Conceal Your Own Wrath

I was struck by the words of Jeremiah Burroughs at the end of page twenty-two leading into twenty-three: "That the man who is appointed to reveal God's wrath needs to conceal his own." What a weighty position of leadership to be in! I think it very easy for many of us to recall times where we have felt the weight of the wrath of the preacher rather than the weight of the wrath of Almighty God. I do not believe that one can present his own wrath alongside the wrath of God, because they are not the same wrath and they do not "further" the same purpose: "No, the wrath of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God." If a message is to be delivered to believers in a way that they will accept it and be convicted, the message must be free of the wrath of man and brought "in the most open way to manifest God's wrath." Ministers often come to the pulpit to preach with their own passions; Burroughs likens this to the offering of strange fire. If you desire to see men's hearts changed as a result of your preaching, men's hearts redirected toward the pursuit of holy living and the glorification of God, then get out of the way of the Holy Spirit and seek not to manifest the strange fire of your own wrath, but rather God's wrath, that fire which He has already manifested to us through His written Word, as well as through acts of vindication upon nations and individuals throughout the history of the Bible.