God Still Reproves Men — E.A. Johnston

The Suddenness of Death and Eternal Consequences

Statistics tell us that in America today, that of every two people who die, one of them dies suddenly and without warning. We live in a day of sudden death, where you can be cut down by a madman's bullet, be run over by a speeding car, or meet an unforeseen accident that ushers you into eternity, and one you were quite unprepared for.

My two boyhood friends both died suddenly from traffic accidents. The first fell off his motorcycle and hit his head on a curb and died instantly. My other best friend was on his way to work one day when a car crossed the center line and hit him head on, killing him instantly.

Both men were in their twenties when they died. I live now in the part of the country where pedestrian deaths are the highest in the land. Every day someone dies in the state of Florida on a motorcycle or getting hit by a car while they're crossing the street or just walking down the road.

Some of the worst drivers in the world live in Florida. Half of them are too old to drive. The other half are doped up on drugs or drunk on booze or distracted by texting on their phone. I personally have had my car slammed into so many times down here in Florida that my car looks like a rolling junk heap going down the road.

It's standing on the side. It's smashed up in the rear. I've been rear-ended at a traffic light, hit by a hit-and-run driver, and I've been in so many wrecks I'm just thankful I haven't been killed by these crazy drivers down here.

People die every day in Florida from a car wreck or a pedestrian death. They wake up thinking they've got plenty of life left to them, and then they're suddenly cut off. Or you can live in a city that is ripe for destruction.

I used to live in Memphis, Tennessee. That experienced one of the worst earthquakes known to man. The city of Memphis sits squarely on the New Madrid fault line, which produced the 1811 earthquake that was so violent in its intensity it made the Mississippi River run backwards and it rang church bells in Boston.

It created a big lake called Real Foot Lake that exists today from that terrible earthquake. Luckily, the area was not highly populated in 1811. But now, a city of over a million people live in Memphis in old brick homes and they work in old brick buildings that could come tumbling down if shaken by an earthquake.

When I first moved to Memphis, the city was shaken by an earthquake in the early 1970s and it threw me off the couch and cracked our ceilings of our house. Memphis is a seismic hotspot with a 40 probability of a major earthquake in the next few decades.

Los Angeles is a city I once lived in as well. And that's a city waiting for destruction as well. For it sits on the San Andreas fault line and experts say it's not a matter of if, but when. When L .A. slides into the Pacific Ocean from a catastrophic earthquake.

I say all these things, friends, to show us how exposed we are to danger every minute of the day. Some event could suddenly happen that could end our life and unexpectedly we'd be thrust into either heaven or hell.

False Foundations and Religious Self-Deception

But I believe if a big disaster or catastrophe happened, more church folks would be more rudely shocked by the place of their destination in eternity. Many church members believe themselves to be saved individuals on their way to heaven.

When in reality, they sit on false foundations and are merely reproved sinners on their way to hell. They may have made a decision and joined the church, but they've never ever submitted to the claims of Christ in their lives and been born again.

They know nothing of Christ as a reigning Lord in their lives. But rather, they accepted a little Jesus and went out and found themselves a God they were comfortable with who wouldn't get in the way of their daily living.

Folks today in our churches are consumed with acquiring this world and its comforts instead of being consumed with spreading the gospel to perishing souls who are thrust suddenly into a Christless eternity.

They are content to be members of a church and be part of the rat race and load their pockets with as much cash as they can fit in there while they travel on a fast track to hell. They are nice church people who have heard about Christ but don't know him because they have hardened themselves against his demands.

Proverbs 29:1 and the Warning of Irreversible Judgment

When God begins to cut men off, it is without remedy. And that's the end of my introduction today, friends, and that also leads us to our text today, found in Proverbs 29 .1, which declares, He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

That's my text, friends. Let me give you my statement. Listen up. I firmly believe that in the American church especially, and in churches around this world, that a majority of church members who have been baptized are not saved individuals, but who are people merely under the continued reproof of God.

God has delayed cutting them down by death. God has been actively trying to get their attention, to bring them to an utter committal to Christ as Lord. Proverbs 29 .1 has been playing out in their lives of rebellion as they continue to refuse to submit to the claims of Christ on their life.

God's Merciful Reproofs and Human Hardness

Every time they sit and listen to a sermon, it is a reproof. Every time someone talks to them about spiritual things, it's a reproof. Every time they turn on the radio and hear Christian music, it's a reproof.

For a holy, merciful, long-suffering God woos them and reproves them while they are dead set against the claims of King Jesus. Often reproved are Texas. And every time they are reproved by a thrice holy God and they continue to refuse to submit to His utter Lordship and authority in their life, they are hardened more and more until they get to that place of sudden death where a long-suffering and rejected God has given them light.

They have failed to obey and now they are merely cumbering the ground long enough and it's judgment time. Off they go. Down they fall. Into an eternity all of a sudden. And they go straight from a church pew in Memphis to hell.

They go straight from a church pew in Little Rock to hell. They go straight from a church pew in Dallas to hell. They go straight from a church pew in Oklahoma City to hell. They go straight from a church pew in Miami to hell.

They go straight from a church pew in Los Angeles to hell. They go straight from a church pew in London to hell. They go straight from a church pew in Scotland to hell. And you can multiply that truth, friend, round and around the world which is full of self-ruled church members who have never yielded their lives to the Lord Christ.

Idolatry, Religious Pride, and the Reproof of Every Sermon

God, by his reproving spirit, has been trying to clean up their little pig pens and encourage them to smash their idols. But they refuse as they sit in their rebellion, clothed in the robes of their doctrines, while sitting on the throne of their lives, and they rule there.

And every sermon is a reproof. Every conversation at lunch after church with church friends is a reproof. I've had lunch with lost church members who love to talk about the history of Christianity in America and our Christian founding fathers, but they've yet to submit to the rule of the Heavenly Father.

They are ignorant to spiritual truths. They have not the Spirit of God in them. They are religiously lost people who are under continual reproof. And if they remain in rebellion to the claims of Christ on their life, God will not think twice or even blink once before cutting them off and sending them down to devil's hell.

Judgment on Religious Leaders and Teachers

Some are seminary professors. Some are deacons. Some are elders. Some are pastors. Some are Sunday school teachers. But every one of them has hardened themselves beneath God's merciful reproofs until it's settling day and God works judgment on them.

And they are carried off this earth and thrust into another world they are quite unprepared for. He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

Christ as the Remedy for Sin

That means dying without the remedy for sin. In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God cuts men off who have had light, and he has reproved, and now they're just combing the ground. He has to kill them.

Listen to me, friends. I have seen this thing occur time and time again with church people I have known personally whom God had been dealing with by reproofs of his mercy that continued to go unheeded.

And they refused to submit to Christ as Lord of their life and be saved by him. So they just got harder and harder like an adamant stone. They grew bitter and bitter and more evil and more wicked until a holy God had to cut them down and remove them.

Listen, friends, when I say God still reproves men.