, nor from the wilderness of mountains, yet come it will, for the Lord reigneth. Men forget that all things are ordained in heaven; they see but the human force, and the carnal passion, but the unseen Lord is more real far than these. He is at work behind and within the cloud. The foolish dream that he is not, but he is near even now, and on the way to bring in his hand that cup of spiced wine of vengeance, one draught of which shall stagger all his foes.  

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Matthew Henry's Excellent Exposition of the Passage:

That from God alone all must receive their doom (Ps 75:8): In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, which he puts into the hands of the children of men, a cup of providence, mixed up (as he thinks fit) of many ingredients, a cup of affliction.

The sufferings of Christ are called a cup, Mt 20:22; Joh 18:11.

The judgments of God upon sinners are the cup of the Lord's right hand, Hab 2:16.

The wine is red, denoting the wrath of God, which is infused into the judgments executed on sinners, and is the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery.

It is red as fire, red as blood, for it burns, it kills.

It is full of mixture, prepared in wisdom, so as to answer the end. There are mixtures of mercy and grace in the cup of affliction when it is put into the hands of God's own people, mixtures of the curse when it is put into the hands of the wicked; it is wine mingled with gall. These vials are:

(1.) Poured out upon all; see Re 15:7,1; where we read of the angels pouring out the vials of God's wrath upon the earth. Some drops of this wrath may light on good people; when God's judgments are abroad, they have their share in common calamities; but,  

(2.) The dregs of the cup are reserved for the wicked.
The calamity itself is but the vehicle into which the wrath and curse is infused, the top of which has little of the infusion; but the sediment is pure wrath, and that shall fall to the share of sinners; they have the dregs of the cup now in the terrors of conscience, and hereafter in the torments of hell.

They shall wring them out, that not a drop of the wrath may be left behind, and they shall drink them, for the curse shall enter into their bowels like water and like oil into their bones.

The cup of the Lord's indignation will be to them a cup of trembling, everlasting trembling, Re 14:10.

The wicked man's cup, while he prospers in the world, is full of mixture, but the worst is at the bottom. The wicked are reserved unto the day of judgment.

Alexander Carson: The rise and fall of nations and empires are in this Psalm ascribed to God. He exalts one and puts down another at his pleasure. In this he generally uses instrumentality, but that instrumentality is always rendered effectual by his own agency. When nations or individuals are prosperous, and glorious, and powerful, they usually ascribe all to themselves or to fortune. But it is God who has raised them to eminence. When they boast he can humble them. In these verses God is considered as the governor of the world, punishing the wicked, and pouring out judgment on his enemies.

The calamities of war, pestilence, and famine, are all ministers of providence to execute wrath. Alexander Carson.