Is Your Soul Storm Proof?

For the last week, we saw story after story of people preparing for the coming of Hurricane Irene. People boarding up homes and businesses, sandbagging to help combat the flooding, doing all they could to try and be sure they could withstand the coming storm.

As the storm has come through, we’ve seen that their preparation was wise. The destruction was widespread, and there will be weeks and months of cleanup in the aftermath. Still, people took the warning seriously and did all they could to prepare.

So why is it that so many are unwilling to heed the warnings to prepare their very souls for the storm that is to come; the storm of God’s wrath. I know in this day of “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” that speaking of God’s wrath is out of vogue. But Scripture couldn’t be more clear about it’s sure arrival. Christ will return, God’s wrath will be poured out, and the devastation to lost souls will make hurricanes look like a summer breeze.

Is your soul storm proof? Let me just offer these three brief quotes from the sermons of my favorite preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. In them, we see the reality of God’s wrath, the imperative need to prepare, and the only way to truly make that preparation. Consider:

Oh! ye that hate my God; oh ye that despise him; the day is coming — perhaps to-morrow shall be the day when ye shall ascribe greatness to my God;” for ye shall feel his great foot upon your loins, and his great sword shall cut you in sunder; his great wrath shall utterly devour you, and his great hell shall be your doleful home for ever. May God grant it may not be so, and may he save us all for Jesus sake. Amen. (The Great Supreme. No. 367)

If any man be not sure that he is in Christ, he ought not to be easy one moment until he is so. Dear friend, without the fullest confidence as to your saved condition, you have no right to be at ease, and I pray you may never be so. This is a matter too important to be left undecided. Instantly should every man of prudence make assurance doubly sure; and bind all things fast that he may find them fast for eternity-for eternity I say, for thus saith the Lord. Never risk your souls, for your souls are yourselves, your real selves, and nothing can make up for their loss. If you lose your own souls, it will be no recompense to have gained the whole world. Be careful, then, leave nothing insecure, carefully measure and weigh every important step; consider and examine, lest being so near to the kingdom any of you should seem to come short of it. (The Reason Why Many Cannot Find Peace. No. 1408)

If salvation were by merit, there would be no gospel; but as it is of mercy, free mercy, rich mercy, here is good news for you. Dear heart, if thou wouldst be forgiven, Christ is ready to forgive; if thou wouldst have peace with God, that peace is made. If thou believest in the Lord Jesus Christ thou shalt be saved, even as they are who are this day rejoicing in his complete redemption. The Lord bring thee this day to confess thy sin humbly, to look up to Christ believingly, and to find salvation through the blood of the Lamb. (Fat Things, Full Of Marrow. No. 1316)

The storm of God’s wrath will come. Are you prepared in Christ?