Walking on Thin Ice Over a Lake of Fire

Well, I'm glad to be here tonight friends and I have a message you will want to hear because it's a message of life and death. To some of you it will be life and to some of you it will be death. I want to begin my message with the shortest definition of sin found in my bible.

You know what sin is. In Isaiah we read, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and that's what sin is friend.

It's going our way when we know it isn't God's way. There may be someone here tonight who's been going their own way even though they know better. They know about God and His ways.

You might have been brought up in a Christian home but you sure never got to God to become a Christian. You've walked your own way. You walked away from Him.

You walked away from your family heritage because of sin. This message tonight friend may help you. It may help you be reconciled back to God for forgiveness of sin.

Men walk in senseless stupidity on the very verge of eternity quite unaware of their constant danger. I was in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland staying at a hotel. Little did I know I was about to step into a death trap.

The small oval tub in the bathroom of that hotel had just been waxed and the moment I stepped in there to take a shower my feet began to slip and to slide beneath me. There was nothing to hang on to as my feet accelerated on that slippery surface until the force of inertia flipped me upside down on my head as I landed on a concrete floor. In the fall I injured my head and I broke my wrist but I could have just have easily broke my neck and gone out of this world prematurely by sudden death.

People leave this world every day by sudden death. They climb into their car not knowing it will soon be their coffin. They go for a ride on a bicycle and they're killed by a drunk driver.

They go stand in line in a public place and are gunned down by a madman or removed by sudden explosion. Some of you walk on slippery places as I speak. There are people out here tonight determined to sin all they can before the night is over.

They're high on drugs intoxicated with booze and consumed with lust as they seek a sex partner to fornicate with. Every massage parlor and strip club in this city tonight is jam-packed with customers. Jam-packed with feverish men burning in their lusts.

My bible says this about the condition of man. In Job it declares how much more abominable and filthy is man which drinks iniquity like water. A man or woman hell-bent on sin is bent on a slippery path to destruction and hell.

Listen to me friends. The following verse from Jeremiah may very well describe you and your present peril. Listen to the word of God as it might speak to you.

It's about where you're walking right now. Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness. They shall be driven on and fall therein.

For I will bring evil upon them even the year of their visitation saith the Lord. This verse friends describes several aspects of the person who is living their life outside the will of God. First it speaks of their way being a dark way.

One where they cannot see the danger lurking near them. Secondly it's an insecure way and one of constant peril. For every step they take it's on slippery ground.

Have you ever tried walking on ice friend? If you have you know how easy it is to fall. I used to live in Chicago when the snow and ice was great and I had to often walk across a slippery path of ice just to get home and sometimes I fell as my feet went out from beneath me. Walking outside of God's will for your life is described as a slippery way.

But there are two statements seen in this verse from the book of Jeremiah that startled me. The first is the description of the lost individual who lives their life beneath the condemnation of a holy God as a guilty rebel who has broken his law by sin. The words they shall be driven on brings to mind someone in a boat caught in a storm who is upon storm tossed waves as they foam and rage.

That person is driven on by force beyond their control. You are in love with your sins and they rule your life as they drive you on deeper and deeper into more gross sins. Listen friends to the warning here found in Jeremiah as to the fall of the wicked.

God himself declares for I will bring evil upon them. God's promise to those outside the saving blood of his son Jesus Christ is that he will bring them personally to their eternal ruin. Ruin.

Hear me now. Ruin. That's damnation in a burning smoking hell of torments forever and ever.

You don't want to go to hell friend. Hell is a terrible place of darkness and misery. Jesus calls it outer darkness where the worm doth not.

That means it goes on forever and he says there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Weeping speaks of great loss and grief. A gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret.

The damned in hell scream out at this very hour in anger and regret. Anger at themselves for being so foolish to ignore their eternal salvation. They gnash their teeth and they chew on their tongue as they weep bitter tears of agony and remorse.

They live under the outpoured wrath of an angry God who stokes the raging flames in hell by his fury. Listen friends if I could walk you over to the verge of eternity and lift the lid off that bottomless pit of smoke and misery. The cries and shrieks of the damned would keep you awake tonight.

Hear me now. I'm here to warn you. Do not go to hell.

Repent of your sins before it's too late. You're walking on slippery ground that can give way any moment. The title of my message this evening friends is walking on thin ice over a lake of fire.

Men walk upon thin ice not realizing their danger of the ice breaking giving way beneath their weight to send them into a watery grave. Two elements work against them increasing their peril and danger of ruin. A man in a spiritual stupor blinded by sin walk on thin ice over a lake of fire.

The heavy weight of their sins cracks the thin layer beneath them. Oh wow the intense heat of the flames below melts the layer from below. Soon through sudden calamity and death down they go down they go bound in everlasting chains of darkness thrust into the raging chaos and turmoil of a burning furnace stoked by the very wrath of a provoked holy God.

God speaks of hell as a lake of fire. In the book of Revelation we see this to be so. The lake of fire where every person who dies outside the saving blood of Christ is cast in there.

If their name's not found written in the book of life that's the book of eternal life through salvation in Christ Jesus. If their name's not in there you better look out friend for in Revelation 20 verse 15 we read and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. You may be walking on thin ice above a lake of fire.

Wouldn't you want to know it if that was your case? I sure would. The surface you were on melts away with every step that takes you closer and closer to your eternal ruin. If you die on your sins alienated from God you will drop into that region of burning fire in that lake of fire.

You must be born again friend. You must get a saving interest in Christ Jesus. His blood can wash away the deepest stain of sin.

Listen to the word of God from Isaiah. Come now and let us reason together sayeth the Lord though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.

Let me tell you about Jesus the friend of sinners. Jesus came down here so we can go up there. He came into the world doing good.

I know you've heard of Jesus. You've heard of his miracles. How he healed the sick and gave sight to the blind.

How he fed the hungry and he even raised the dead to life. Yet what happened? A wicked man cried away with him and nailed him to a cross. First they stripped him and whipped him.

They whipped his back until it was a quivering mass of bloody flesh. Then they blindfolded him and slapped his jaw saying prophesy who hit thee. Then they put a purple robe on him and placed a crown of thorns on his head.

Then they placed a reed in his hand and they bowed to him as a mock king. Then they got up and spit in his face one after another. Then they led him away to a place called Calvary where they crucified him on an ignoble cross.

Now listen to this description friends of the man on that cross taken from Isaiah chapter 53. He is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we have hid as it were our faces from him.

He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed.

Those verses speak of the suffering Savior hanging on the cross as he bore the curse and became sin for us. Oh look at that man on the cross friend. Look at him as he hangs there suspended from the earth as he declares and I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.

Look at that bloodstained Savior from sin. His arms outstretched beckoning you to come to him. He says I am the way the truth and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me. 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 them as their Savior and Lord.

Come to that bloodstained Savior from sin and lay your sin burden down at his now pierced feet. Come and surrender to him friend. Jesus is your only hope.

Your only hope of staying out of that lake of fire. But you must come to him and believe on him. He cries if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink.

He that believeth on me as the scripture has said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. You've been walking in darkness on a slippery place friend. Jesus can lead you out of the darkness of sin.

Jesus says I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life. That means to have eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is the only remedy and refuge for sin. Jesus is the pearl of great price worth selling off for so he may be gained. Hear me friends.

I'm going to sing a hymn friend and as I sing it I want you to come to Christ for forgiveness of sin. If God's been dealing with your awakened soul through this message then don't delay. You come to Christ.

You come give your all to him. You own him as your Lord and Savior. Listen to me.

The most dangerous place to be tonight is on thin ice over a lake of fire. The odds are against you if you stay that way friends. The odds will run out on you someday.

You'll stand before Christ as your judge. Now you can have him as your Savior if you come to him in humility of heart. Repent of your sins.

Turn to him. Own him as your Savior and Lord. Get to Christ friend and get your sins washed in his blood.

He can save even you. But you must come to him and believe on him. Come as I sing.

Oh victory in Jesus my Savior forever. He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew him.

And all my love is to him. He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood. I heard an old old story.

How a Savior came from glory. How he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me. I heard about his groaning.

Of his precious blood's atoning. Then I repented of my sins and won the victory. Oh victory in Jesus my Savior forever.

He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew him. And all my love is to him.

He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood.