Fall of the Wicked

Well friends, it's good to be here tonight and you're not going to want to miss my message tonight as I speak about two kinds of people in the world. I'm not referring to the rich and the poor, for they are all around us here in this godless city by the sea, where more booze will be consumed tonight to drown the entire nation. More adultery and perversion and fornication will be committed tonight in this town by lust-filled individuals bent on satisfying their lusts before the evening is over.

The wicked make a mockery of God as they shake their angry fists in the face of God and dare him to do anything about it. There's a spirit of Antichrist growing in the land. You'd have to be blind not to see it.

The wicked want you to be tolerant of their evil lifestyle, but they only hate your Jesus. Listen to me, friends, and listen to me loud and clear, for we live in a day where wrong is right and right is wrong and evil is called good and good is called evil. And it's important to look at what the Bible has to say about life and eternity.

Hear me, friends, each of you here, you men, you women, you boys, you girls, hear me, young person, each of you are eternity-bound individuals. You each have a soul that will live in eternity, either in heaven or in hell. My Bible declares there are only two kinds of people in the world, the saved and the lost, the righteous and the wicked.

The righteous who are saved by faith in Christ and who rest securely beneath Christ's blood from an eternity of punishment in hell. And then there are the wicked who lie outside of Christ's blood and who will bear God's wrath for sin and all eternity in hell. The wicked can fall into various categories like out-and-out atheists and pagans.

The religiously lost of world religions can comprise that category as well, who deny Christ for salvation. Or the wicked can live inside a church resting upon a false foundation of an empty religious profession. Hear me, friends, the fall of the wicked is as sure as the sun rising tomorrow.

The wicked rest upon a gasoline-soaked mattress that hovers inches from the rising flames of hell. Their fall is guaranteed for God is a God of justice. God will and must punish sin.

I know we don't believe that today, but my Bible is true, friends, and God is true to his word. He is a God of justice who will punish sin. But all you have to do, friend, is to walk through the Gospels, up that dusty road to Calvary, and behold that slain Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.

One good look at the nail-pierced Son of God hanging on that bloody cross will convince you that a holy God must punish sin. For he spared not his only begotten Son, who bore the curse, becoming sin for us. The fall of the wicked is as certain as the tide of the sea as it goes out from the shore.

I'm here to warn you, friends, I'm here to tell you of your danger of dying in your sins. Listen to me, friends, the fall of the wicked can occur in a young person, or they can die in middle age or old age. Sometimes God will allow a wicked person to have a long life as they continue to pollute society and corrupt morals so that in hell they have a larger degree of punishment laid upon them.

The more evil their influence is in the world, the more brimstone they stack upon their head in eternity until finally the heavy load carries them swiftly down to perdition and eternal damnation. The fall of the wicked can happen from a pedestal of popularity up in Hollywood hills as many wicked celebrities promote evil and corrupt morals, living their life completely unaware of their danger. As they stand on a Persian rug they can be snatched out suddenly from beneath them and they are toppled down to the engulfing flames of a devil's hell.

Or the fall of the wicked can happen from a church pew as unconverted church members sit stupidly on a foundation of false security whose timbers beneath them creak and moan with the weight of their unforgiven sins and it soon breaks way and the fall of the wicked shocks many a good deacon who was never saved to begin with. In the gospel of Luke we find our Lord Jesus Christ as he contrasts two kinds of people over and over again. He talks about the saved and the lost.

He uses striking imagery to contrast the righteous from the wicked and he ends his powerful discourse with a vivid picture of the fall of the wicked. If you have your Bible with you, friend, turn to Luke chapter 6 where we find Jesus delivering his sermon on the plain and we will take it up beginning in verse 43. Here Jesus speaks of two trees, one bad and one good.

The two trees bear two kinds of fruit, one good and one corrupt. Jesus tells of the good man who out of the treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good where the evil man can only produce what he is in his natural condition which is evil works and evil speech for out of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaks. You hear you'll hear the filthiest language in the city all around us tonight all the whole but the whole Christ is here the time he's talking his sermon he's contrasting the unsaved from the saved he's making the distinction between the two then quite remarkably Jesus turns the focus of his audience to those who are false professors those who claim to follow him and love him but in reality are none of his at all though these religious hypocrites claim him he doesn't own them listen friends in verse 46 and following Jesus speaks with clarity on the distinguishing difference of the righteous and the wicked and how they're different difference has different ends how separated they are in eternity as they go to two different destinations in verse 46 we hear Jesus say and why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say whosoever cometh to me and heareth my sayings and doeth them I will show you to whom he is like he is like a man which built a house and dig deep and laid the foundation on a rock and when the flood arose the stream beat vehemently upon that house and could not shake it for it was founded upon a rock let me pause here friends to relate a personal story to you when my wife and I were building our home we first bought a track of land out in the country then we hired a builder to build us a home upon it to our specifications because it was a sprawling home on uneven land the builder had to use bigger cement blocks and then he had to fill them with rebar to give it a more solid foundation so the home would not shift over time I recall that once the pillars of the foundation were laid I asked a Christian couple to meet me and my wife out on the property one afternoon and I had written Bible verses on pieces of paper and I folded those pieces of paper up and I placed those Bible verses into the cement pillars of that foundation of that house and then when I was through doing that we held hands and we prayed that Jesus Christ would be the center foundation of that home Christ is the only rock to stand upon friend and the Lord Christ must have all rights to followers of his for the gospel has rights and claims on followers of Christ Jesus in our passage here in Luke's gospel Christ ends his discourse and ends his sermon by bringing it to a close with the striking imagery of the fall of the wicked and I believe he intended it to be a warning to all false professors in all future generations I will end my sermon this evening friends with his ending as well and I want the words of Christ to ring in your ears to linger in your hearts long after my voice ceases I want you to contemplate your own claim on Christ and examine yourselves lest you be reprobates here now is the description of the fall of the wicked either from a rebellious society or from a church pew of rebellion of a life never surrendered to the lordship of Christ but he that heareth and doeth not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the stream did beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the rune of that house was great I want you to think about those words of Christ Jesus friend as I'm gonna sing a hymn to you but while I sing I want you to be absolutely certain you are standing on firm ground the firm ground of a solid conversion in Christ Jesus if you've been troubled by the spirit of God during my message this evening friend and you feel quite alarmed that your state is not as sound as you believed that the ground you were on is merely shifting sand then I want you to come to Christ for salvation as I sing Jesus hung on a bloody cross to pay the penalty for sin God demands repentance and a surrendered life to his dear son the Lord Jesus Christ anything less is resting on the rotten plank boards of a false faith you come to Christ friend for forgiveness of sin come lay your sin burden down at his now pierced feet come lay your rebellion down and give your all to a sovereign who sits on a throne at the right hand of the father and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross look at that man on the cross friend look at that blood-stained savior from sin there is love flows out to all to a world of guilty sinners 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 hear me now flows out to all who come in repentance confessing they are sinners and own them as their savior and listen to the words of Christ Jesus I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me come to Christ friend and believe on him for forgiveness of sin he is the pearl of great price worth selling all for and losing all for so he can be gained Jesus is the remedy and refuge for sin his blood can wash away the deepest sin come as I sing friend my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand all other ground is sinking sand when darkness fails his lovely face I rest on his unchanging grace in every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand all other ground is sinking sand when he shall come with trumpet sound oh may I then in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone faultless to stand before the throne on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand all other ground is sinking sand