Broken Law Devil's Hell — E.A. Johnston

The Undiluted Gospel and the Danger of Sin

I want you to know, dear people, that my preaching today is not to candy-coat the gospel to make it easier for you to swallow. I didn't prepare a message to entertain you either. I will not make you laugh in this sermon or tell you funny stories to win you over.

But I do care about your soul, and I'll be honest with you, friends, whether you like me or not. And I'm not going to preach for your approval, but rather I'm going to warn you of your great danger of dying in your sins and being sent to a devil's hell.

As we say in the South, I'm going to give you the oil straight from the can. I'm going to give you the pure, undiluted gospel. The Apostle Paul said in Romans, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

But if old Paul was here today sitting in on our church services, he would be ashamed of what passes for the gospel in your day and mine, friends. Paul's gospel had power to save dead men in sin and give them life.

We live in a day of a modern gospel that doesn't have enough power to save a flea. The modern gospel is no gospel at all. It's just a perverted version of it. I want to tell you very plainly, friends, what an unsaved person is.

Regeneration, the New Birth, and the Sinner's Condition

If you've never been truly born again, if you've never truly had your sins washed into blood through forgiveness of sin, if your heart has never been wrought upon by the Spirit of God through the supernatural act of regeneration, which is a new birth, making you born from above, then you are merely a guilty sinner who has broken the law of God and who stands on the wrong side of God.

You are a child of wrath, blinded by the devil and under the curse of God. Although you know it not, there is but one who can save you from an eternal place of punishment called hell, and his name is Jesus Christ, and he is the only one who can deliver you from that curse.

There's a poison in your blood because of sin, and Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin. Did you know that you are not a sinner because you sin? Rather, you sin because you are a big sinner. You have a fallen nature that is bent toward sin.

My Bible says man drinks iniquity like it's water. Listen, friend, if you've broken the law of God through sin just once, whether in thought, word, or deed, no future good behavior will keep you out of hell.

The Unyielding Law of God

Good resolutions and reformation of character won't keep you out of hell, friend. If you attempt to keep God's law today, there's no getting past the fact that you broke God's law yesterday, even if you broke the law of God 20 years ago and you have lived a good life since that time, at least in your opinion of yourself, you will still stand guilty as a rebel against God, and you will be sent to a devil's hell for transgressing that holy law of God.

God is holy, and he hates sin. He will not tolerate sin, and he must punish it, even if you've only broken the law of God through sin just one time in your entire life. That one transgression is enough to send you to hell for all eternity.

One lie from your lips is all you need to be sent to hell. One lust-filled look is all you need to be sent to a burning hell. One item stolen, even a little item stolen, is all you need to be sent to that hell, friend.

One moment in time where you broke the law of God in either thought, word, or deed is all you need to be sent to a devil's hell. The strictness and severity of God's holy law is unyielding. It does not bend nor conform to today's loose standards of living.

Absolute perfection is demanded by God to get into his heaven. No man can stand in his own merits against that strict and severe law of God and pass the test. Listen, friend, I know I am a sinner, and I need a sin substitute in the person of Jesus Christ, and so do you, friend, so do you.

The Blood of Christ and the Debt of Sin

You must get under the blood, friend. You must get your sins under the precious blood of the bleeding lamb. He hung on a cross for sinful man. If you try to live the rest of your life with good deeds and good thoughts and good intentions, it won't make up for the times you have broken the law of God in the past.

Even if you sin just once in your lifetime, friend, nothing but the blood of Jesus can cleanse you from that sin. But you have broken the law of God time and time again through the years. Your sins are stacked up against you like a huge debt which you cannot pay.

Making good resolutions to live for God and religion for the future does not erase the acts of your past, which are stacks and stacks of broken laws, all unpaid, all due. Holy God will have satisfaction for sin, and the sentencing of the law must be carried out.

Justice will be done and carried out by the just judge, who is the living God, and shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul as he went from being a self-righteous religious person to actually facing the fact of the broken law of God in his own life and then admitting his guilt and forsaking his sins.

Here now are his words from Romans chapter 7 and verses 7 through 9. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

But sin, taken occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

And what Paul's referring to was that he finally saw himself as a sinner because the law was like a schoolmaster that showed him he was dead in sin because he'd broken that holy law. Now listen to me, friends.

Broken Law, Judgment, and the Need for Surrender

Regarding this matter of the broken law and the guilty sinner, the title of my message today is Broken Law, Devil's Hell, the very fact that if you just one time, one time in your entire life, through a thought, a work, or a deed, broke the law of God by telling a lie, stealing, or lusting, then you were guilty before a holy God and deserve damnation.

Your future good works won't keep you out of hell, friend, because that broken law stands in the shadows as an indictment against you and it won't go away. And if you were to die right now, that broken law would follow you into eternity because God is a just judge who must punish sin and the sentencing of the law must be carried out by that judge.

A guilty sinner is nothing more than a guilty rebel who's committed treason against a sovereign. And if he doesn't stack arms and throw down his shotgun of rebellion at the feet of that sovereign in utter and total surrender to the authority of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, if that person does not submit to all the rights and claims that the gospel has on a person and repent of his sins and turn to Jesus in faith for forgiveness of sin, then one day future, that person will face the broken law of God before that holy God who will be his judge.

His mouth will be stopped because the sinner will realize his guilt. He will admit he deserves hell on that day, friend, but it'll be too late. I want to relate a true story to you about a seafaring man who tried to escape this fact of the broken law on his own life, but that broken law would not go away and he realized that his sins wouldn't sink and because of that he was sunk, sunk in sin and on his way to hell.

The Smuggling Captain and the Evidence of Guilt

But God worked the work of grace on that old sailor's heart and saved him. I want you to hear his story as it pertains to our subject today of the broken law of God and the guilty sinner. Sit back and listen to this intriguing story about the seafaring man and the broken law.

I've seldom heard a story so full of the gospel of the Son of God than this story, friends, of the seafaring smuggler who had his sins found out and he found God. If you are an unsaved person, this story will point you to Christ.

So listen carefully to this story now, friends, as told by this smuggling sea captain. Here now are his words. I was once the captain of a smuggling boat. I remember well one morning, just at daybreak, we discovered a Coast Guard boat in the distance.

We had on board a heavy cargo of tobacco and we stood to make quite a bit of money if we could land it. The Coast Guard was still a long way off, but we knew that if she gave chase, we couldn't possibly get away because our heavy cargo slowed us so much.

We hoped at first we might not be seen, but alas, we soon saw the Coast Guard crowding off sail and turning her course towards us. We all knew what would happen if we were taken. Not only would the boat and cargo be confiscated, but we would all be sent to prison.

For a time, there was a dead silence while we stared at each other in dismay. The Coast Guard was coming up fast behind us. Suddenly, I thought of a way out. Mates, I cried, there's no hope for us by running away, but let them come.

They will only find an empty ship. Hastily, we first rigged a sail at the stern of the ship to screen us from the side of the customs men. Then, sending part of the men below, I set them in line to hand up the packages of tobacco and pitch them overboard as they came up.

How did we work? All was quiet, nothing was heard but the splash of the tobacco dropping into the sea. The cargo was going down fast. Cheer up, men, I cried, we'll soon be finished with it. Just then, I saw the ship's boy, who was too tired to go on, so I sent him to see if the Coast Guard was very far off.

In a minute, he came rushing back to me. Pal, it's death. He just gasped out, it won't sink, and he fled below. In a flash, we understood what he meant. I ran to the stern of the ship, and what a sight that was.

The sun was just rising behind us, and there, in that long line of light, were the packages of tobacco bobbing up and down in our wake, and the first package in the line reached right back to the oncoming Coast Guard boat.

Helplessly, we stood and stared at it. The proof of our guilt was there, spread out for all to see. We were lost, and in our ears rang over and over those fatal words, it won't sink. In those days, my heart was far from God.

I belonged to the world. From time to time, though, I had serious thoughts, and then I would resolve to correct my ways and change my course, but resolving is one thing, doing is another. I still went on in the same old ways, and as soon as we were free from prison, I went back to smuggling.

Human Resolutions Cannot Remove Past Sin

About three years after all this happened, I went out in a boat on the river one night. It was New Year's Eve, and in spite of myself, my thoughts went back in review of my past life. I saw myself when a child, kneeling at my mother's knee to say my evening prayers.

Again, I heard her tell me of one who came down from heaven to bring life to the world, and at this, I sighed deeply. The more I thought about my past, the more horrified I was. God had created me, and I had lived and was still living as though there was neither God nor eternity.

That night, I went down on my knees in the boat and prayed that God would come to my help. After this, I would be another man. I resolved not to touch a drop of liquor and to avoid all bad company. I made many more resolutions like that, what I would do and what I wouldn't do, and soon I began to feel a very good opinion of myself.

Then, on further reflection, I saw that there were a lot more things I ought to clean up or lighten the ship, as we say. I must throw overboard everything that ought not to be in my boat. My life was to be completely changed.

My resolutions were getting more serious and positive every moment. My heart grew lighter, and I was happy in the thought that I had become a new man. As a finishing stroke, I decided to sell my ship and go home to my mother.

Having made the decision, it seemed as if everything must be in perfect order. I had taken up the oars to go back to land when suddenly the moon broke through the clouds and cast its beams like a band of silver across the water to where my boat was lying.

But why should I start and shiver? What should it remind me of? The memory of that certain morning when, chased by the Coast Guard, I had cast the cargo into the sea. It came over me with overwhelming power.

I saw again the shipboy's frightened face and heard his cry, How blind I was. Here again, I had tried to lighten my ship by casting the cargo overboard, and there, behold, it was all floating behind me like an accusing lion stretched up to the throne of God.

All that I had done, said, or thought was there before the face of God, and it would not sink. A fool that I was, I thought I could drown all my wickedness in the sea of eternal forgetfulness without a thought of the holiness of God.

If I had been able from that moment on only to do what was good, it would not have changed the evil done in the past. What good was it to be forming good resolutions for the future and to pitch the old cargo overboard when it would not sink?

Repentance, Faith, and Forgiveness Through Christ

Tears of despair filled my eyes. I was hopelessly lost. While in this state, seeing neither relief nor safety, I remembered the teachings of my faithful mother. Hadn't she often told me about Jesus, the Savior of sinners?

Hadn't he died on the cross for sinners? And if I should turn to him now, wouldn't his precious blood wash away even my many sins? Wasn't there grace and mercy even for me? All at once, everything was clear before me.

Yes, the Lord Jesus had died for me. He had borne the punishment of all my sins. If I accepted that, they all would be cast into the depths of the sea. Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more was the passage that came to my mind.

Such a joy has filled my heart then. Light-hearted, entirely relieved of my burden, I turned my boat toward the shore. And a new man, I stepped out on the land. I had gone out a lost sinner, but I was coming back redeemed by the Lord.

I like that story, friend, don't you? You see, when a person gets saved, Jesus takes their sins and buries them in his sea of forgetfulness, never to be remembered again. They will never rise up again to condemn us.

Like that sea captain's illegal cargo bobbing on the water, we are forgiven with his blood and by his death. But you must come to him, friend, for forgiveness of sin. Because without Jesus, your sins won't sink.

You need pardon from sin, friend, to be reconciled back to God and to avoid being cast into that devil's hell. Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin. In him, there is pardon and peace with God. Why wait any longer, friend?

Christ's Call to Repentance and Eternal Life

Be like that sea captain and do what is necessary. Exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. Why do you need to repent of your sins? Jesus said it was a necessary condition for salvation.

He said, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Repent means to turn from your sins and turn to God. Jesus Christ hung on a bloody cross because of sin. My Bible says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

My Bible also says, friends, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Remember, friend, one broken law is enough to send you to a devil's hell. Your sins need to be pardoned, friend. Put your faith in Jesus Christ and repent before it's too late.

I will leave you with this promise from the word of God. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man, his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. And he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Amen.