Riding a Coffin to Hell

Charles Finney spoke of the old grist mill that operated by the force of water upon two millstones. There was the top stone and the bottom stone, and these two millstones are laid one atop the other, and as they turn, they grind the wheat into flour. Finney said the bottom stone was the law of God written on the heart of man, which is his conscience.

Finney said the top stone is the preached law of God, and when these two meet, then the Holy Spirit can operate by grinding upon the heart in conviction of sin. It is my object today, friends, to give the Spirit of God room to operate on your heart with Holy Ghost conviction, and my prayer is that you will turn away from self and sin and turn to a bloodstained Savior, Christ Jesus, for pardon of sin. You are in for a rough ride, friend, as I will not pull any punches as I preach the following message entitled, Riding a Coffin to Hell.

As soon as man is born, he begins to die. It isn't long from the time he goes from cradle to coffin, and they put him in the ground. His lifetime, man gives little thought to the eternal world of damnation and torments and flames and devils to which he travels.

Man enters this world, riding a coffin to hell. Man has a rude nature, bent on sin, and drinks iniquity like water. Man is dead in sin as he rides that coffin to hell.

Are you any different, friend? I believe not. In Heldenhead, South Carolina, you can take a dolphin cruise where dolphins swim beside the boat as you head toward Davosky Island. It's an unforgettable experience, but you don't know that the dolphins are beside you until they come up out of the water.

So too, you live your life carelessly, with no thought of eternity, and right beside you are demons chasing your coffin to hell. Demons are waiting for the hour of your death to drag you down to hell. Hell fills by the hour with unsuspecting victims as they are thrown into pitch-black darkness of a bottomless pit.

In Greek mythology, there is the story of the Sword of Damocles, whereby a sword is suspended above the king's throne, attached only by a small thread of a hair of a horse's tail. The image evokes constant peril and danger hanging over one's head. You, friend, have such a sword suspended above you, and it drifts with your blood, ready to descend upon you at any moment.

The sword of death hangs over you every day, every hour, for you know not when you will be suddenly removed from this world and cast into another world you were quite unprepared for. The only power keeping the sword of death from cutting you down is the mercy of God. All else is against you.

The weight of your sins are against you as they lay heavy upon that sword hanging over your head, and every day new sins are stacked up there against you in a mountain of evidence of your breaking the strict law of God. All the lies you've told, all the deceits against others you have hatched, the stealing and the cheating haunts you, your fornications are multiplied, and your adulterous actions numerous. You have continually spit in the very face of God through your rebellion and sin, and now the weight is too much to bear.

Your sins accuse you like ghastly pointing fingers suspended above you. As you ride in your coffin to hell, that sword dangles above, ready to descend at any moment and send you hurling into a godless eternity. You have no guarantee of tomorrow, and you are ignorant of your constant danger because of sin.

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 men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. You have been wooed and reproved by God's Spirit time and time again throughout your life to surrender to Christ, but you have put off coming to Christ with one excuse after another until Proverbs 29.1 rings in your ears. He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

The key words are suddenly be destroyed, implying the sword of death hangs ready to cut you down at any moment. Why doesn't it? Will God's grace keep it suspended, or will he one day cease to woo you any more, and withdraw his grace and turn you over to the death angel, as the sword of justice bears down upon you? But you are already in a coffin riding to hell, because in Ezekiel God's word declares, Behold, all souls are mine, as the soul of the Father, so also is the soul of the Son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, and die you will, into a devil's hell, where flames and smoke will engulf you, and the shrieks of the damned will give you no rest, night or day, but you will not repent and turn to God, and to Christ for forgiveness of sin.

You are hardened in your sin, even though God still wants you to turn to him and live. He declares, Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity should not be your ruin, for I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye. But you refuse to turn to God, and surrender to his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, because you are in a mad rush to enjoy your life, and taste every pleasure of the world, as you ride in your coffin to hell.

Repentance is a grace given, and you don't have it, what shall you do? 2 Timothy 2.25 declares, If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of truth, God requires immediate repentance, but you refuse to repent and turn to God. Oh, why? Why will you die? Your sin shall surely cast you down to hell, as surely as he that diggeth a pit shall fall into it. The bottomless pit of hell, friend, awaits you, and the coffin you are riding in, you are wrapped in soft satin and plush velvet, and it dulls your senses to your danger of dying in your sins.

But the day fast approaches, and you can't stop it, when the dust returned to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. You have a date with death, friend, and there is no escape, but God offers mercy. But you have a duty, 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. Sinner friend, do you need pardon from sin? There is only one way to stay out of hell, and that's through the remedy for sin, in the person of Christ Jesus.

But you must come to him, and believe on him, and surrender all you are to all he is. He is Lord. He is a reigning sovereign who sits on a throne at the right hand of the Father, and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.

You're heading towards a great gulf in eternity, and you need Christ for forgiveness of sin. Climb out of that coffin and get to Christ. Before it's too late, be like the two blind men sitting by the wayside when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord.

Turn from your sins, friend, and turn to a blood-stained Savior from sin. Repent, I beg you, before it's too late.