Chased Out of This World

Have you ever been chased by someone you feared? I know when I was a little boy I'd run from some bullies who were chasing me. But I remember a terrifying incident when I was about nine years old and I was walking home from school and a strange man in a car began to follow me. I ran as fast as I could and ran down an alley and his car kept turning wherever I turned and I was running scared until I gave him the slip.

I was sure afraid that day. Have you ever been chased like that, friend? I want to read you a Bible verse that describes what happens to a person who dies outside of Christ. It's a terrifying verse, friend.

It's found in Job chapter 18 and verse 18, for it describes what takes place when a person goes out of this world who's not a Christian. He shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world. When unsaved individuals die, immediately they're chased by demon entities and driven from light into darkness to hell as they're chased out of the world.

All the comforts of this world are gone. Maybe you have a special place in your home where you feel safe and secure. Maybe it's a big easy chair you'd like to recline in and relax.

Every comfort you know in this world will be suddenly removed from you if you die outside of Christ and you're driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world, chased out of it forever. Are you afraid of the dark, friend? Some folks can't stand to be in a dark room or a dark tunnel long. Have you ever been on a train that passed through a dark tunnel and you couldn't wait to come through and see daylight? If you die in your sins, you'd be driven from light into darkness.

Jesus describes hell as a region of outer darkness where there is no light. In hell, you can't see your hand in front of your face. That's how dark it is.

You'll never see a sunrise in hell either. It's only darkness continually and perpetually. What flashes of light you'll see in hell will be the swirling and twisting flames that surround you, that engulf you.

Turn in your Bibles, friends, to Job chapter 18. I want to read us what God's word has to say about how the wicked will be cut off and driven into darkness as they are chased out of this world. Read with me now verses 16 through 21.

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. And listen, friends, to how God describes the death of a person who's not truly saved. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.

His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street. He shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world. He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.

They that come after him shall be astonished at his day, and they that went before were frightened. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God. I will stop there.

That's a terrifying passage of Scripture to all outside of Christ. Do you know God, friend? I didn't ask you if you once made a decision to become a Christian. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Does he know you? You'd better be certain, friend, that the foundation you're resting upon is a solid, genuine salvation, because many are deceived in our churches today who did what their spiritually ignorant pastor told them to do and called it salvation.

Multitudes of church members are deceived in these last days as the institutional church is being prepared to receive Antichrist and bow to him. Does Jesus know you? In Matthew's Gospel, we read in chapter 7, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Listen to me, dear church member. You'd better be sure the seat you're sitting upon in the sanctuary is not a rotten plank of an empty religious profession that is ready to creak and break apart and send you down to hell. He shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world.

Listen to me, friend, because you may have never gotten to Christ savingly, and you may have never gotten under the shelter of his blood, and therefore you're yet in your sins and in great danger. Are you wearing the wedding garment of Christ's righteousness? Do you have forgiveness of sin? Listen to this description of an unsaved person as a spectacle before the king. And he saith unto him, friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

Do you know why he was speechless, friend? Because my Bible says that every guilty rebel's mouth will be stopped when the judge of the earth finds him guilty. Now look at what this king did to this person who snuck into the feast without a wedding garment. Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and foot and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness.

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen. In other words, if a person had crept into a church wearing only an empty religious profession, that person will die in their sins and be exposed to the wrath of God as they are driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world. Weeping and gnashing of teeth describes the reaction as they are cast into that outer darkness and chased out of the world.

Weeping speaks of great loss and grief, and gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret, and some of that great anger will be directed at the false shepherd who told you that you were saved by walking an aisle and accepting Jesus. Your regret will be that you never came under the sound of the true gospel in a day of apostasy in the church. This is a matter of life and death, which rests upon whether you were truly saved or whether you were deceived and lost.

If you have never come under Holy Spirit conviction, then you have never been saved. This little stuff we call salvation today can't save a flea, much less a spiritually blinded, sin-loving individual who hates all things holy. The devil has much of the religious church world in the palms of his hands, and he is promoting a religion without Christ.

He will speak through his unsaved ministers and get you to do something physical, like walking an aisle to receive Jesus, or making a decision to become a Christian, or repeating the sinner's prayer, or raising your hand, and he'll give you a feeling or an impulse or maybe show you a light and then let you believe you were saved and he'll even give you a false peace, but he cannot give you life. Only Christ can give you life. Have you ever gotten to Christ? Are you in Christ, friend? Or have you just done something physical or mental and thought it was a free ticket to heaven? Listen, you cannot live in rebellion to God and Christ and still go to heaven.

Have you ever exercised biblical repentance? Have you ever been born again by the Spirit of God? Have you ever been lost? How can you be so certain you're saved if you've never been lost, driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world? Don't rest your eternal destiny on what some pastor told you was salvation. You better get out your Bible, friend, and you better get on your knees and let the Word of God go through you like a hot knife through butter. The Word of God is a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.

Pray that God's Spirit breaks up your stony heart and makes it a heart of flesh. Get to Christ, friend, and get under the shelter of his blood. The dead in Christ are carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, meaning into the arms and presence of Jesus.

The wicked dead are driven from light into darkness and chased out of this world by demons into hell itself. Jesus said, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And Jesus said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Let us pray.