An old-time preacher once made
this statement. I think it's very interesting.
He said, we preachers are prone to take for granted that our
heroes, our congregation, is well acquainted with the gospel
of Christ and salvation, when in reality, most people are really
ignorant of the whole divine system of grace and salvation. Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke to
the religious people of his day and he said, you do err not knowing
the scriptures nor the power of God. And I believe it's far
better to assume that people know nothing and clearly present
to them the gospel of God's redeeming grace than to assume that they're
well taught and allow them to perish without instruction. There's
an interesting illustration over in the book of Luke, chapter
2. I'd like for you to turn over there and read these verses with
me. In Luke, chapter 2, verse 42,
it says, And when Jesus Christ was twelve years old, that his
parents went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast,
And when they'd fulfilled the days of the feast, as they returned,
going back to their home, the child Jesus tarried behind in
Jerusalem. And Joseph and Mary knew not
of it. But they..." Now watch this statement
here. "...supposing him to have been
with them, but they supposing, taking for granted that he was
with them, went a full day's journey, and then they began
to look for him. They sought him among their kinfolk
and acquaintance, and they found him not. In other words, Mary
and Joseph had gone to Jerusalem to keep the certain feast, and
after the days were accomplished, they packed up and started home.
And they'd travel an entire day's journey, taking for granted,
supposing that the Lord Jesus Christ was with them, when in
reality, He was not with them at all. He was not with them
at all. And then, at the end of the day's
journey, they began to look for Him and found out He never had
been with them. And what I'm suggesting is this,
and what I'm asking is this. Is it possible that we might
be going about our religious duties and our holy days and
our traditions supposing taking for granted that the Lord is
with us, taking for granted that He is in our midst, supposing
that we have His blessed presence, and that's what Mary and Joseph
were supposing. They supposed that He was with
them, supposing that we have His blessed presence, supposing
that we're saved when in reality He's not with us at all. So I
plan to take that old preacher's advice, I plan today to speak
to you, to this TV congregation, as if everyone listening to my
voice, every person, is totally unacquainted with the gospel
of God's grace and completely ignorant of what it means to
be saved or what it means to be lost. I'm going to speak to
you as if I were speaking to people who never in their lives
had ever heard the gospel because I think there's a great danger
of traveling a day's journey. And you know a day's journey
in the scripture, our lives are referred to as a day's journey.
And I think it would be a terrible, terrible experience to come to
the end of this day's journey and then begin to take inventory
concerning our relationship with God and find out that He never
was with us. We never did have Him with us.
We were never blessed with His divine presence. So I'm going
to speak to you, and I want you just to pull up a chair and listen
to me. I'm going to speak to you on eternal questions, questions
that are vastly important. Now, here are the six questions
I'm going to present on this telecast. First of all, how did
man get lost in the first place? How did man get lost in the first
place? Secondly, what does it mean?
What does it mean to be lost? And the third question, who's
lost? And the fourth question is, how
are lost men saved? And the fifth question, what
does it mean to be saved? And the last question that I'll
deal with is, who then can be saved? Now listen, here's the
first question. How did man get lost in the first
place? Men need to be saved because
they're lost. That's why they need to be saved.
Christ said in Luke 19.10, the Son of Man is come to seek and
to save the lost. Now, how did man get lost in
the first place? Well, Adam in the garden needed
no salvation because he was not lost. When God created Adam,
He created him in his own image. Adam was holy, pure, and without
sin. When God made him, created in
the image of God, he was holy and upright. So Adam in the garden
before the fall needed no salvation because Adam was not lost. But
Adam cast out of the garden, separated from the presence of
God, guilty, unclean, naked, fallen, dead and dying, needs
to be saved because now Adam is lost. What happened? What happened in that garden?
What took place? Well, the scripture says Adam
sinned against God. In the midst of the garden there
was a tree of which God said, Thou shalt not eat thereof. In
the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die. And Adam,
being tempted by Satan, took that fruit and ate it. And when
he did, he died. He died spiritually. In the day
that he ate of the forbidden fruit and rebelled against God,
Adam died. Adam became guilty. Adam became
a sinful, fallen creature needing salvation. Well, you say, preacher,
how does that affect me? What's that got to do with me?
What have I to do with the fall of Adam? Well, Paul tells us
in the book of Romans chapter 5. Listen to it. Verse 12. By one man, that's Adam, sin
entered the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon
all men for all sin." In other words, Adam stood not only for
himself, but Adam was the representative of the whole human race. Adam
was that one man who stood for the whole human race, and when
he When he stood, we stood. When he sinned, we sinned. When
he fell, we fell. When he was separated from God,
we were separated from God. That's what the Scripture teaches.
That's how man got lost in the first place. Romans 5.18 says
this, Therefore, by the offense of one man, judgment came upon
all men. By the offense of one man, judgment,
condemnation came upon all men. For by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners." And then in 1 Corinthians 15, the
Scripture says, "...in Adam all die." Now, my friends, this is
the way God answers my question. I ask, how did man get lost? And God says that when Adam fell,
that his sin was imputed to every one of his race. by imputation. Adam's guilt and condemnation
was imputed to us. The whole human race sinned against
God. The whole human race fell. And
not only was Adam's sin imputed to us, but Adam's sinful nature
was imparted unto us. For that which is born of the
flesh is flesh. Now, what you think about that,
that's not the issue. What you feel about it, that's
not the issue. I'm simply answering the question,
how did man get lost in the first place? And that's the answer
from the Word of God. Wherefore by one man sin entered
this world, and death by sin, so death, spiritual death, passed
upon all men. For when Adam fell, all sin. All right, here's the second
question. What does it mean to be lost? Now, we found out that
man is lost. He's lost in Adam. What does
it mean to be lost? Well, one verse of Scripture
which strongly describes what it means to be lost is found
in the book of Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 12. Now, listen to it. This is what it means to be lost.
This is the condition of a lost man. At that time, listen to
it, you were without Christ, having no hope and without God
in this world. Paul is describing the lost Gentiles. And he says at that time, being
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant,
you were lost. And you were, number one, without
Christ. Number two, you had no hope. Number three, you were without
God in this world. Now, a lost man is without Christ.
You say, well, what does that mean to be without Christ? Well,
Christ is wisdom. He's made unto us wisdom of God. Christ is made unto us wisdom.
And if you read the book of Proverbs, you'll find that often Christ
is referred to as wisdom. So if Christ is wisdom and a
lost man's without Christ, then that lost man is in spiritual
ignorance and darkness. As Christ said, you don't know
God. You don't know me or my Father. So a lost man without Christ
is without any spiritual wisdom. He's ignorant. Secondly, Christ
is our righteousness. Now that's what the Word of God
declares. He is our holiness. He is our purity. He is our righteousness. And therefore a man without Christ
is unholy. He's unclean in God's sight,
as unclean as the old leper. of the Old Testament who used
to have to cry even when someone's shadow fell upon him, unclean. Keep away. Unclean. Christ is
our holiness. Therefore, to be without Him
is to be unholy and ungodly. What does it mean to be lost?
Christ is our redemption. Christ is our redemption. That's
what the Scripture says. So without Him, we're not only
unclean, but we're under the of God Almighty's law under the
judgment and curse and condemnation of the law. We stand accountable
before God for every law which is on the books of God. We've
broken every one of them. For to offend in one point is
to be guilty of the whole law. There's not a criminal in the
penitentiary that's in worse shape physically and materially
than we are spiritually without Christ. He is our redemption.
And without Him, we're criminals charged in the court of God as
being guilty of having broken every law. Not one, but every
law. Next, Christ is the sin offering. He's the sacrifice. So without Him, we have no priest. We have no sin offering. We have
no sacrifice. We have no atonement. We have
no entrance into the Holy of Holies. We're outcast. We're outside. And there's no
way in. For without the shedding of blood,
there's no forgiveness. There's no remission. Not only
that, but Christ is the one Mediator. Paul said there's one God. One
God. And one Advocate, one Intercessor,
one Mediator between God and man. And that's the man Christ
Jesus. And if you don't have Him, if you're without Christ,
you don't have anyone to represent you to God. You have no Advocate.
You have no mediator. You have no one to whom, through
whom to pray. You have no one to present your
petitions or your appeal or your praise to God. It'll never get
there because you have no mediator. And then, watch this, Christ
said, I am the way, the way to God. I am the truth, the truth
of God, and I am the life. What does it mean to be lost?
It means to be without Christ, without righteousness, without
wisdom, without redemption, without a sin offering, without a mediator,
without life, without a way to God, and without the truth. But
that's not all. What does it mean to be lost?
A lost man's without hope. No hope. Absolutely no hope.
There's no hope. All hope is gone. There's no
hope of sin forgiven. There's no hope of mercy. There's
no hope of grace. There's no hope of resurrection.
Not the resurrection of life. The resurrection under condemnation,
but not to life. There's no hope at the judgment,
no appeal. There's no hope of eternal glory.
For a man without Christ has no hope. And then he says, thirdly,
to be lost is to be without God. Totally without God in this world
and in the world to come. Without God. Most people feel
like that we're all under some way the love and the care and
the mercy of God, but that's not so. Listen to John chapter
3. He that believeth not on the
Son, the wrath of God abideth on him like a cloud always over
him. He that believeth not on the
Son, the wrath, not the love, not the care, not the concern,
not the mercy of God, but the Scripture says the wrath of God.
Now, I'm dealing with you as if you've never heard the Gospel.
I'm not taking anything for granted. I'm not assuming anything. I'm
not supposing anything. I'm just dealing with you on
the basis of these questions as they relate to the Word of
God. How did man get lost? I showed you. What does it mean
to be lost? It means to be without Christ. It means to have no hope. It means to be without God in
this world. In John 1, 12, it says, "...as
many as received him, to them gave he the right and privilege
to become sons of God." Not to all men. Our Lord said to the
Pharisees, the religious men of His day, they said, God's
our father. He said, you are of your father,
the devil. So a lost man is without Christ,
he has no hope, and he's without God. He has no father. Now the third question. Who's
lost? Are you talking to me, preacher?
Yes, sir. I'm talking to you. Talking to
me. I'm talking to everyone who'll listen to me. Who is lost? Let the Word of God speak now.
Let the Word of God speak. Not what people are always wanting
to say, well, I think, I believe, this is the way I see it. No,
that's not the issue. The Word of God is the only foundation
of faith and practice. Isaiah 53 says, all we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned, most of us. Well, the majority of us. No. All of us to our own way. All of us are lost. All of us
are lost in Adam by representation. We're lost by birth, being born,
conceived, shapen in sin, brought forth speaking lies, and we're
lost by choice. Christ said, You will not come
to me that you might have life. Listen to Romans 3, 19. Who's
lost? Now, we know that what thing
soever the law saith, it saith to every one under the law, That
all, every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty
before God. Who's lost? All the world. Everyone. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. There's no difference in Jew
or Gentile, for all have sinned. Psalm 58, 3. The wicked are strained
from the womb. They go astray as soon as they're
born, speaking lies. Who's lost? Every son of Adam's
lost. Who's lost? Every person in this
world's lost. Lost in Adam. Lost by birth. Lost by will. Lost by choice. No exceptions. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. All right? An important
question. Then how are lost men saved? How can lost men be saved? Ephesians
2, 8 tells us, by grace you're saved. For by grace are you saved,
not by works, not by baptism, not by church membership, not
by praying through, not by decision, not by shaking somebody's hand,
not by walking an hour, for by grace are you saved. Whose grace? God's grace. It is by God's grace
and mercy that we're saved. The Scripture tells us, now this
is what the Bible says, that God in eternity, before the foundation
of the world. That phrase is used frequently
in Scripture. Christ the Lamb slain before
the foundation of the world, chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world. These things are used frequently.
Back in eternity, before the world's foundations were laid,
God Almighty, according to His own Word, determined to have
a people. determined out of Adam's race
to redeem a people and make them like Christ, to populate a new
heaven and new earth. And he, in an everlasting covenant,
he chose a people out of Adam's race, out of every tribe, kindred,
nation, tongue, and people under heaven. He chose a people. He
called them his elect. He called them his sheep. He
called them his jewels. He called them his brethren.
He chose them, God did, and gave them to Christ. because Christ
frequently spoke of the people that the Father gave me. You'll
read that several times in the Scripture. And he made Christ
their surety and their redeemer. And these people called his elect,
called his jewels, his sheep. He says that they will be brought
to him. They will be brought to him.
They will believe in him. They will be brought to him by
the Spirit of truth. And throughout the Old Testament,
in Old Testament days, God promised this Redeemer that would come
and redeem His people. He prophesied of the coming of
this Redeemer. He pictured the coming Redeemer.
He pictured Him in the garden when He slew the lamb and covered
the nakedness of Adam and Eve. He pictured Him there when Abel
brought the blood sacrifice as opposed to Cain's sacrifice of
works. He pictured Him in the Passover
feast down in Egypt He pictured him in the brazen serpent lifted
up. All the way through the Old Testament,
he pictured this coming Redeemer. He prophesied that he would be
a prophet like Moses, a priest like Melchizedek, and a king
like David, fulfilling every office toward the center, prophet,
priest, and king. Well, in the fullness of time,
that Redeemer came. That surety of the covenant came.
That righteous branch came in the person of Jesus Christ. In
the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were born under the
law. And Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the God-man, God in human
flesh, for the Scripture says He made the world, and He was
in the world, and the world knew Him not. The Scripture said the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, the second person of the blessed Trinity, the eternal
Creator of heaven and earth, came into this world, assumed
the flesh and bones of his beloved people, was numbered with the
transgressors, became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,
and literally, actually, in reality, lived on this earth, born of
a woman, just like we are, only without a human father, and was
tempted and tried and tested in all points as we are, yet
without sin. And in the course of his 33 or
34 years on this earth, he was tried in all points, without
sin, and he gave us by his active obedience a perfect righteousness
in the sight of God. He fulfilled the law in every
jot and tittle in the flesh as a man. And then he went to the
cross, and there he paid the debt of our sin. There he endured
the wrath and judgment and condemnation of God that was upon us, for
the soul that sinneth must die. And then he was buried and rose
again. and ascended back to the Father, and the Holy Spirit came
into this world, and the Holy Spirit calls out these sheep,
calls out these people given to Christ, redeemed by Christ,
ransomed by Christ. He calls them out by the preaching
of the gospel. God had chosen, by the foolishness
of preaching, to save them that believe. The gospel is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And the Holy Spirit
regenerates those sinners, and gives them true repentance toward
God and true faith in Christ and brings them to believe the
gospel, not only to believe it, but love it. Not only to believe
Christ, but love Christ and long to be like Christ. It's through
the preaching of the Word of God. And those who believe are
kept by the power of God through faith all the way through life. And when they die, their bodies
go back to the ground, but their souls go to God who loved them,
who chose them, who redeemed them, who called them, who kept
them, and who will make them like Christ. Now, that's how
men are saved, through the representation of Christ. You see, by one man's
disobedience, we were made sinners. That's Adam. By Christ's perfect
obedience, we were made righteous. By Adam's disobedience, we became
sinners. By Christ's obedience, we became
righteous. In Adam, we died. In Christ,
we're made alive. As we have borne the image of
the earthy, we shall bear the image of the heavenly. For by
man came death, by man came resurrection unto life. That's how we say
representation, the obedience of another, the death of another,
the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord. Well, what does
it mean to be saved? Well, it means to be new creatures
in Christ. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17,
if any man be in Christ, in Christ by divine election, in Christ
by divine purchase and in Christ by divine power, regenerated,
born again, he becomes a new creature. He's got a new heart.
He's got a new nature. He's got a new attitude. He's
got a new spirit. He's a new person. He's a new
person with a new family, with a new direction, with a new attitude
in life. He's been born again. He's been
regenerated. He's not the same. Like old John
Newton said, I'm not what I want to be. And I'm not what I ought
to be. And I'm not what I'm going to
be by God's grace, but thank God, I'm not what I used to be.
God has dwelt within me. The Spirit of God lives within
me. And not only to be saved means to be a new creature in
Christ, but it means to be delivered from the penalty of sin, from
the penalty of the law. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ. Well, preacher, what about the
wrath of God upon us because of our sins? Christ bore it.
But what about the condemnation and judgment? God said, the soul
that sinneth shall die. Christ died. Every charge that
the believer has against him, Christ fulfilled and satisfied. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is Christ that justifies.
It needs to be saved not only from the penalty of sin, but
from the power of sin. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. Yes, sin is present, and sin
does remain. But it does not reign. The Spirit
of God reigns in the hearts of believers. It means to be saved
from the practice of sin. It means to be saved one of these
days from the very presence of sin. All right, in closing, who
can be saved? You know, the disciples asked
the Lord that question. They said, well, Lord, who then
can be saved? And He said, with me, and it's impossible. It's
impossible. Forget it. Wait a minute. But
with God, all things are possible. God Almighty can save sinners
in Christ, through Christ, by Christ, yea, even you, even me,
the chief of sinners. This is a fateful saying, Paul
said. It's worthy of acceptation by all men that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. Christ died for the ungodly.
But God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. My friends, I've got good news.
He is able to save to the uttermost. them that come to God by him."
Now, I have this message on a cassette tape, along with a message that
I'll be delivering next week on, Have You Seen the Lord? If
you'll send a $2 donation, we'll mail you this tape with these
two messages, Eternal Questions and Have You Seen the Lord? Join
us next Sunday at this same time. Until then, Henry Mahan bidding
you a very pleasant good day.