Trap Door of a False Profession

When I was a teenager, I was a professional magician. I performed on local TV shows and at state fairs and at children's birthday parties. Every magician worth his salt has a magic table with a trapdoor on it.

I would place an apple or a ball on that trapdoor and cover it with a handkerchief and release the hinge on the trapdoor so the object would fall into a receptacle below. Then with a flourish I would remove the handkerchief and that's how I made objects vanish in the thin air. I want to speak to you today friends about a trapdoor.

If you are an unconverted person who is outside of Christ, then you are sitting on a trapdoor right this very second. You could at any moment and without warning fall into a receptacle below and drop into a region of darkness and terror called hell. If you were to suddenly be removed from this world, that trapdoor would hinge open and down you would fall into a bottomless pit.

You would have a sensation of falling continually in pitch darkness. When I was a younger man, I got on a roller coaster ride at Disneyland in California called Space Mountain. It was dark in there and suddenly you were turned upside down and thrust at a violent speed into the darkness.

It was terrifying. If you are an unconverted person, you sit upon a trapdoor to hell and at any moment your life can be unhinged by death and you can be thrust into a dark region of immense terror. You will be locked up in a prison.

You'll never be able to leave. The prison guards are demons and your cellmates are the wicked dead who were tortured day and night with no end. The title of my message today, friends, is Trapdoor of a False Profession and my text can be found in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 32.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in verse 5. Did you know that the devil can give a church member a false peace as they sit upon a false foundation in the sanctuary? A false foundation of carnal security. Many in the church today are yet unconverted and rest upon a false hope of heaven.

Many travel the broad road of a easy religion because they walked an aisle and made a decision but they never got to Christ. Many believe in the death of Christ but I fear many don't believe on the Christ who died. Many stand in pulpits today and many sit in crowded sanctuaries who have never been awakened to their lost condition, never been convicted of sin, and never have experienced a new birth through a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit called regeneration.

They are yet in their sins. They are yet unconverted church members who sit upon a trapdoor of a false profession. If this describes you, friend, then you sit on a trapdoor of false peace and below you is the howling wilderness of hell.

The howling wilderness of hell is filled with constant noise of the damned as they shriek in horror and weep in anguish at being sent to such a place of endless torment. Imagine when you die that as you're placed into your coffin at the bottom of your coffin is but a trapdoor and as they lower you into the ground your casket stays atop the earth when it contains your stiff lifeless corpse but your immortal soul drops through that trapdoor as you are plunged into hell. The farther you fall and the closer you get to the region of darkness the louder become the screams and cries and the great noise of hell's occupants.

A door opens and you are thrust into the bedlam of such unspeakable horror that you rather choose any earthly insane asylum to live in instead. The inmates of this prison are the most wicked individuals from every generation since Adam's fall. You're locked up in there with serial killers like Jack the Ripper of London and Nero of Rome.

Your cellmates are the generation of the wicked dead from the days of Noah and your now close companions are the inhabitants that got burned up in Sodom and Gomorrah. No one can help you. No one can hear your screams as they are drowned out by millions untold millions of weeping souls who cry out with horror and agony.

The worst and the best of society are locked up together in the howling wilderness of hell. Church hypocrites are all around you as they shriek and amidst the burning flames. The sinners in Zion are afraid.

Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings. Let me ask you friend who do you think holds the hinge to the trap door of hell? The devil? No not him. The devil has power to make you sin but the devil has no power to cast you into hell.

So who is it that operates the hinge on the trap door of eternity so to speak? It's Almighty God. To me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due time for the day their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

In other words a holy God must punish sin. A lost sinner walks atop a slippery surface across a perilous path ready to slip at any moment and fall headlong into eternity through that trap door whose hinge is in the hands of a holy God. Jesus warned his hearers in the Gospel of Matthew fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

God can pull that trap door from beneath you anytime without warning. Listen friends death can suddenly remove you out of this world. We live in a day of sudden death.

This country is full of madmen who can gun you down in a public place when you least expect it. No matter your age if you were young or if you were older a sudden and unexpected event could remove you and plunge your soul through that trap door of eternity and thrust you into the howling wilderness of hell. Hell is called outer darkness.

That makes me think of outer space where it's dark all the time. Listen friend you sit atop uncertainty as to the condition of your soul but because you are a sinner you walk in slippery places and you could fall headlong into hell at any moment. God holds the hinge to your life breath in his hands.

Your false peace could suddenly be blown away like a pile of dry leaves in the wind. For man also knoweth not his time as the fishes that are taken in a 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 falls suddenly upon them. I had a friend years ago who died very young and unexpectedly while he was at his job a heavy piece of equipment fell on him and crushed him to death.

He went to work that morning never dreaming he'd be laid in a grave that week. Listen to me friend if you have never gotten to Christ savingly to where your sins are washed in his blood then you walk in slippery places your foot will soon slide you sit atop a trap door to eternity that could be unhinged at any moment by a holy God you must exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ to avoid hell and to gain heaven. Christ is the sinner's substitute you must get to Christ.

I know I am a sinner and I need a substitute for sin in the person of Jesus Christ and so do you friend so do you. Jesus alone is the remedy for sin you must get under the blood through repentance and you must be born above through the new birth Jesus said for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Let me ask you friend have you ever been lost? In Luke's Gospel Jesus relates parables of things that are lost and then found.

He speaks of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son and there's great rejoicing when these three lost are found. Are you a lost sinner? Be honest friend are you lost? Only God can show you that you were lost and on your way to hell. Don't be deceived by a false profession that could send you to a devil's hell.

You don't know if this year will be your last. Turn to Christ friend sell all you have and all you are and gain him the pearl of great price. Jesus declared I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Come to Christ friend and believe on him and on him before it's too late let us pray