The Wrath of the Lamb

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 361, The Wrath of the Lamb.

Calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" Revelation 6:16-17.

This is one of the heaviest passages in the entire Bible, and I don't want to soften it today. Kings. Generals. The wealthy. The powerful. Slaves. Free people. Every kind of person, from every level of power that exists on earth, running to hide in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And what they cry out is not some ordinary plea for help — it is a plea for the mountains themselves to collapse on top of them. They would rather be crushed by stone than face that gaze.

Notice the combination of words John uses: the wrath of the Lamb. That should stop us cold. A lamb is the gentlest symbol there is — the image of sacrifice, of surrender, of love poured out for another. And yet this same Lamb carries wrath. The same Jesus who died in love on the cross is the same one who will come to judge with perfect justice. These are not two different characters. It is the same Christ, in two different moments of history.

"The great day of their wrath has come." It doesn't say it will come someday, distant and uncertain. It says it has come. There is a point in the history of every life, and in the history of the world, where God's patience — which is real, which is generous, which has already lasted far longer than we deserved — reaches its final purpose. A response to God cannot be postponed forever.

And then comes the question that closes this scene, left deliberately hanging in the air: "who can stand?" John doesn't answer right away. He leaves the question there, heavy, with no human answer. Because the truth is this: no one, on their own account, by their own merit, could remain standing before God's perfect justice. Not one of us.

But here is the most important thing I want you to hear today: the answer to that terrifying question is found in the very Lamb who judges. The same Lamb who causes this terror is the only one who has already paid, with His own blood, the price justice demands. Whoever is covered by that blood does not need to hide among the rocks on that day — because they have already been reconciled to the Judge, before judgment even arrives.

So today I need to ask you something serious, with all the care I have for you: is there something in your life you have been hiding from God, instead of bringing it under the blood of the Lamb? Some area where you keep the door shut, that you rationalize, that you keep putting off facing? This is not an invitation to live in fear — it is an invitation to live honestly, now, while there still is a today.

Act: examine yourself before God, confess what needs confessing, and rest in the fact that the Lamb who judges is the very one who already died for you.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.