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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/ea-johnston/the-barking-dog/
Man loves living, but he don't like dying. Man wants heaven, but he don't want hell. Man loves sin, and he loves to sin. Job declares man's condition. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
That means man can't get enough of sin. No matter how much he sins, he still wants more. Man is not satisfied looking at one picture of a naked woman on the internet. He wants to drool over a thousand.
The fact is, friend, you like to sin. You enjoy it, or you wouldn't do it. Man today is desensitized to sin. He sees nothing wrong with it. Man can sin all he wants to without a guilty conscience. Man foolishly believes he can have a little religion and a lot of sin and still go to heaven.
Man wants to crawl up to heaven without letting loose a sin. The lost religious man busies himself widening the gate to make room for his sins. He wants heaven. So he takes out his pocket knife and carves a way at the straight gate to make it wider so he can enter with all his sins.
Man believes he needs God so long as that God doesn't get in the way of his daily living. So he rejects the God of the Bible and manufactures a God of his own making. His God tolerates sin. His God would never punish sin.
His God would never send anybody to hell because his God is a make-believe God. But hell is real. Sinners go to hell. And God keeps a detailed record of all your sins. Every filthy thing you've ever done in private is written down in a book of record.
Every lie you ever told, every item you stole, every adultery you committed is there in black and white. Every act of fornication is in that book. Every time you got drunk and cussed someone is written down in longhand.
Every time you knew to do good and you chose not to is in that book as well. You have sinned so long and you have sinned so much you have forgotten all about them. But I was listening to a man preach one time and he was preaching hard against sin.
And a man who was in the congregation got up and walked out in the middle of the sermon. That man was a respected elder in the church. And he left and was gone for two days. When he returned he walked up to that preacher and asked him a question.
He asked, The other day when you were preaching on sin did you hear a little dog bark? The preacher answered, No, I heard no dog bark. The elder replied, I did, when you were preaching I heard a little dog bark.
And I got up and left to go find him. Then the man explained to the preacher that forty years ago when he was a lad he had stolen from a farm an expensive puppy. He had taken that little dog to a neighboring farm out of town and sold it for a bundle of money.
He had completely forgotten about that incident in his life until the preacher spoke on sin. How you cannot cover sin. How you cannot hide sin. That God's word declares, Behold, ye have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out.
That all sin is against God and God is a God who must punish sin. Then said the elder, When I heard all that then I heard a little dog bark. So I immediately rose from my seat and left the church and got in my truck and I drove across town to the farm where I had stolen that expensive puppy.
The farmer who owned the place had died but his daughter let me tell her my story as I confessed my sin of theft to her. Then I made restitution. I figured out the cost of that dog and the interest of its value through the years and I wrote her a check for that amount and made her accept it, which she gladly did.
Then I got in my truck and drove out of town to the other farm to make confession and restitution to that family, which I did. It took me two days and now I've returned to tell you, brother preacher, that I am a new man.
Before, I was a lost religious man who had covered my tracks, so to speak, in sin. But now I have come clean with God and man and I am a new man with a new heart for God has shown me mercy, mercy. I'm saved.
Bless God. He had pity on an old sinner like me. Well, I tell you that story, friend, because you can't hide from God. You can be sure your sin will find you out. Your sins are like a barking dog that won't stop barking.
You've never done anything about your sins, never attempted to get rid of them. All you've done is ignored them, but they will not ignore you. They bark at you and follow you. Your sins rise up before you like black bats from hell.
They hover above you, follow you, stare you in the face, flap about your ears, accusing you. But there is a final judgment that awaits all mankind, the Bible declares in Hebrews. And as it is appointed, unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
And on that day, friend, your sins will be the evidence held against you that sends you to a devil's hell. For unless your sins are washed in Christ's blood, you will perish in a bottomless pit of torments and flame.
Jesus was crucified for sin. Jesus was nailed to a cross. That bloody cross was a spectacle, a scandal. He hung naked on a cruel tree with his arms outstretched and nailed there for guilty sinners like you and me.
The prophet Isaiah pictures him there hanging on that cross at Calvary. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Listen, friend. God is a God who must punish sin.
When they nailed Jesus to that cross of wood, when they drove those nails into his hands and feet, every stroke of the Roman's hammer was an explanation point that God must punish sin. God must punish sin.
God must punish sin. Jesus Christ is the only way to escape from the torments of hell, friend. If you want pardon from sin, you must get your sins washed in the blood of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the only remedy and refuge for sin. Listen to his pleas to come to him and believe on him. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Come to that bloodstained Savior from sin and believe on him, confessing you are a sinner and own him as your Savior and Lord. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.