Condemned Already

John 3:18: He that believeth on him is not condemned: But he that beliveth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

On July 8th, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached one of the most powerful sermons ever preached: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The text was one phrase in Deuteronomy 32:35: "Their feet shall slide in due time." In that congregation in Enfield, Connecticut, people hung on to pews and pillars of the church to keep from sliding into hell.

This text implies, Edwards said, among other things, " That they (sinners) were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he will stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: which is expressed in Psalm 73:18 and 19: Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down to destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment."

If you get nothing else from this message, remember this observation made by Edwards: "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." This is so because, as our text, John 3: 18 says, unbelievers are "condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." As there is no one who is not a sinner, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, everyone who does not believe in Christ is condemned already.

Three points will be made in this discourse: First, there is a way out of the condemnation of God. That way is to put your trust in Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God. Secondly, If you don't believe on the Son, you are already sentenced to hell. There is nothing you have to do to go there, because you are condemned already. Finally, it will be shown from Scripture that sinners are condemned already because their deeds are evil, and they will not come to God's light.


I. The first thing we will see is that there is a way out of the condemnation of God. You don't have to go to hell. The text says, "He that believeth on him is not condemned." The Lord Jesus Himself is speaking here, teaching a man named Nicodemus how to be saved. He tells him, in verses 3-7, "Ye must be born again."

He tells them in verses 14 and 15, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus tells him He will be lifted up on the cross, crucified for their sins, and yours and mine. He will take upon Himself the curse of sin, and be made a curse for us. He will do this so that those who rely on Him will escape the condemnation of hell, and live with Him forever. As verse 16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This eternal life is a gift from God that is accepted by trusting the One Who gave it. The next verse says, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Again, the first part of our text says, "He that believeth is not condemned." They who trust Him have gone from being "condemned already" to "not condemned." It is a complete change in destiny; a change from being an unforgiven sinner on his way to a devil's hell, to a forgiven sinner who has a home with God in heaven.

A word of warning: If you really believe something, you will act in accordance to that belief. Trusting Christ as your Savior will change your life. James 1:22 says, "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." There are many who play "Church." They say they believe in Christ, but are they really only deceiving themselves? They go to church on Sunday and live without even a thought for God for the rest of the week. Trusting in Christ is having a relationship with God Himself, not merely assenting to the doctrines of Christianity. It is to put your total reliance on Christ for salvation, and to live your life as a "doer of the word."

Being born again means you are trusting Him to do a work inside you. II Corinthians 5:17 says, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new." If you truly believe Jesus died for your sins, you are not going to dishonor Him by doing those things that put Him on the cross. If you believe Christ was resurrected from the dead, you will live by relying on the power of that resurrection. If you believe the Lord is coming again, you will live like you are expecting Him at any moment.

You are a hypocrite if you say you believe in Christ and live the same way you always have. If you come to a service like this and act like a Christian , and then go out and disobey every commandment God gave, you are a child of the devil, no matter how loudly you may protest otherwise. You say you believe, but do you really believe? James 2:19 speaks to this: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." Professions of faith are only as good as the life backing them up. Because you are "condemned already," your hypocrisy is only going to make your condemnation that much worse. You must repent, and turn to Christ, and depend on His power to enable you to live His way. Don't dare say you believe in Christ if you are not willing to back it up with your manner of living. As John the Baptist said in John 3:36, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."


II. A second thing we see from this text is this: If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you don't have to do a thing to go to hell. You are condemned already to go there. As our text says, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God."

Jonathan Edwards said of unbelievers, "They are already under a sentence of condemnation to Hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them, so that they are bound over already to Hell."

You don't have to get drunk one more time to go to hell. You are condemned already. You don't have to stick one more needle in your arm and blow away your mind with whatever drug is in it. You are condemned already. You don't have to go into that "adult" bookstore one more time and purchase one more magazine or video. You are condemned already. If you don''t place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, your sin has already put you under sentence to hell.

You don't have to cheat on your taxes one more time to go to hell. You are condemned already. You don't have to load one more pornographic DVD into that player, or look at one more member of the opposite sex (or the same sex) with lust in your heart, to go to hell. You are condemned already. You don't have to keep up the pretense of being a believer through one more church service, knowing what a hypocrite you really are, to go to hell. You are condemned already.

As John the Baptist said in verse 36, "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." You who do not believe on the Son of God are condemned already. The wrath of God already abides on you! To paraphrase Edwards, "There is nothing that keeps you at any moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God."


III. A final thing seen from our text is, the reason men are condemned already is because their deeds are evil and they will not come to God's light.

A. Men are condemned already because their deeds are evil. Jesus said in verse 19, "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

The Humanist believes that man is basically good. The vast majority of Americans, whether they admit it or not, if they are not Humanists, are influenced by this philosophy. A lot of churches in this post-Christian world do not even preach a semblance of the true Gospel, but do try to change society. This, in many cases, is well-intentioned, and churches should try to change what is wrong. But in the long run, apart from Biblical truth, doing so will only have a minimal effect on society or in eternity.God did not leave His people on earth to change society. He left His people here to teach His Gospel and make disciples of those of those who will come to Him. God's strategy is to change society by changing one person at a time. It is only the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that save, because it is His truth that is eternal. As the Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."

Herein lies the error of Humanism, which teaches that mankind is basically good: The truth is that mankind is basically evil. This is what the bible teaches, and this is what is borne out by the facts. As every parent knows, children do not have to be taught to get into mischief and cause trouble. They do that quite naturally on their own. They have to be taught to do right. Doing wrong is what comes natural.

The Scriptures also make it abundantly clear that men are basically evil:

Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

King David, after committing adultery with Bathsheba and having her husband, Uriah the Hittite murdered, wrote in Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

There are many passages in the New Testament which point to the same truth, that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and all are under sin: Romans 3:9 reads, "What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they all are under sin."

Romans 1:32 reads, "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

In Galatians 3:22, Paul wrote, "But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise of faith by Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe."

Many popular "gospel" presentations open by teaching that God loves man. That is certainly true, but it is not the Biblical place to begin a presentation of the Gospel. Man's inclination to sin is the first theme of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Paul did not mention God's love until the fifth chapter. The first three chapters deal with sin and judgment, topics that are avoided in churches that compromise the truth. Yet these topics are at the very heart of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some verses from chapters 1-3 will substantiate these statements:

Romans 1:18 says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

We read in Romans 2:12, "For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law: and as many as have the law shall be judged by the law.

And Romans 3: 19 and 20 read, Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law: that every mouth be stopped: and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

Here is an excerpt from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God about the sinful nature of man: "Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and boundless in its fury, and while wicked men live here, it is like fire pent up by God's restraints, whereas, if it were let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature, and as the heart is now a sink of sin, so if sin is not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul onto fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone."

The reason a man is condemned already is because his deeds are evil, and the reason his deeds are evil is because his heart is evil. The Lord Jesus, in Matthew 15:10 and 11, said, "Hear and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." In verses 18-20, He gives His reasons for this statement: "Those things which proceedeth out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile the man. Only through trusting Christ can one be changed from being condemned already to being saved. Only through the true Gospel message can this change take place.

B. Not only are men condemned already because their deeds are evil and are sinners by nature, but they are condemned already because they refuse to come into God's light. John 3:20 reads, "For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds be reproved.

Like cockroaches scurrying for cover when someone turns on a light switch, so do sinners run from the light of Christ and His Word. Even if they are not committing sins that can be seen by others, they are sinning in their desperately wicked hearts. Conscience will bear witness to this fact even if a man does not know a word of Scripture. It is not hard to silence the conscience, but do not find it so easy when faced with God's Word. This Word is described in Hebrews 4:12 as "quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This Word knows all and will judge not only actions, but also a man's very intentions. The scope of the judgment is shown in the next verse: Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." In other words, the Word knows everything you do and think, as well as the intentions behind your thoughts and actions.


Sinners do not want any part of the Light. They hate Him, but they need him. Jesus Christ is the true Light, which, as John 1:9 says, "lighteth every man that cometh into the world." The sad part is that there is no need to run from the Light, but people run from Him all the time. By running from the Light, sinners run from salvation. They choose not to repent of their sins. Like roaches, they would rather keep on living in the filth of their sin, and continue to scurry away form the Light. Unlike the roaches, the consequences for not coming to the Light are more horrible than can be imagined. Sinner, it is better to have your sins reproved while you still have an opportunity for salvation than to is to face the condemnation of Hell, to which you are condemned already. God is under no obligation whatsoever to give you even one more chance to get saved than you have already had.

In II Corinthians 6:2 Paul wrote, " Behold, now is the accepted time; behold today is the day of salvation." Edwards warned, "This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such favor to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and bitterness of mind."

Sinner, if you continue to reject the salvation Christ offers you, God will give you up to hardness of heart. If you continue to scurry from the Light, He will give you over to spiritual blindness. If you continue to suppress and deny the knowledge of God that you do have, He will, according to Romans 1:28, "give you over to a reprobate mind," that is, one that is incapable of having His approval, or in other words, a mind that can't think in a godly way. Remember what Jonathan Edwards said, "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God."

If you are not trusting Christ, you are "condemned already." But that does not have to be your end. Come away from the slippery places and plant your feet on the solid Rock. Rely on God and His promise in Acts 16:31: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."



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