The Natural Man is a Lost Man — E.A. Johnston

Religious Activity Without Salvation

I tried for years to live the Christian life. I was a member in good standing in a big Baptist church. I say a member in good standing, friends, because I sure gave a lot of money to that church and I taught Sunday school there for 15 years.

And I was there every time the doors of that church were open. I met other church members for prolonged times of prayer in the chapel and I discipled men from that church and taught them as much as I could about Christ and the Christian life.

But I fear I didn't have any real spiritual impact upon them, for I myself wasn't saved. I was a lost church member who merely tried to live up to the name of Christian. But I did it through fleshly effort that had no impact on eternity.

The Natural Man and Spiritual Discernment

The Apostle Paul described me aptly in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14, which states,. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Religious Christianity and Spiritual Declension

And what that text means, friends, is two things. First, that the natural man is a lost man. Secondly, the natural man can be a religious man and do much religious activity. But the natural man, the natural religious man, nonetheless, is still a lost man, because he's never experienced a new birth, never has gotten pardoned from sin, from getting under Christ's blood.

And although he may be baptized and a member in good standing in his local church, he's never once entered into a vital union with the living Lord. Now that's the introduction to my message today, friends, and it's a solemn message indeed.

My text is 1 Corinthians 2 .14, and it pretty much sums up whether one is still a natural man, a lost man, a natural woman, or a lost woman. And it matters little if you are a member in good standing in church, if you've never gotten to Christ in the first place to be saved.

The Need for Spiritual Revelation

I want us to see today, friends, by this serious message from the Word of God, given to you by a preacher called of God. For it is my prayer that someone hearing this sermon will be awakened to the lost condition, through conviction of the Spirit of God, and that Christ, the Redeemer, will be both revealed and received by the power of God through his preached Word.

For to be the recipient of the gift of eternal life, one must have the receptivity to understand spiritual truth and possess the enabling by God to receive a revealed Christ. I fear today, in many of our churches, across this once great land, which we still call America, the land of the free, that in our churches we have grieved the Spirit of God away a long time ago by watering down his gospel of his Son to make it more palatable to sinful man.

We have erred on many levels and allowed error to our pulpits as we slip deeper down into spiritual declension, as we have taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men. We save ourselves today.

We don't need God to do it. We can get more done anyhow with money and manpower in our churches today instead of waiting upon a sovereign and holy God to stir the tops of the mulberry trees and move by his power and his Spirit.

God's Work in Regeneration

The Apostle Paul here, in our text, knew exactly what he was talking about by way of personal experience. He had been a trained religious lost man, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he called himself. But he was religious and lost as a natural man who could not receive the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned.

It is God, friends, who takes away the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh. A natural man, a lost man, cannot get to heaven by religion. If he could, then all Muslims and Buddhists and all other world religions could pave the way to heaven.

Christ as the Only Way to the Father

But Christ said anyone who tries to get up there any other way but by him is a thief and a robber. Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man can come unto the Father but by me. We cannot believe the spiritual truths of God's word to salvation until God opens the eye of the mind and gives us such a knowledge and faith of them.

We cannot know these things to any saving purpose until we have the Spirit. Only then can we yield to their force and power. It is the quickening of the Spirit that draws men to Christ. Did not Jesus say, No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day?

And Jesus said, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. The gospel of the Son of God is a call to come to Christ and believe on him. The duty required, friend, is to come.

Repentance, Lordship, and Hearing Christ

But some of you won't come. It's not because you cannot come. You have all the natural capacity to come to Christ. But you do not because you will not. You're willing to take a little Jesus as your Savior on your terms so you can get to heaven.

But you don't want anything to do with him as Lord. You want two things. You want a hope of heaven and you want to be the one to sit and remain upon the throne of your life and rule there. But Christ will have no equals.

The only way to get to Christ is to throw down your shotgun of rebellion and repent and receive a revealed Christ, a risen Lord. Christ is in the bosom of the Father and he must be revealed for you to receive him.

Listen to me, friend. If you go away from this sermon as only hearing the voice of this poor preacher you will be no bettered. But if you leave here having heard his voice, then you will experience change.

Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice and I know them. You must come to Christ and believe on him and enter into a vital union with the living Lord. You must be born again. A natural man is a lost man. A saved man has experienced a new birth.

The Evangelistic Call to the Lost

He's born from above and washed in the blood. How is it with you, friend? How is it with you? Are you a sinner? Have you ever been lost? Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Let us pray.