Snatching Men from the Fire — E.A. Johnston

Well, I want to tell you a game, friend, that I used to play when I was little. It was called Snapdragon. Maybe some of you have played it as well. It was a parlor game made popular in the 16th century, and this game became popular with kids.

It was played usually around Christmastime or Halloween. A snapdragon consisted of a wide, shallow bowl where heated brandy was poured into, and then some raisins were thrown in there. Then the whole thing was lit by match, and the object of the game was as those blue flames darted in the bowl, looking like flames coming out of the nostrils of a dragon.

You'd have to snatch a dragon with your thumb and index finger and eat them at the risk of getting burnt. But when I played it as a child, I got burned, so I quit playing it. I no longer wanted to play a game where I snatched raisins out of the fire.

But as an evangelist, I'm called to be busily occupied in snatching men from the fire, from the fire of hell. And that's the title of my message this evening, friends, Snatching Men from the Fire. It may be you here tonight.

Stay with me, friends, as I explain this sermon to you. It's a message right out of my Bible. For in the book of Jude, we read, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

And some have compassion, making a difference, and others, save with fear, are pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. I believe that's what God has called me to do, friends, to pull men, to pull women, to pull boys and girls out of the fires of an eternal hell.

That's why I'm here before you tonight, friends, because there may be someone within the sound of my voice who is headed for hell. There's only two stop-off points in eternity, friends, heaven or hell.

There's no such thing as the purgatory of the Catholic, where a soul can be placed in a holding place and be prayed out sooner or later. No, friend, when you die and your body's placed in a coffin and lowered down into the ground and your eternal soul goes back to the God who gave it, and he will either let you into his holy heaven or he will hand you over to the demons in hell.

The Bible says so. The apostle Paul says so in 2 Corinthians. We are confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. When a saved believer dies, they are immediately in the presence of God in heaven.

When the unconverted man dies, he opens his eyes in hell. There's a scene in the story told by Jesus in Luke's gospel of the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus. Jesus said, and it came to pass, that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.

That means the paradise of heaven, friends. But listen to what Jesus says happened to the lost rich man. The rich man also died and was buried, and in hell, listen, friends, and in hell, he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, torments.

The torments of hell are many, friends. Hell is a region of darkness, so dark it's called outer darkness. Maybe some of you are afraid of the dark, afraid of being in a dark room where you can't even see your hand in front of your face.

Well, hell is dark like that. It's dark, and it's also been called a bottomless pit, meaning although there are already hundreds of millions of souls crammed up in there, crying out in agony, tonight, there's always room for one more.

There's always room in hell for one more. There's still room in hell for you, friend. Hell is a prison of burning flames that torments its occupants, and if you die unexpectedly and suddenly, outside of the blood of Christ, you'll be shut up in that chamber of horrors.

Listen to this terrible description of a sinner cast into hell suddenly. The sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites, who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire, who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings.

Hell is your worst nightmare come true, friend, and if you die in your sins, beyond Christ's blood, you will be bound, hand and foot and chains, and cast there, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Weeping speaks of agony and grief, gnashing of teeth signifies anger and regret. Don't go to hell, friend, I plead with you. Don't go there. I'm here to warn you this evening not to go to hell. I'm here tonight to do all I can to pull man out of that fire, but I'm limited to my ability, friends, to work such a miracle, because if you get saved, it will be a wondrous work of God performed on your heart through the new birth.

I can't save you and keep you out of hell. If I had that power, I'd snatch you away right now. I don't have the power to save you. Do you know what, friend? You don't have the power to save yourself either.

God has to do it. My Bible says salvation is of the Lord. God works regeneration in the heart by his Spirit. Ezekiel tells us, and I will give them one heart, and I will put a new Spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh.

If you get saved, friend, it's because God gave you saving faith. Now I'm having to be honest with your soul tonight. Maybe you've never heard a man before who was truly honest with your soul, but I am that man.

I don't want your blood on my hands when I stand at the judgment. I'm here to warn you. You must repent or just go on to hell. You must get into Christ and get under his blood, or it's hell to pay. Now hear me, friend.

The old hymn says his blood is a fountain, for there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. The stain of sin is terrible, friend.

Once you sin, that stain never comes out. It never comes off your soul. I remember one time I took my family out to dinner at a famous hamburger joint, and that place was famous for their big, juicy hamburgers.

Well, I was hungry, and I ordered a double, and when it came on my plate, I lifted that big, juicy hamburger to my mouth, and as I did, it slipped right out of the bun, and those two beef patties landed smack dab on my white dress shirt, and red ketchup was all over it.

My little daughter looked at me and grinned as she saw my dilemma. She thought it was funny, and I guess it was funny, but it wasn't too funny when I took it to the dry cleaner, and he couldn't get that red ketchup stain out.

The shirt was no longer wearable. Listen, friend. Sin will do that to you. Sin will so stain your soul that it won't come out, and the longer you live, the more sins you commit, you add on to that stain on your soul.

The stain of sin that will follow you into eternity. God can see those sins where he declares, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Old friend, I wish I had the strength to pull you from the fire. If you were in a house fire, and I knew it, I'd do all I could to warn you.

I'd bang on the door with my natural strength. I'd holler at the top of my lungs. I wouldn't want you to perish in those flames. Dying, being burned to death's a terrible way to die. In fact, it's so horrible, they say that people trapped in a burning building would rather jump out the window to their death than stay in those flames to be burned alive.

I saw that very same thing happen during our national tragedy of the terrorist attacks in New York City on 9 -11, when those airplanes were flown into the Twin Towers and burst into flames. People trapped up on the hundredth floor of those buildings leaped right out the windows to their deaths rather than be burned alive.

But hear me, friend, hell is a fire that will never go out, and once you shut up in hell, you can never escape from that fire. There you will burn and burn and burn and burn forever. I can't physically keep you out of hell, friend, but I know someone who can.

Hear me now, I know someone who can. His name is Jesus Christ. Let me tell you about Jesus. Jesus came down here so we can go up there. He stepped out of heaven to be born of a woman, to live as a man on a mission.

His mission was snatching men from the fire. Jesus said so in Luke's Gospel. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Are you a lost sinner? Let me ask you again, friend, have you ever been lost?

Lost in sin, weary of sin, and hungry for the remedy of sin? Jesus is the remedy for sin. He came into this sin-sick world to die on a cross for sinners, Romans 5a declares. But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

You have to have your eyes open, friend, to see yourself as a sinner, lost. You're not a sinner because you sin, rather you sin because you are a big sinner. If you're honest with yourself, friend, you know this is true, that you're nothing more than a big sinner.

Go on, admit it, but God is a God who must punish sin. God is a God of justice. His strict law demands that if his law is broken by sinful man, God's justice must be satisfied upon sin. That's why Jesus stepped out of heaven to come down here to die on a cross to reconcile sinners back to God.

Jesus on Calvary's cross bore the curse and wrath of God against sin and as a holy God offered his only begotten son to be a sacrifice for sin, that same holy God had to look away from his bleeding son as Jesus became sin for us.

Jesus cried out from the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That heartbreak of a cry went all the way up to heaven's throne as God accepted that sacrifice for sin. All those stains of sin were imputed to Jesus on the cross and when God saw the stain of sin on his only son, he could not spare him, but his wrath and curse must he bear.

Galatians 3 .13 resounds with that cry that went up from the cross to the Father. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree and bear that curse.

Listen friends, in Galatians 2 .20 it talks again about this son of God who bore that curse for me. It says, the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. How can you, dear sinner friend, spurn that love of Christ, Jesus, the friend of sinners, in whom we have redemption through his blood?

Like I said before, friend, I don't have the power to snatch you out of the fire of hell. I can only warn you, but I know someone who can, the Lord Christ, the slain lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.

Jesus can save even you, even you, friend. I don't have the power to save you, friend, but I preach a gospel that has power to save. Don't go to hell, friend, because that's exactly where you're headed right now.

Apart from Christ, only Jesus can wash your sins away. In the book of Revelation, we read who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. I'm going to give you an opportunity to come to Christ now, friend, for salvation and pardon from sin.

If you're sick with sin, he's the only cure, the only remedy that can wash that stain away. Listen to God's pleas of the gospel of his dear son in Isaiah. We hear God say, come now and let us reason together.

Sayeth the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, like that red ketchup stain from that hamburger that landed on my white dress shirt, that stain remained, and like my sins remained on me.

But there came a day in my life, friend, when I found a savior from sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he can wash your sins away. He can make you a new creature. He has power to save. There is power, power, wonder, work, and power in the precious blood of the lamb.

I had a sin debt. It had to be paid. Jesus is willing to pay it for me. He can pay it for you, friend. You come to him and believe on him. Hear me now. His saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own them as their savior and Lord.

It is God's grace that saves you, friend, his grace given. He can give it or withhold it and still be a just God. But listen to me, friends, if the spirit of God has been dealing with your heart through this message and you have heard his voice speak to your troubled soul, you come to Christ while he is near.

I'll sing a hymn, and as I sing it, you come and cast your sin burden down at his nail pierced feet. Look at that man on the cross, friend. Look at that man on the cross. Look at him hanging there, that bloodstained savior for sin, his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him.

If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Well, I'm going to sing a familiar hymn, friend.

I want you to come to Christ as I sing. Come to him, lay your burden down, and get forgiveness for sins. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found.

Was blind, but now I see. T 'was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace that fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear. The hour I first believed, when we've been there ten thousand years.

Bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise. Than when we'd first begun.