Do you think, do you reckon, do you imagine that you, O individual man or woman, shall escape the judgment of God? The Greek translated ‘escape’ is ‘flee from’, ‘run away from the judgment of God’. The tense supposes you are already under it. You have been arrested. You had your chance, maybe, to run away but you couldn't do it. So the handcuffs were on, and you were arrested. You passed through all the formulas and the charges were brought, and now you're in the dock, in court, and you're under guard and there are guards on the doors. Is it in your mind that you will wait until that moment and then jump over the edge of the dock and run? Ridiculous. It's all up. What makes you think you will be able to do that? Do you imagine that when the end of life comes and you're confronted by the Day of Judgment, and the living God, that you can run away? ‘I will conceal my sin and hide it. In my last years I will do some good. Maybe I will give some money away, or help some people, or be different, or make a few amends. That will not be enough.’ We have all got this mass of sinfulness on the record, this unpayable debt of wrong, and a few things to convince ourselves that we will stand, that is foolishness. Do you think God will not notice you, or that he is not thorough, that he is like human beings, he forgets certain people? Of course not; nobody is as foolish as to think they can run away when the day of reckoning comes. But it is as though you think that, because every stirring you have ever had about God and about the meaning of life and the afterlife has been easily brushed aside, that you can slip away when the terrible moment of reckoning comes. That's the Apostle's reasoning. But actually, it's very kindly reasoning.
Some people think they can smile their way out of everything. It is a very nice thing, a smile. Some people they have a very acceptable way of smiling and apologising, sometimes when they do not mean it, for all sorts of things, and it gets them by. But it will not get you past the last tribunal. No amount of charm, no amount of pleasantness. You have got judgment to face. ‘Thinkest thou this, O man, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God,’ that God is forgetful, inefficient, unfaithful to his warnings, and will never see them through. Oh no! There is no escaping the judgment of God.