I have a solemn message for you this
evening, friends, and you probably won't be bettered
by it if you only hear this poor
preacher's voice, but I pray that you will,
by the grace of God, hear his voice
as the spirit attends his word, as it
comes to you in power and authority and
majesty.
In the year 2007, I was in Edinburgh,
Scotland, preparing to have dinner with Ian Murray
to discuss research on George Whitefield and his
home when I stepped into the shower at
my hotel.
I don't recall much after that, but I
do remember that as soon as I stepped
into that freshly waxed tub, my feet began
to slip out from under me.
It was a death trap, and as I
tried in vain to keep my balance, I
was thrown out of that shower upside down,
and I landed on a concrete floor, on
my head and my wrist as I broke
my fall.
When I came to, my broken wrist was
swollen, the size of a golf ball, and
my head was bruised.
By God's grace, I still managed to enjoy
a delightful dinner with my friend, but I
was in very much pain.
My accident cut my trip short, and I
had to fly back to America the next
day.
I say this to prove my text this
evening, from Deuteronomy 32.35. To me, belongeth
vengeance and recompense.
Their foot shall slide in due time, for
the day of their calamity is at hand,
and the things that shall come upon them
make haste.
There are three truths in this text this
evening, friends, that I'd like to bring out.
They're very striking.
Number one, God reserves a day to pour
out his vengeance on sinners.
Number two, the sinner's foot is on slippery
places and will slide in due time.
And number three, the sinner's calamity is nearer
than he realizes, as it will soon be
upon him.
I had plans for dinner that evening in
Scotland.
I had plans to return to America, but
my plans would never have been realized because
I could have just as easily broke my
neck in that fall, rather than just my
wrist.
God could have removed me quite suddenly and
unexpectedly out of this world, right in the
midst of my plans.
And a sovereign God can act quite against
your will, and put an end to all
your plans, and remove you out of this
world, and send you into another world you
were quite unprepared for.
You were unprepared, not in your mind, but
in your state.
You believe in a heaven and a hell.
You believe in the God of creation.
You don't deny the truths of the Gospel.
As a matter of fact, you are quite
at home with them.
But if you should die in your present
natural condition, your home would not be heaven,
in wonderful bliss and perfect peace.
But you would be cast into a raging
furnace of constant torments and afflictions, from which
you could never, ever extricate yourself.
You would have chains for bracelets, and unquenchable
flames flashing all around you, as you sit
in outer darkness in a pit of hell.
Our text declares, to me belongeth vengeance and
recompense.
This is God speaking to you, that ahead
of you is a day where the sentencing
of the divine law will be carried out
against you by divine justice, that will and
must have its recompense upon all guilty lawbreakers.
You stand now in your natural state, upon
slippery places.
Any moment your foot shall slide.
It will slide in due time, is the
verdict of the just judge of creation.
For shall not the judge of all the
earth do right?
God will have his recompense.
To me belongeth vengeance and recompense, declares the
Almighty.
And the sinner stands upon slippery ground, and
it is only a matter of time, in
due time, in a certainty, he will fall,
fall into burning perdition, to suffer the torments
of the outpoured wrath of God upon all
sinners in hell.
You could be of their number, friend, in
your natural condition.
You are an enemy of God.
It matters how little, how long you've been
a member of a church.
It matters little what kind of decision or
public profession you once made back yonder for
Jesus.
If you've never been changed and born from
above, then you've never been washed in his
blood.
You are yet outside of Christ, outside of
any guarantee of heaven.
If you merely have an empty religious profession
and a name only, you will surely slide
on that slippery place and fall in due
time.
God himself will push you down.
The weight of your sins will lay upon
you as iron doors that crush you beneath
them as you are pressed into hell.
Lastly, the sinner's calamity is nearer than he
realizes, for the word of God announces the
day of their calamity is at hand, and
it comes with haste, like a panther leaps
on its prey, unawares, tearing it and rending
it in pieces.
So too, your doom hangs above you as
the sword of Damocles glistening with your very
blood.
If you die in your natural state, surely
you will be pressed into hell by the
heavy mountain of your sins.
You stand now in a slippery place and
you walk upon thin ice over a hot
hell that will surely melt to nothing.
Then the weight of your sins and the
justice of God will come crashing down upon
your head.
You will enter hell in haste, like a
lead ball shot out of a cannon.
You must be born again to have any
hope of heaven.
You must get to Christ and get your
sins washed in his blood, or you perish.
Revelation 1.5 declares of the elect of
God unto him that loved us and washed
us from our sins in his own blood.
The old hymn is true, friends.
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn
from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that
flood lose all their guilty stains.
Have you seen the bloodstained Lamb of God
on that cross, with nail prints in his
hands and feet?
Because of your sins, Jesus declared to his
disciples, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto me.
The Lord Christ was fastened to that cross
on Calvary because of sin, and the justice
of God requires for sin.
He bore the curse.
He became sin for us.
God is a holy sovereign who must punish
sin.
Every stroke of the Roman's hammer was an
explanation point that God must punish sin.
God must punish sin.
Listen, friend.
Election was God's purpose in redemption, and it's
by blood redemption.
You were yet sick with sin, so sick
with sin.
You were covered with the sores of a
leper that stink to the high heavens, and
you need a remedy for sin in the
person of Christ Jesus.
And because of your natural condition and rude
nature, the law of God has been trampled
upon time and time on end in your
life, and justice must have its day of
recompense.
But we have this hope of the good
news of the gospel of the Son of
God.
Galatians 2.20 exclaims, The Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me,
there's just one remedy for sin, friend, and
that's to have the merits of the Lord's
life laid down and applied to you, so
that when a thrice holy God looks on
this poor sinner, E.
A.
Johnston, he'll say, When I see the blood,
when I see the blood, that's your only
hope, friend, Jesus declares.
I am the way, the truth, and the
life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by
me, and in Isaiah we see that salvation.
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth, for I am
God, and there is none else.