Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start thinking, “Well, we’re all basically good, so we’re all going to heaven when we die.”
We don’t get there because we deserve it, earn it, God owes it to us. We get there by God’s grace alone.
And this holiday weekend is as good a time as any to remember that.
Every one of the criminals whose pictures illustrate this song thought he or she was going to get away with it. Every one of them rode high for a little while. But not a one of them escaped. And where man’s justice fails, God’s takes over.
Johnny Cash repented and completely changed his life. His old mug shot’s in there, too.
God’s Gonna Cut You Down–it’s a warning.
Modern Christians, many of them, don’t like to think about God’s just wrath and do all they can to dismiss it from their minds. But it’s part of the way the world works, and to ignore it is to ignore reality. Be of good cheer, though: forgiveness and redemption through Jesus Christ is also part of how the world works.
If some of the faces in this video seem hauntingly familiar, it’s because they all belonged to famous criminals who came to bad ends. As Psalm 73 reminds us, they don’t get away with it forever: Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors (verses 18-19).
Warnings of God’s wrath are meant to move us to repentance. They should be heeded.
It’s hard to imagine anyone but Johnny Cash singing this.