The Guilty Sinner's Refuge — E.A. Johnston

Tonight, friends, we will bring an end to our four-part series on The Guilty Sinner. We preached on The Guilty Sinner's Due, The Guilty Sinner's Verdict, The Guilty Sinner's Doom, and tonight we will cover The Guilty Sinner's Refuge.

The Guilty Sinner's Guilt and Coming Judgment

Because whether you admit it now and get saved or deny you're guilty, you will someday face a judge at his judgment bar who will declare you guilty and then send you on to hell. The dearest cry a sinner can make this side of hell is to admit his guilt and say, I'm guilty.

Once you get there, your next cry will be to God, Oh, God, save me. And once you come there, friend, in repentance and faith, your next cry will be, What a relief! I'm saved! I'm saved! But first, you must be awakened to your lost condition so you can see your danger of a common storm of justice.

Finding Refuge in the Storm

When you are out to sea in a storm-tossed boat, you seek the nearest refuge from the storm. When a violent hurricane threatens the shoreline, you have mandatory evacuations. I was part of a mandatory evacuation from Florida two years ago, and what normally took me nine hours to drive took me 18 hours.

As long lines of cars traveled bumper to bumper, you couldn't find gas at gas stations. They were all out. You had to drive an hour out of the way just to find some gasoline. We were all terrified travelers looking for a refuge from the common storm.

The Sinner's Depraved Nature

The guilty sinner travels this world under God's condemnation for sin. The guilty sinner is under a curse for sin. The guilty sinner has a depraved and corrupt nature with a bent toward sin. My Bible speaks of sinful man and Job and the badness of his natural condition.

As seen in Job 15, 16, how much more abominable and filthy is man which drinks iniquity like water. That's you, friend, at your hog trough of sin, wallowing in it and getting all dirty by it and loving every filthy minute of your sinful pleasures.

Hogs love their mire, and so do two-legged hogs as well. But the guilty sinner is unaware of his danger, ignorant to his doom, and blind to the common storm of justice upon his guilty head. Every sin is worthy of death, whether it's a little sin or a big one.

The Storm of Divine Justice

A small leak can sink a ship as much as a cannonball. You're a guilty sinner. You will face a future judgment, and a storm of justice hangs over your head like a glistening sword of Damocles that glistens with your own blood.

It hangs by a thin thread, and the weight of your sins will make it come crashing down upon you. You will face the perfect storm of God's indignation for sin by breaking His holy law by sin. A reckoning day is vast approaching where the judge of all the earth will mete out his justice on the head of all guilty sinners.

A verdict of guilt will be announced by that judge, and the sentence of the law will be carried out, and you will be bound, hand and foot and put in chains, and cast into a bottomless pit of a dark, smoking, glowing hell,.

Christ as the Sinner's Only Refuge

Your only refuge from this storm of justice is in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the only refuge for sin, the guilty sinner's refuge, and his only hope is in Jesus Christ on a cross as a substitute for sin.

The first message of the cross is God is a God who must punish sin. The second message of the cross is a Savior from sin. But first sinners must hear that first message when those cruel Roman soldiers stripped Jesus and nailed Him to their cross.

Every time the Roman hammer fell, as it pounded those nails into His innocent flesh, every stroke of the hammer was an explanation point that shouted, God must punish sin! God must punish sin! God must punish sin!

Salvation Through Christ's Blood

The only hope poor preacher has of getting into God's holy heaven is if God will look at me and say, Oh, when I see the blood, oh, when I see the blood, oh, dear sinner friend, you must come in repentance to God, confessing your sins, and believing on His Son as you place your trust in Him and own Him as your Lord.

The guilty sinner's refuge is the Lord Jesus Christ, but you must get to Him for pardon and forgiveness of sins by getting your sins under His blood. A man is sick with a poison in his blood, and the only remedy for sin and the only refuge for sin is Christ Jesus.

He is the pearl of great price, worth selling all for and losing all for so He may be gained. There is a gospel promise to all who come to Him with a sincere heart, believing on Him, and all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

The Fountain of Cleansing and Forgiveness

The old hymn says there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Oh, dear sinner friend, come to Christ, our only refuge, so God can look at you and say, when I see the blood, the biggest sinner, this side of hell can come to that fountain of blood and be cleansed from the stain of sin.

Oh, friend, won't you come? In the Old Testament it is talked about the city's refuge where a criminal could flee to avoid certain death. Christ is a refuge for sinners of any and every stripe, and the city's refuge in the Old Testament are a type of Christ who is a haven of hope and eternal forgiveness to all who will flee to Him.

Fleeing to Christ in Repentance

You know you're a haughty rebel. You know deep down what a big sinner you really are. You know you're guilty as charged for committing treason against a sovereign. Won't you flee to Him for pardon right now, friend?

Jesus Christ as the Way to the Father

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father except by me. And Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Oh, dear thirsty sinner friend, flee to that refuge for sin.