The Smoke and Fire — E.A. Johnston

The Holiness of God's Law and the Certainty of Judgment

I didn't come here to entertain you, or to tell you funny stories, or to make you laugh, and I didn't come here to win your approval and get your applause. I came here to warn you, to alarm you, to awaken you out of your spiritual stupor, and to be true to your souls, so that at the judgment I will be clear of your blood on my hands.

Many of you are here completely unconcerned about eternity, and you seldom think about it. You're too busy with your business and your family and your leisurely activities, why you spend more time worrying about your investment portfolio than you do about lost souls who die each minute and drop into a burning hell.

Much of your time is centered around yourself and how to enjoy yourself and how next you will gratify your lusts. Very few of you have ever been brought to Mount Sinai and placed under the threatening of God's holy law and felt the trembling of the thundering and smoke of the Almighty's great anger against all who break His holy law.

God requires perfection to get into His holy heaven, and you have never been perfect since you've walked this earth. The strictness and severity of God's law will be applied personally to you. It is His litmus test of heaven's entry.

The Law's Standard and Humanity's Guilt

Break one of His commandments, and you have broken them all. The apostle James declares, For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill.

Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. Listen, friends, the sentencing of the law must be carried out. God will punish all sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.

You will die one day and face the judgment bar of God. Your life will be held up against the strictness and severity of God's holy law, and if you stand there in your own merits, you will fail that test and be damned.

The Terror and Permanence of Hell

The smoke and fire of the threatenings of the law should awaken you to your danger of being bound and cast into the smoke and fire of the damnation of hell, why you seldom think of hell. You believe it is some remote place far away from you, but God can remove you tonight by sudden death.

The psalmist says, Upon the wicked God will rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest. Jesus will turn to those outside of him and declare, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

When you are awakened to your lost condition and realize the great peril of sin and the danger of being suddenly cut down and cast into hell's flames, then you will sense the terror of hell and the terribleness of damnation.

Spiritual Deadness and the Sovereignty of God

The prophet Isaiah declares, Sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us can dwell with devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings? Once you are made sensible of the danger of sudden destruction, then your soul becomes alarmed.

But you are dead in trespasses and sins. You have no principle of spiritual life in you. You have no heart to receive the gospel or the cries to the gospel. Jesus declared very plainly, No man can come unto me except the Father that sent me.

Draw him. Your automobile runs by parts and gasoline, but it has no principle of life. It would be profitable to you to receive the gospel, but you cannot. You have no heart to receive it. God is under no obligation to change your heart.

He is under no necessity to give you a new heart. By his sovereign choice, he will either glorify his justice or his mercy on you. He may pass you over and take another. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

By transgressing his law, you deserve condemnation and damnation. God can even take pleasure in the exercise of his justice, for he declares, Ah, I will ease me of mine enemies and avenge me of my adversaries.

Human Righteousness and Christ's Substitution

You cannot force God to convert you. Your own righteousness is just filthy rags. It is his sovereign choice whether he makes you a vessel of honor or dishonor. But God's mercies are greater than your sins.

You are not beyond his mercy to pardon you. There is nothing you can do to satisfy the law. That is done already by Christ. Christ redeemed us from the curse. Being made a curse for us, so declares the apostle Paul in Galatians.

The free offer of the gospel is available to you. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. God offers mercy. The gospel is full of invitations to come to Christ. We see in Isaiah, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.

Repentance, Faith, and the Cross

Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Have you ever been lost, friend? How can you apply the remedy for sin if you've never felt yourself in need of the remedy? Do you not see your danger of dying outside of Christ?

I know I am a sinner, and I need a substitute for sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, I'm naked on a scandalous cross because of my wretched sins, your filthy sins. God is a God who must punish sin.

Christ on the cross is a clear statement that God must punish sin. The cross shows us how God feels against sin. The Father had to look away from his beloved Son who became sin for us. The sinless sinner, look at him as he hangs there with that crown of thorns upon his tender brow.

Every stroke of the hammer was an explanation point that God must punish sin. God must punish sin. God must punish sin. Do you see yourself as a big sinner? Are you in need of pardon for sin? You must exercise repentance toward God and faith in Christ Jesus.

The Gospel's Call to Seek the Lord

Listen to God's pleas for you to come to Christ. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. 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.

Listen to me, friend. Can you look back on your life to the time when you realized you were a lost sinner and you came like an empty-handed beggar to the foot of the cross seeking mercy? Christ is precious to obtain.

He is the pearl of great price, worth selling all for and losing all for. Christ suffered and died and was buried, and he rose again. He sits now at the right hand of the Father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.

The Finality of Hell and Refuge in Christ

You must get unto the blood, or you will surely die in your sins and be cast into hell and its torments. I recently was in the hospital and had surgeries, and I was placed in a semi-private room with a dying man who moaned and hollered all night long.

I couldn't get any sleep or rest. It was almost unbearable. I could not wait to get out of there, think of something intolerable to you, and multiply that one thousand times, and you will get a sense of the misery in hell.

But there are no exit doors in hell. Once you shut up in there, you are in there forever. Flee to Christ, the refuge for sin. Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

In John 6 .35, 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. 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 sins? Are you thirsty for Christ? Christ is the bread of life. He invites poor sinners to come to him and believe on him. The duty required is to come to Christ, and he has a pure gospel promise to all who come.

He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Listen, friend, to this plea to come to Christ. 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 of the water of life freely.

Let us pray.