One Step Away from a Devil's Hell — E.A. Johnston

I was visiting Scotland and staying in a hotel in Edinburgh when I stepped into the shower and almost was killed. It was a death trap. It had just been waxed and as soon as I stepped in there I was thrown out on my head.

Sudden Death and the Warning of Scripture

I landed on a hard concrete floor and as I hit the ground I landed on my hand and head. I broke my wrist in the fall and bruised my head but it could have been a lot worse for no sooner did I get into that shower that my foot slipped unexpectedly and it reminded me of the passage from Deuteronomy which states, To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.

Their foot shall slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste. It was a reminder to me that sudden death is all around us. Death can come to us quite unexpectedly at any moment.

At the time I did not even realize what great danger I was really in for. At the time I was an unconverted church member who mistakenly believed I was saved. I could have died that day and didn't even realize it at the time but I was one step away from a devil's hell and that's the title of my message today friends.

The Reality of Being One Step from Death

One step away from a devil's hell and my text is found in first Samuel in chapter 20 and verse 3. You can turn in your Bibles there now. I wonder how many there are within the sound of my voice that are living their last year on earth.

Soon you will die and awake in another world and some of you are like I was quite unprepared for it. Let me read us our text in first Samuel. It is found in the last sentence of the verse which states.

There is but a step between me and death. I want each of you to repeat that verse in your mind right now. There is but a step between me and death. Listen friends. Sudden death is all around you. You don't know what tomorrow may bring.

Proverbs 27 .1 declares boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth and how true it is. There is but a step between me and death. That means you friend. That means you and I wonder how many there are within the sound of my voice who have made a false profession of faith and are sitting upon an unsound foundation that could break apart, that could break out from beneath you at any moment and reveal your bare profession and send you straight into a devil's hell.

Hell doesn't occupy our thoughts much today because we are still in the land of the living and are focused on the activities of our day so the terrors of hell don't disturb us much. But if I could walk you to the rim of hell and lift that lid and have you peer into that black pit of smoke and noise, what you saw and heard would keep you up tonight.

The horrible cries of the damned, the crying and agony of lost souls whose combined wailing is like a great shrill wind which continually permeates the great darkness before them. You hear their terrifying screams, you smell the smoke of their burning flesh and you see the flashing fires of flames which add to their torments, which add to the torments of those who are locked up in that prison of punishment where the worm doth not, where there's nothing but outer darkness like being adrift in outer space, helpless, hopeless and cast off from God forever.

That picture of hell, if you could really see it friend, would scare you, you'd not be able to get to sleep tonight. Just imagine the constant noise in hell, it is a pit of noise. If you took every patient off his pain medication that's in a hospital room tonight and let them stay that way for weeks on end, their cries would keep your town awake tonight.

The horrors of hell are far more worse than their torments, because those in hell are tormented endlessly for all eternity. Listen friend, you yourself may be one step away from a devil's hell tonight, you may make your bed in hell tonight, you have no guarantee of tomorrow.

I was speaking to a young man in the hallway of an office building and said goodbye to him, that night he went to bed and awoke with severe chest pain, he got up out of bed and took two steps and dropped dead to the floor.

Your steak dinner tonight may be your last meal on earth friend, how do you know you don't, like our text in 1st Samuel, there is but a step between me and death. I want to address two classes of individuals today and they both share the same destination, devil's hell.

The Lost Sinner Under God's Wrath

The first class is the lost sinner, dead in trespasses and sin, blinded by the God of this world who is Satan, full of himself and full of his lusts and chained by his sins and captive of his father the devil, he is blind to the truth of the gospel and he stands beneath the wrath of a holy God who can cut him down at any moment, for his foot shall slide in due time, just like that, much like mine did in that shower in Scotland, but he believes that God loves him because that's what he's heard from Christians all his life, God loves you, God loves you, God loves you, and he believes he's not as bad as he could be and not as bad as others are and somehow God will let him into heaven because basically he's a good person but he's completely unaware of the facts which are as follows, in the book of Psalms it states, God is angry with the wicked every day, if he turn not he will wet his sword, he hath bent his bow and made it ready, the lost sinner is a guilty rebel who's broken the strict and severe law of God and he stands beneath God's anger, he can be cut down any moment, it's only a merciful God who holds the string of his life in his hand and does not extinguish it yet, like one would snuff out a candle, God is a God who must punish sin and the devil's hell awaits all sinners who die in their sins, the wicked can mock God now but there will be a day when they die and they will face a day of reckoning for the sentencing of the law must be carried out against all rebels and the punishment is an everlasting hell, the lost sinner is in love with his sins and in love with the world and he believes he has all the time in the world to eat, drink and be merry, he has a real nature which is bent toward evil, in Job it declares, a man drinks iniquity like it's water, the lost sinner hates all things holy and refuses to submit to God's holy law, but it declares in the book of Proverbs, he that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy, do you know what a reproof is friend, the lost sinner is being reproved all the time when some Christian hands him a track, he crumples it up in his hand and throws it on the ground like rubbish because all things pertaining to God are rubbish to him and when he hears a gospel message on the radio, he turns the channel as quickly as he can because it's utter nonsense to him but these are all reproofs and when his Christian co-worker tries to share the gospel with him, he turns his back, changes the subject because he's happy in his sins and wants God to leave him alone but there will come a day when God will leave him alone for all eternity, it reminds me of a man I used to know who I met at the golf course, he was a man of the world, a wealthy businessman and he had a filthy mouth full of cursing and cuss words, I said to him one day, can I ask you a question, he said shoot, I said what is your relationship with God like, he smiled a wicked smile and replied, God and I have a perfect understanding between us, I leave him alone and he leaves me alone and then he cussed some more and that friend is a vivid picture of a lost sinner who loves his sins and hates all things holy, he mistakenly believes he's got all the time in the world to sin all he wants to but the reality is that sinner is just one step between him and death, one step away from a devil's hell because my bible declares that man has no guarantee of tomorrow, listen for man is also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in an evil net and as the birds that are caught in the snare so are the sons of man snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them, we live in a day of sudden death in this country, a madman can gun you down any moment, you can be killed on your way home tonight, you can be removed from this earth quite suddenly and unexpectedly without any warning but a lost soul does not consider the terrors of hell or the length of eternity because he's tied to his sins, he thinks God's fine with him, God will just leave him alone because for now that lost sinner is occupied with this world but my bible declares the soul that sinneth it shall die and that means even if you are the chairman of the deacons a lost sinner is one step away from a devil's hell and that brings me to our second class today, the unconverted church member sitting on a false foundation of self righteousness and good works being dangled over the lid of hell by the grace and patience of a long-suffering God, perhaps you friend are an unconverted person even if you've been a member of a church and have been baptized, water baptism won't save you, being a church member won't save you, let me ask you friend are you washed in the blood and born from above, does the Christ of the bible know you as his, please turn in your bibles to the gospel of Matthew in chapter 7, we will be in verses 21 through 27 for here in our passage is a vivid portrait of an unconverted church member who is deceived and one step away from a devil's hell, allow me to read us our passage now and please pay close attention to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, here now is the word of God, may the spirit of God be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word and it is my prayer friend, it's the prayer of this poor preacher that you will not hear my voice but his voice as it comes to you with power and majesty and authority.

Christ's Warning About False Assurance

Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works and then I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity.

Building on the Rock Through Obedient Faith

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock.

And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.

Listen friends an outward profession of religion will not bring you to heaven unless there is a corresponding conversion of the heart through the new birth. It doesn't matter how long you've been a church member how much money you've given to the church and how many capacities you have served at your church.

If you sit on the throne of your heart and rule there and do not obey the will of God through his commands. If you fail to comply with all the demands and rights that the gospel has on your life you are merely one step away from a devil's hell.

Lordship, Obedience, and the True Foundation

Jesus makes some very clear assertions here in our passage about who was lost and who was saved just because a person gives him lip service and calls him Lord does not guarantee heaven for him. Jesus keeps mentioning the word doeth.

Whosoever hears these sayings of mine and does them and that means we believe in Christ repent of sin and live a holy life unto a holy God. If you obey Christ and his gospel then you are on a sound foundation of solid rock.

Christ is our solid rock on which we stand. Many unconverted church members just call him Lord but do not submit to his lordship in their lives and that will be their ruin. Listen friend if you claim to have Jesus as your savior but he's not your Lord you are yet unsaved and you are but a step away from death and a devil's hell.

Jesus makes a vast distinction here in our passage between a person who does his will and who does not. He delineates between those who just hear his sayings and those who hear and actually put them into practice as a rule of life.

I like what Matthew Henry the bible commentator has to say about this passage. Listen to his words. To do Christ's sayings is to abstain from the sins he forbids and to perform the duties he requires.

Our thoughts and affections our words and actions. The temper of our minds and the tenor of our lives must be conformable to the gospel of Christ and I believe that. Listen friends we are living in a day of the unconverted church member.

The Need for Genuine Conversion and Regeneration

I've never known a time in my life where so many are so deceived. It's hard to even hear the pure gospel preached in this country anymore. We only hear about a God of love. There's few preaching on hell.

There's few preaching on sin. There's few warning men of their great danger of dying in their sins. And I fear many have entered the church through a textual decision. They believed a bible verse or a bible fact like the death of Christ but they failed to believe on the Christ who died.

They made a decision to join a church and become a Christian based on a text or a fact but the fact remains. They will never awaken to their lost condition never convicted of sin by the spirit of God and never converted by grace through saving faith.

They have given their time and their money and faithfully served their church and their pastor. But they do not possess Christ through a supernatural act of regeneration upon the heart through the new birth.

They've never repented of their sins. They sit on the throne of their lives and rule there and cry out. We will not have this man reign over us. They reject the doctrine of the lordship of Jesus Christ and refuse to surrender their all to a sovereign king.

And though they put on a good show at church on Sunday they are but a step away from a devil's hell. And that's sad. Friend that's sad. Let me leave you with this verse of scripture. Friends please heed it's warnings.

Examining Yourself for Saving Faith

Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves. How that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates.