Can'T Outrun God When You Die — E.A. Johnston

A Prayer to Awaken Souls to Judgment and Christ

Great God, it is my prayer that someone here today is awakened out of their coronal security, escorted to the brink of eternity, and disturbed by your spirit. Disturbed enough so that they see that hell is where they're going, and then show them, Lord, a blood-stained Christ hanging on a cross for sin.

I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Well, friends, some of the best preachers I've heard didn't come out of seminary, but out of the backwoods, because some of the best preachers are country preachers.

Amos the Country Preacher

We're going to be looking at a country preacher today from the book of Amos. Amos was a country preacher whose frequent references to, and images drawn, were from country life. He had no formal training, but he walked closely with his God, and that's where all the power is, anyhow.

Amos 1 .1 introduces him. The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

It must have been one powerful earthquake, because it was mentioned by Zechariah more than 200 years later. So Amos emerges from the backwoods of being a herdsman to a public speaker, and he appears on the scene right after a severe earthquake, which is compatible to his ground-shaking ministry.

Amos Confronts Prosperous Israel

He comes in with a bang, and he leaves with a bang, because he had a very unpopular ministry. He ministered at the peak of Israel's material and political success. The nation of Israel, at the time, was enjoying a prosperous reign under Jeroboam II, who had expanded Israel's territory, and secured it from external threats.

The people were enjoying a period of prosperity and peace, and they resented Amos's calls to repentance and his predictions of their coming destruction. The title of my message today, friends, is You Can't Outrun God When You Die, and I'm going to be true to your souls today by delivering a message to secure your salvation, because, like we say in the South, I'm going to give you the oil straight from the can, meaning I preach a undiluted gospel of ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration.

We will pick up the narrative in chapter 9. It's a striking passage of scripture detailing how Israel can't escape the Lord, and it's a perfect picture of how man has many ways to try to outrun God, but to no avail.

I will outline today, friends, three ways in how man tries to outrun God, and then I will give you the three ways that proves you can't outrun God when you die. Here now are the three ways men try to outrun God.

Denial of God and Independence from Him

Number one, those who don't believe in God feel no need of Him. They're fine without God in the world. I'll give you an example of this. I was playing golf with a man years ago who had one of the filthiest mouths I ever heard.

Every time he took a swing at his golf ball, he damned God and cursed man. Finally, I turned to him and said, friend, can I ask you a question? He said, shoot. I asked, how was your relationship with God?

He smiled a big grin and said, fine. I have a fine relationship with God. I leave Him alone, and He leaves me alone. So we see that man tries to outrun God because they feel they have no need of Him. Number two, those who have other gods fail to recognize the one true God.

Idolatry and False Gods

They may be Buddhists or Muslim or another world religion that does not serve the God of the Bible, or they may be serving their idols of money, fame, or success, and they don't need the God of the Bible.

They're getting along fine without Him. Like all the celebrities out in Hollywood who have more money than they know what to do with, and they don't need God. All they do is take His name in vain and mock Him.

They can't outrun God, but they think they can so long as their money and influence holds out. Or perhaps they may be like the Baptist deacon I knew who got out his pocketknife and carved out for himself a God he could live with, one that didn't require repentance because his God is a God who won't punish sin.

Christ’s Suffering Demonstrates God’s Judgment on Sin

But in Matthew's gospel we read, then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto Him the whole band of soldiers. A band of soldiers, by the way friends, in case you didn't know, was a tenth part of a legion which numbered between 400 and 600 men.

That common hall was crowded, lined up with Roman soldiers, elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to torment Jesus and to mock Him. We're getting back to our text from Matthew. And they stripped Him and put on Him a scarlet robe, and when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand, and they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, Hell, King of the Jews!

And they spit upon Him, and took the reed and smite Him on the head. Let me pause here to say, friends, I don't know if you've ever been spit on like I have. I've been spit on before, and I know the foul stench of someone's phlegm on my face.

Well, then you go ahead and multiply that by several hundred men that are having a spitting contest on the Holy Christ Jesus. Then add the pain of His tender scalp as they keep pounding that crown of thorns as it's battered with that reed by those same men, until He's bleeding all over.

And after that, they had mocked Him. They took the robe off from Him, and put His own raiment on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him. Listen to me, friends. The God of the Bible is a God who much punished sin.

I know some of you don't believe that. Some of you think your God won't send you to hell. You think your God would never do that. He'd never take somebody and stick them down in hell and punish them for sin.

But listen to me. The God of the Bible is a God who will and must punish sin. You can't outrun God and get by. God will punish sin. As those Roman soldiers fastened Jesus to that cross, as they drove the nails in to His tender hands and feet, every stroke of the Roman's hammer was an explanation point, crying out, God must punish sin.

God must punish sin. God must punish sin. Now let me get to my third point. Some try to outrun God through the pleasures of sin. They drug themselves and stay stoned to avoid reality. They drink themselves to death and remain in a stupor of ignorance.

Sinful Pleasures as an Escape from Reality

They are sex addicts and spend their life in one pursuit of one conquest after another, wrapped up in the arms of many lovers. They do all they can to send their way away from God, believing they can outrun Him by the pleasures of sin.

God’s Long Reach in Judgment

Now let me give you friends the three ways God proves you can outrun Him when you die. And that brings us now to Amos chapter 9 and verses 1 through 3. I saw the Lord standing upon the altar and He said, smite the lintel of the door that the post may shake, and cut them in the head, all of them, and I will slay the last of them with the sword.

He that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered, though they dig into hell. Then shall my hand take them, though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down, and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out, thence and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them.

So we see friends, one of the ways God demonstrates you can outrun Him is number one, God has a long reach. You can dig into hell, you can climb up to heaven, you can go down to the bottom of the sea, but God will hunt you out and find you.

God’s All-Seeing Eyes

He will bring you before His judgment trial. At the last judgment you will stand there before that great white throne, because He's got a long reach that no one can escape. Number two, God has seeing eyes.

Look at verse 8. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. You can't outrun God friend, because of His long reach, and you can't hide from God because of His all-seeing eyes.

God’s Detailed Record of Every Deed

Number three, God keeps detailed records. Look at verse 9. For lo, I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

Amos, the country preacher, here uses a farm illustration of a sieve to show how God would sift out every sin that had been committed, and not one deed would escape His scrutiny. All these prove no matter how hard you try to outrun God, and how long you spend trying to run away from God, a coming day is coming when you die, where your soul will go back to the God who gave it, and you will stand before Him, and you will give an account.

Universal Guilt and the Coming Judgment

My Bible says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Listen to me friend, that final day of judgment, where God will judge the world, and every mother's son will stand before God, the judge, and give an account of himself for the things he did in the body, whether good or evil.

Everyone will be held up against the strictness of God's law, and feel the severity of it, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. You cannot stand before God's throne, or in His presence, in your own merits, for you will fail that test, for the sentence of the law must be carried out upon the heads of all guilty law breakers.

Christ as the Substitute for Sin

You must stand in the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know I am a sinner, and I need a substitute for sin, and so do you friend, so do you. God in His mercy has provided a remedy for sin, in the person of Christ Jesus.

But Christ's life must be laid down, and applied to me. I must be born from above, and washed in the blood, to get into God's holy heaven. Look that man on the cross friend, see him there, with his arms outstretched.

Look at him beckoning you, to come to him, and believe on him. Look at that bloodstained Savior from sin, as he hangs there, writhing and squirming, beneath the weight of sin. My sin, my dirty rotten sins, your sins, your dirty wretched sins, have nailed him there.

They hold him there. I deserve hell, but he died, so I can live. The cross is the place, where wicked men sought to get rid of him, but by his death, it becomes the place, where his saving power flows out to all, who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners, and own them as their Savior and Lord.

The Cross as the Display of God’s Love

Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Friend, if you've not trusted this blessed Savior, receive him now, before it's too late.

The Final Call to Repentance

Soon, he will come in judgment on this world. The sky, the clouds are darkening already, and when he comes, his anger shall burn as an oven, and then it'll be too late for you, because then you shall meet him as your judge.

Repent before it's too late. Listen to this plea, and the Spirit and the bride say, come, and let him that heareth say, come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.