No Sinner Will Go Scott Free — E.A. Johnston

As a God-called preacher, with a burden for the souls of men, I feel led to pray before I begin my message today, friends. So if you'll bear with me and quiet your minds and hearts before the Lord, I feel God wants to do some business with someone today.

Let us pray. Great God, you are a jealous God who have no gods before thee. I pray for your spirit to attend the preaching of your word, and that you will make factual your word a hammer today that breaks up all false foundations.

And Lord, make your word a factual holy fire to burn up all false refuges, so that a poor sinner can be awakened to his lost condition, and see his danger of dying in his sins, and feel his need of a savior from sin, and be pointed to the only remedy and refuge for sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the pearl of great price, worth selling all for and losing all for, so he may be gained.

No Sinner Will Go Scot-Free

It is my prayer, great God, that now, during this message, the Holy Spirit will speak to hearts and disturb people. I pray these things in the strong name of Christ Jesus. Amen. In today's society, friends, crimes can be committed by wealthy and powerful individuals, and they can get off with just a slap on the wrist, or at times go scot-free, just like O .J. Simpson did when he murdered two people.

And because he had the money to hire a dream team of high-paid attorneys, he was found not guilty. The term scot-free means if you get off scot-free, you avoid punishment for doing something that deserves punishment.

For example, although the police caught him red-handed, the judge said there wasn't enough evidence, and he got off scot-free. My message today, friends, is an antithesis of the modern judicial system, as the title of my message today is, No sinner will go scot-free, and my text can be found in the book of Nahum.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 1, and in verses 1 through 3. There are only three chapters in the book of Nahum, and they deal with the destruction of Nineveh, brought about by the righteous indignation of a holy god, who takes vengeance on the wicked inhabitants of Nineveh, because he is a god who must punish sin.

When the wicked city of Nineveh repented, under the preaching of Jonah, God showed mercy and spared the city. But time had passed, and a couple generations had died between Jonah's day and Nahum's day, and now the people were sinful to such a degree that the Lord is angry with Nineveh, and he calls the prophet Nahum to pronounce judgment upon it.

Their cup of iniquity was full, and all God could do was to destroy them. Nahum was a contemporary of Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah. Several scholars have suggested that Capernaum in Galilee was his birthplace, and was renamed Capernaum in his honor.

Nahum's entire message concerns the destruction of Nineveh, as their time had run out, and do you know what, friend? If you remain an unsaved individual, there will come a day when your time will run out, for God's Spirit will not always strive with man.

Nahum's Prophecy of Divine Vengeance

Let's look at our striking passage today, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 1. The burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkshite, I'll pause here to say that the term burden was sometimes used by prophets to describe the heaviness of their message of judgment.

Nahum was unburdened in his heart in proclaiming God's coming destruction upon them. Well, let's look at verse 2. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth. The Lord revengeth, and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

Let me state that a jealous God here says twice that he will take revenge upon his enemies. Nineveh was a great city, full of great sinners, and God is furious with them. It's as if the sword of Damocles is hanging over the city, glistening with their blood, ready to descend at any moment.

With this same sense, we see in Psalm 711 and verse 12. 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. Listen, friend, this may pertain to you personally.

If you are a lost individual, meaning you are outside the saving blood of Christ, then you have no guarantee of tomorrow. You could suddenly be cut down by death, your body put in a coffin, and your soul would go out into an eternity.

You are quite unprepared for. You may be young. You may be in good health. But death could visit you quite unexpectedly and very suddenly. In Ecclesiastes we read,. 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 the snare.

So are the sons of man snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them, because of sin. We are enemies of God, because God is holy, and he hates sin. The Bible describes man in these terms in the book of Job.

How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water. Man is born with a ruined nature, and bent toward sin. Listen, friend, you are not a sinner because you sin. Rather, you sin because you are a big sinner.

Sin, Hell, and the Certainty of Judgment

A sinner is described in the Bible as being dead in sin. In other words, a lost person is in sin. A saved person is in Christ. If you are outside of Christ when you die, you will be cast into a region of outer darkness called hell.

Hell is a prison of torments from which you can never escape. It's a burning region of intense heat that is suffocating to all who are shut up in there. It's an eternal place of punishment for the damned, where there's wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Wailing speaks of deep grief and agony. Gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret. And that brings us to the third verse in our text today. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.

This means all those who are apart from salvation will experience the wrath of God. A similar passage that says the same thing is found in Exodus, where God passes before Moses, as seen in Exodus 34, verses 5 -7.

Let me read that to us now, friends. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, inabundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.

I will stop there. God will by no means clear the guilty. He will not at all acquit the wicked. In other words, no sinner will go scot-free. Like the sinners in Nineveh, one only has so much time to repent, and then time runs out.

And when that happens, friends, there's hell to pay. Listen to me, friend. God will not always strive for your soul and reprove you. If you continue to delay coming to Christ, if you delay the wooing of His Holy Spirit, He can suddenly cut you off without warning.

The Need for Repentance and a Substitute

My Bible says so in Proverbs 29 .1. He that is often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. The remedy spoken of here is the remedy for sin in the person of Christ Jesus.

I know I am a sinner, and I need a substitute for sin. And so do you, friend, so do you. Because God will by no means clear the guilty. A person is a rebel against God because of sin. Sin is breaking God's law, and God requires perfection to get into His holy heaven.

And no man is perfect, but all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every person at a future judgment will be held up against the strictness and severity of God's unbending law. And if you stand there, friend, in your own merits, you will fail that test and be sent to hell.

You must stand in the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ. The only chance this poor little preacher has to stay out of hell is that Christ's life is laid down and applied to me. Like our text says in Nahum, God will not at all acquit the wicked.

No one will get off scot-free. You must get to Christ, friend, and get your sins washed in His blood. You must be born from above. Let me tell you about Jesus. I know you've heard of Jesus. Jesus came into this world doing good, healing the sick and giving sight to the blind.

He even raised the dead to life. Yet what happened? A cruel man cried away with Him and nailed Him to a cross. Go ahead, friend. Look at that man on the cross. See Him there with His arms outstretched, beckoning you to come to Him and believe on Him.

Look at that blessed man on the cross. When all is against Him, His love flows out to a world of guilty sinners. He prays, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Look at that bloodstained Savior from sin, who's the friend of sinners.

He is calling, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Are you weary of your sins, friend? Come lay your sin-burden down at His nail-pierced feet. The cross is the place where wicked 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 Him as their Savior and Lord. Listen, friend. If you've not trusted this blessed Savior, receive Him now, before it's too late.

Christ as the Only Refuge from Judgment

Soon He will come in judgment on this world, when His anger shall burn as an oven, and then you shall meet Him as your judge, and He will not at all acquit the wicked. No sinner will go scot-free, but every sinner who dies in his sins will be cast into the torments of an everlasting hell.

I'm going to sing a hymn, friend, and if God's been dealing with your soul through this message with conviction, then don't delay, don't delay one more minute. You come to Christ and believe on Him. Jesus is the only means of forgiveness for sin.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Salvation means you have found Christ. Come to this blessed Savior from sin. You come as I sing. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.