One Foot in Grave Other on Banana Peel — E.A. Johnston

The Unpredictability of Sudden Death

Every time I look at the news, it's full of tragedy, of people dying by car wrecks, plane crashes, boating accidents. Life is short and unexpected. Sudden death is all around us. In fact, friends, we live in a land of sudden death, where people are snatched away suddenly by an unexpected incident, or they get killed by a stray bullet, or run over by an out-of-control vehicle.

They die suddenly from unseen illness, pandemic virus, or a sudden heart attack. That happened to me. One day, I was riding in a car with my daughter, celebrating her college graduation, and the very next day, I was in the back of an ambulance, almost dead from a sudden heart attack.

The doctors told me that all four of my main arteries were 90 blocked, and it was a miracle. I survived open-heart surgery, and I'm talking to you today, friends. We can die quite unexpectedly and be suddenly brought out of this world.

We can be taken out of this world by a freak accident. I once had a freak accident out of town. I was in a hotel room in Edinburgh, Scotland, getting ready to have dinner at Ian Murray's house when I stepped into the shower and almost got killed.

The floor of the shower tub had just been waxed, and as soon as I stepped in there, my feet began to lose traction, and they speeded up until I was thrown upside down on my head on a concrete floor. Well, I had dinner that evening with Ian Murray and his wife, but I did so with a broken wrist and a banged-up head from that fall in the shower, but I could have just as easily broke my neck in that sudden, violent fall in the bathroom.

Sudden death seems to hover around us like the sword of Damocles, ready to descend at any moment to remove us out of this world. I have a message for you today, friends, you're not going to want to miss.

Every Person Is Vulnerable to Sudden Death

It's about sudden death and eternity, because we're all so close to it, and I'm going to prove to you today that every one of us is walking around already with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

I'm going to give you a scripture verse to back it up, and I'll give you several examples of which I speak. My scripture verse that proves man has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel is found in the book of Ecclesiastes, in chapter nine and verse twelve, which states,.

For man also knoweth not his time, as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in a snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

This speaks of sudden death, unexpected events that remove us suddenly from this world. The verse says it falleth suddenly upon them. I looked up that word falleth in the Hebrew language, and it's the word naphal, and it means to make ready to overthrow, to throw down, to fall by a violent death.

Sam Jones and the Warning of Sudden Death

The great evangelist, Sam Jones, preached his last sermon at a men's meeting in Kansas City, and his sermon was entitled, Sudden Death, and he finished his sermon by telling his hearers not to be surprised if over the next few days they learned that some in this meeting had died suddenly.

After his sermon, Sam Jones boarded a train back to Georgia, but he never made it. He died suddenly on that train, as if his own death was an exclamation point to a sermon on sudden death. Well, I have a copy of that last sermon by Sam Jones, friends, and I want to share with you today part of that famous sermon because it pertains to my subject.

In his message, Sam Jones proves his point over and over again that people die by sudden death all the time. In the following story, Sam Jones speaks of the Nashville revival he was part of, and of his most famous convert from that revival, which was Captain Thomas Ryman, who built the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville for Sam Jones to preach in.

Listen, friends, to this story by Sam Jones, who died within 36 hours of preaching this message, and listen to this story carefully, friends. It's one of the most fantastic stories I've ever heard in my life.

Tom Ryman's Burden for the Lost

In this story, Tom Ryman invites Sam Jones over to his house for dinner to witness Christ to his 13 best friends. Tom Ryman had a burden for souls as soon as he got saved. Shouldn't that be our case as well?

Shouldn't we all be soul winners, concerned about our loved ones, our friends, and those that live in our community? Here now are the words of Sam Jones. Now hear me. I simply relate to you tonight the incidents that have occurred in my own life and under my own experience and observation.

I start in with this proposition, which I want you to take home with you, that this man who's preaching to you tonight has preached the gospel earnestly and faithfully to thousands and tens of thousands of men who, since my voice died out in their ears, have been swept suddenly and awfully into the presence of God.

When I was preaching in the most memorable meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, ten years ago, the most marvelous and grace I ever looked upon in my life, I believe more men were converted and more people joined the church from that memorable meeting than any work of grace almost in this nineteenth century.

It was marvelous to behold at that meeting that grand man, Captain Tom Ryman of Nashville, Tennessee, that whom there's been no grander convert to Christianity in this nineteenth century. He came to that meeting as others did.

He came up to the altar, knelt down like a little child, and gave his heart to God. The day after his conversion, he walked up to me and said, Brother Jones, I want you to go to my home. I said, Captain, I can't go before Friday.

Well, he said, I'll be glad to have you then. I want my wife and children to see you, who have won me to God, and will you give me that pledge? I said, Yes, Captain, on Friday, after the preaching. On that morning, I went with him over to his home, and when we walked into his elegant home in Nashville, he carried me into the parlor, and there were thirteen guests, his friends, gathered in the parlor.

He invited them there on that occasion, and he introduced me to them one at a time. We sat down a few moments, and his noble wife came to the door and said, Gentlemen, dinner is ready. And we walked across the hall into his dining room and sat down at the long table.

He put me at the head of the table and said, I want you to occupy that place, the post of honor, sir, take this place here, and he put his friends to my right and left. The four men that sat next to me, two of them steamboat captains, were immediately to my left, the one immediately to my right was the mayor of the city, and the one immediately by his side was another one of his steamboat captains, for Captain Ryman owned several boats plying up and down the Cumberland River.

Just as we crossed the hall, going into the dining room, he had said, I have invited my friends to meet you, and whenever a question arises, you can put in some word, and you can press the question of surrender to God upon my friends.

As we ate, you might not have another chance to do personal work with them. And I sat there at the table, and as we ate, I pressed the great question of eternity upon those men, and especially the four who sat next to me.

Now listen, not one of those four men was ever, as I knew, moved at all in that meeting. Now the results, I don't think it was three months after I left that town till Captain Ryman wrote me, Brother Jones, the steamboat captain, who sat immediately to your left, fell over on his boat the other day, and was dead when his friends got to him.

It wasn't many weeks till he wrote me again. Another one of our steamboat captains came up the river, came into his home, and died suddenly, and his wife and children gathered about him, but he was gone.

And he said, Oh, what a fearful fact, that those men wouldn't come to God in that meeting. It wasn't many weeks till I saw where the mayor of the city of Nashville was up in Wisconsin, out hunting, and his friend's gun went off, accidentally, and put a great load of shot into his head, and he fell forward, and spoke not another word.

It wasn't long after that till Captain Ryman wrote me, Brother Jones, the steamboat captain, who sat next to the mayor at the table, has been swept suddenly and awfully into eternity. And those four men, whether they were prepared or not, I am not here to say, but those four men who sat next to me at the table all went suddenly into the presence of God.

And these are but instances that have occurred all along the line. Oh, my countrymen, I say that this man who talks to you tonight has pressed the gospel with its weight and power upon hundreds of men who have died suddenly and awfully after the gospel had died out in their ears.

The Immortal Soul and Eternal Destiny

Well, I love that story by Sam Jones, don't you, friends? You see, we live in a day where sudden death is all around us. Why, you can get gunned down by a madman just standing in line at the grocery store.

You can die suddenly in a car wreck without any warning, or your heart could just stop beating like it did to a friend of mine. We worked together, and I said good-bye to him in the hallway that afternoon.

He went home that night and went to sleep, and sometime after midnight he woke up, took two steps out of bed and dropped dead to his feet. He was only forty-nine years old. Little did he realize that when he went to bed that night he'd wake up in another world altogether.

You see, friends, your physical body is just part of you. It's the outward shell of who you are. And who you are, really, is an invisible part of you, which is your soul. One day your heart will cease to beat and you will die.

That is, your physical body will stop working. It will die. But the real you, who you really are, is your immortal soul, and your soul will exist in eternity forever. And where your soul exists in eternity does not depend upon your church membership or your good works or your good name, but only upon the blood of Christ Jesus as it is applied to your soul by saving faith in Christ.

If you die in your sins outside the blood of Christ, you die without remedy, and your soul goes to that terrible region of the lost souls, the damned, which is hell itself. Hell is a place of torment for lost souls.

If you are a saved individual, when you die, you are washed in the blood. You're born from above, and your immortal soul goes to heaven to be with God forever. But your soul will one day separate itself from your body by death, and you'll either go up to heaven with God or be cast down into a devil's hell.

Believe me, friends, if you are a saved man, you don't want to enter a Christless eternity where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. Weeping speaks of great loss and grief. Gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret.

Examining Whether You Are Saved or Lost

I want you to do something for me now, friends. You'll never regret it if you do. Please, take the time. Get something to write on. Write on the margin in your Bible. Write on a card or a piece of paper, or write on your phone.

Write it in the notes, but do it now. Get out a piece of paper right now and write something on it. Write one of two words. I want you to write the word SAVED, and then sign your name, if that's your case.

Or write the word LOST, and be honest with yourself, and sign your name. I want you to do that now, friend. Will you please? This tears me up to even think about it. We're talking about eternity here.

We're talking about the most important matter in the world, the most important matter in your life. It's not your bank account that matters. It's not your place in this world that matters. You can't take that with you when you die, but you're going to take your soul out of this world.

Where will you go? Will you go to heaven? Will you go to hell? Will you be honest with yourself now, for it's too late, while you still have time in this world? Will you write the word SAVED, if you're really saved, and you know it?

The Cross as the Source of Saving Power

And will you be brave enough to write the word LOST, if you're truly lost? Jesus came into this world doing good. He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He fed the hungry. He made the lame to walk.

He even raised the dead to life. And what happened? Men cried, away with him, and nailed him to a cross. Oh, look at that man, he's a good man, on the cross, friend. See him there, with his arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to him.

Oh, look, look, look at that bloodstained savior for sin, hanging there on that bloody cross, as he squirms beneath the weight of sin. My sins, my filthy, wretched sins, your sins, your terrible sins.

The cross is the place where men sought to get rid of him. But by his death, it becomes the place where his saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners, and own them as their savior and lord.

The Gospel Invitation to Come to Christ

Listen to me, friends. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. The gospel is for the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty. Let me ask you, friend, are you hungry for God?

Are you weary of your filthy sins? Are you thirsty for Christ? He invites poor sinners to come to him and believe on him, and he has a pure gospel promise to all who come. He that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.

Come to him now, friend. Jesus is the pearl of great price worth selling off for so he may be gained. Jesus is the friend of sinners. Jesus is the only remedy for sin. As I issue this gospel call, it's the prayer of this poor preacher that you just won't hear my shaky old voice, but that somehow you will hear his voice as it comes to you in all power and authority by his spirit.

Hear now the gospel call, and the spirit and the bride say, come, and let him that hears say, come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.