When Johnny Goes to Court — E.A. Johnston

A Courtroom Story About Truth and Judgment

When I was 16 years old, I ran a stoplight, and a policeman pulled me over and gave me a ticket. Well, I went home and told my mother what happened, and she said, We'll fight it. So when the day of my court date arrived, my mother and I went down to the courthouse, and my mother instructed me to lie to the judge and to say I didn't run the light.

We waited half a day while other civil cases were tried, and when they finally called my name, I walked up there, and I stood before the judge, who asked me one simple question. He said, Son, did you run that light?

And I glanced over at my mother, and I looked back at the judge, sitting there in his black robe of authority, and I replied, Yes, Your Honor, I ran the light. My mother had to pay a fine that day, and on the way home my mother chewed me out for being so stupid as to tell the truth.

The Coming Judgment Before the Righteous Judge

But I couldn't lie to that judge, and a day is fast approaching, friends, where another judge will sit in authority to review the cases of men and women as they stand before that judge, answering the demands of a broken law.

My mother wanted me to lie to get out of paying a traffic ticket. Sometimes mothers don't always see things as they are. I'll hear a mother say about her wayward son,. My son Johnny is living with his girlfriend, and he hasn't been living for the Lord, but when Johnny was little, he came out for Jesus at a meeting at church.

I'm so glad he accepted Jesus when he was a boy. What that mother won't admit is that Johnny is a hell-deserving rebel who hates God and all things holy, and her little Johnny will die one day, and he will appear in a court at a future judgment where his case will be reviewed by the judge of all the earth, and shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

The title of my message this evening, friends, is When Johnny Goes to Court. My text can be found in the book of Revelation. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 20, beginning in verse 11.

Here now is the word of God, and may God's Spirit attend the reading of his holy word. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every man, according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

The Final Judgment and Humanity’s Account Before God

This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. What we have here before us, friends, is a courtroom scene that John Wesley referred to as The Grand Decise, because every mother's son would have to face that judge and give an account of the way he lived in this world while he was in it.

Everything about that person is written down and intimately recorded in those books, which are now open for review, as evidence is presented, and cases are tried, and no one is in a hurry, as each person's life is made public in review.

Angels are the bailiffs, and Christ himself is the judge. All authority has been given to him by the Father. Johnny will stand there on that day as he has to answer the demands of a broken law. His mother can't speak for him then.

It's just him and the Lord Jesus. And Johnny will have to tell Jesus why he lived like the devil as he hated God and rejected his son through a life of self-rule. Johnny will then see clearly the strictness and severity of God's holy law and how he trampled it through transgression and sin.

Johnny will hear the sentencing of the law carried out upon him for his crimes in treason against the sovereign. If Johnny stands there in his own merits, he'll be hell to pay. Johnny never lived for Jesus because Johnny never knew him.

And because Johnny died outside the blood of Christ, he cannot stand in the merits of another. All his sins are stacked up against him as they rise like a great mountain before him. Jesus looks up from the open books and tells Johnny, I never knew you.

Away from me, you who work iniquity. And Johnny's eyes stare down at the book of life open to a blank page, and his knees go to trembling like he's dancing a Mexican cucaracha. The angel bailiffs walk over to Johnny with chains in their hands, and they bind him hand and foot.

And while he's screaming his fool head off, they cast him against his will into that burning, churning, smoking, boiling lake of fire of which Isaiah 5720 says,. But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

Praying for the Salvation of the Lost

If you have a loved one, friend, who's not living for the Lord, even though they grew up in church, maybe it's high time you should change the way you pray for them and stop praying for Johnny to start living for the Lord, but rather pray for Johnny to be saved by the Lord.

Let us pray.