Saved Or Lost — E.A. Johnston

The Lost Student and the Search for Salvation

There were two students in a dormitory room. One was a Christian and the other was not. The one who was a Christian invited his roommate to go with him that evening to hear a traveling evangelist who was in town conducting meetings.

The roommate had nothing better to do that night, so he agreed to tag along and go hear this evangelist. When they arrived at the church, the evangelist was preaching a message from the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 18 and verse 11, which states, For the Son of Man is come to say that which was lost.

When the evangelist ended his message, he made the following remark. He said, I have preached to you this evening the Gospel of the Son of God. I have shown you that Jesus has come to save that which was lost.

I want to ask each of you this evening, when you get home, to get along with God and take out a piece of paper and write on it one word. Write either the word saved or the word lost. If you are washed in the blood, you'll be able to write the word saved.

I've been honest and sincere with you folks here tonight, and I ask you to be honest with yourselves before God when you get home and really do business with him and find out if you're truly saved or not.

Will you do that for me? Everyone agreed. The meeting ended and the people went home. The two students were silent on their way back to the dorm. Once there, the student who was a Christian quietly read his Bible.

Then he took out a piece of paper and wrote the word saved on it in capital letters so his roommate could see it. Then he turned out his light and he went to sleep. The roommate could not get to sleep at all.

The words of the evangelist haunted him and disturbed him. He could not take out a piece of paper and write the word saved because he knew he wasn't a Christian, but he refused to write the word lost, so he just rolled over, turned out his light and tried to get some sleep, but he couldn't sleep.

In fact, he got up, sneaked over to his friend's table by the bedside and grabbed his Bible and in the light of the moon coming through the dormitory window, he opened it up to the passage in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 18 and he read it.

In that chapter, Jesus spoke of the shepherd who had a hundred sheep and one of them went astray and became lost and the shepherd went out after it, even going into the mountains to seek that lost sheep and when he found it, he rejoiced more over that stray and lost sheep than the 99 that were still in the fold.

Well, tears began to stream down the face of that college student as he read verse 11 over and over again for the Son of Man who's come to save that which was lost. Finally the boy got out his piece of paper and pen and he wrote on that paper one word.

He wrote the word LOST in capital letters, but by the morning light he'd drawn a line through it and wrote in bigger letters the word SAVED, for between midnight and dawn he had found the Good Shepherd Jesus and the Good Shepherd Jesus had found him and a transformation had occurred in that young man's life.

He was saved and he knew it and he couldn't wait to tell his roommate about it. Let me tell you, friends, that evangelist was of the old school because he knew that before man can come to Christ savingly, he first must be lost.

Salvation Requires Awareness of Lostness

Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. Our task as evangelists is to get men lost, shut them up to the God who can save them, but too many of our preachers today will just have you walk an aisle and accept Jesus as their personal Savior.

They will get you to accept Jesus without first getting you lost. I fear too many today with our brand of modern evangelism have entered the church without ever being a subject of a regenerated heart.

They're not born from above, rather they've made themselves Christians. They've never saw themselves as lost sinners in need of a Savior. They just accepted Jesus as a free ticket to heaven, but they've never been awakened to their lost condition, convicted of sin by the Spirit of God and born again.

Listen, friends, God is in the business of getting men lost. When Jesus said, for the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost, that word lost means a person who is conscious of his need. Did you hear that?

The word lost means a person who is conscious of his need. Have you ever gone camping and realized you made a wrong turn and all the trees look the same and you realize you've gone and done it and gotten lost?

Once you realize you're lost out in the woods and it's getting dark fast and you don't know which way to turn, how a sense of desperation grips you, you know you're lost and you're desperate, you are conscious of your need to be found.

That's how it is with a person coming to Christ. When a poor lost sinner realizes his desperate condition apart from Christ and he sees the peril that he stands in as a rebel against an offended sovereign and he's conscious of his need of a Savior, that boy in that dormitory room had to first get to the place where he was lost before he could be saved.

The Spirit of God had to work on him and awaken him to his lost condition, show him his need to be reconciled back to a holy God, that as a lost sinner he was a lawbreaker, a guilty rebel who deserved punishment from a thrice holy God that he could not stand in his own merits of self-righteousness because they were but filthy rags in the sight of God.

Christ Calls Sinners to Repentance

In the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 9 and verses 12 through 13 we read,. But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick, but go ye and learn what that meaneth.

I will have mercy and not sacrifice, for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Listen friend, how do you know you're saved if you've never been lost? In Luke's Gospel Jesus uses the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

In that parable of the lost son who was the prodigal who spent his inheritance in debauchery and pleasure-seeking and finally realized his desperate condition and said, I will arise and go to my father.

And when he got back to the father's house, the father sees him afar off and runs towards the boy, wraps his arms around him with joy, and then he tells the other son who was griping and complaining of the one who came home, it was me that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found.

Found friends, but first he had to get lost. The main problem with modern evangelism in your day and mine is that it doesn't get men lost. It offers people Jesus and invites you to accept him without ever showing you your desperate ruined condition as a guilty lawbreaker who deserves the punishment of hell because of sin.

A Personal Awakening to Sin and Judgment

I'll never forget the day I got lost. I'd been a church member for years. I rested upon a good opinion of myself and a long track record of service. The day I got lost, all those props were kicked out from beneath me.

I was at home reading a sermon by Solomon Stoddard, and as I read that sermon, the Spirit of God showed me I was lost. At first I wouldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it. I argued with God and said there was no way I was lost for I'd been a church member for years and served in many capacities and even as a witness of the gospel, but the stark reality of my being lost overshadowed all of my good works and my good opinion of myself.

God plainly showed me that I was lost and on my way to hell, and not only that, but I deserved to go there. I wasn't a sinner because I sinned. Rather, I sinned because I was a big sinner. You see, I knew about Solomon Stoddard long before I read that sermon.

I'd been up to his grave in Northampton, Massachusetts. His grave is near David Brainerd's grave. I knew that Stoddard was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards and was considered a great divine, so I began to read his sermons, and this particular sermon was like a sword that just cut me into pieces.

It was my undoing as an unconverted church member. I've taken the time to copy part of it for you today. I want to read it to you because this whole issue of salvation is a serious matter, especially to those of us who have grown up under the shallow preaching and diluted gospel of your day and mine.

Listen to this portion of Stoddard's sermon entitled, The Way to Know Sincerity and Hypocrisy Cleared Up, and as I read it to you, friends, listen carefully as his words could very well affect you as they did me.

Stoddard on Sin, Obedience, and Hypocrisy

Here now are the words of Solomon Stoddard from that sermon. Some make pretenses to godliness whereby they not only deceive others, but, which is a great deal worse, they deceive themselves also. But this will condemn them, they that live in a course of sin, and such must go with ungodly men, Psalm 125 .5, as for such is turned aside unto their crooked ways.

The Lord will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity. If there is a great change in a man's carriage, and he is reformed in several particulars, yet if there is one evil way, the man is an ungodly man.

If he does choice service for the church of God, yet he is an ungodly man. Where there is piety, there is universal obedience. A man may have great infirmities, yet be a godly man. So it was with Lot, and David, and Peter.

But if he lives in a way of sin, he does not render his godliness only suspicious, but it is full evidence against him. Men who are godly have a respect to all God's commandments, Psalm 119 .1. There are a great many commands, and if there is one of them that a man has not a respect unto, he will be put to shame another day.

If a man lives in one evil way, he is not subject to God's authority, but he then lives in rebellion, and that will take off all his pleas, and at once cut off all his pretenses, and he will be condemned in the day of judgment.

Luke 13 .27. Depart from me, all ye that work iniquity. One way of sin is exception enough against the man's salvation. Even though the sin that he lives in is small, such persons will not be guilty of perjury, stealing, drunkenness, or fornication.

They look upon them to be heinous things, and they are afraid of them, but they do not mind if they oppress a little in a bargain, if they command the thing too much which they are about to sell, if they break a promise, if they spend the Sabbath unprofitably, if they neglect secret prayer, if they talk rudely and reproach others.

They think these things are but small things. If they can keep clear of great transgressions, they hope that God will not insist upon small things. But indeed, all the commands of God are established by divine authority, and the man who does not lay weight upon little commands keeps none as he ought to do.

A small bullet may kill a man as well as a cannonball. A small leak may sink a ship. If a man lives in small sins, that shows that he has no love to God, no sincere care to please and honor God. Little sins are of a damning nature, as well as great.

If they do not deserve so much punishment as greater, yet they do deserve damnation. There is a contempt of God in small sins. Matthew 5, 19, He that shall break one of the least of these commandments shall be called the least in the kingdom of God.

There is rebellion in little sins. Proverbs 19, 16, He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul, but he that despises his ways shall die. If a man says, this is a great command and so lays weight on it, and another is a little commandment and so does not regard it, but allows him to break it, he is in a perishing condition.

From Conviction to Mercy

Listen friends, when I read that sermon, it was my undoing. All my props of a good opinion of myself and a long track record of service were kicked out from beneath me. God in his great mercy showed me I was lost and on my way to hell, and I deserved to go there.

I began to wrestle with God all that afternoon. I was desperate. I became a seeker. I was shut up to God and God alone. I became a beggar for mercy, and bless God, I became an object of mercy. My sins were finally washed into blood, and I was born from above.

And if I had a piece of paper, I had to first write on it the word lost because I had to be shown my lost condition apart from God. Then after that, after I came to Christ through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, I could then write that word saved on that piece of paper.

The Gospel as the Remedy for Sin

But today's evangelism will offer you the remedy for sin without first showing you why you need that remedy. People without Christ are dead in trespasses and sin. They need to be awakened to the fact that they are on the wrong side of God as rebels who are under a curse.

The only way to be reconciled back to God is through the blood of Jesus Christ. Listen, friend, you need a sin remedy in the person of Jesus Christ. You cannot stand in your own merits and pass the test because, listen, friend, one day at a future judgment of all mankind, you will be singled out and brought before the judge of all the earth and your life's works, your thoughts, your deeds done in the body will be held up against the strict and severe law of God.

And you must be perfect to pass that test. But because you're a sinner and a guilty lawbreaker, you'll fail that test as you stand before that judge in your own merits. Only those who stand in the merits of Christ Jesus, only those who are washed in the blood and born from above are justified in the sight of God.

Listen, friends, this self-satisfied, self-righteous, in for help church members today need to hear the holy claims of God's law thundered in their ears. And maybe, just maybe if we preachers are more obedient to preaching the full counsel of God and actually warn men not to go to hell, then maybe the spirit of God can go to work on them with conviction and bring them to the point where they see themselves as lost sinners, totally shut up to God and him alone for mercy.

Preparing Hearts Through Repentance

But the ground must be prepared by preaching the doctrine of room and the need for repentance. The main issue that needs to be addressed in getting people to Christ with the gospel is that first you have to get them lost.

A person's heart must be prepared to receive the gospel of the son of God. There must be a plowing work done by the spirit of God, but whereby a person is shown they are lost. Once a person realizes he's lost, he then becomes a seeker of God.

He will seek God for mercy. The gospel is meant for the hungry, the weary and the thirsty, those who are conscious of their need. That's how God deals with people. A person has to be brought to see their need of a savior before they can safely believe upon him.

But today is evangelism will offer you a Jesus without first showing you why you need him. And we make false converts by the thousands and they join our churches and they believe they are Christians, but they've never been awakened to their lost condition, never convicted of sin by the spirit of God, and they've never been born from above.

They've never had a plowing work of the spirit upon their hearts. Listen, dear friend, let me ask you to do what that evangelist asked those people that night in that church, what he asked those two college roommates to do.

I want you to get along with God and take out a piece of paper. And will you do me a favor? Will you write one word on it? Write either saved or write the word lost. Be honest before God, friends, and ask him to help you see where you stand.

Examining Yourself Before God

We are exhorted by the apostle Paul in second Corinthians to do this very thing, to examine ourselves before God. Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith, prove your own selves, know you not your own sales, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates.

Get along with God, friend. Please do this for me. Please listen to this poor preacher and do this thing. Get along with God, even if you're a minister of the gospel, even if you're a deacon, even if you're an elder, and even if you've been a longstanding church member for years like I was.

Gospel Invitations to the Hungry and Thirsty

Do what that old evangelist asked those college roommates to do. Get out that piece of paper and a pen and settle your eternity with God today. I will close this message with the following gospel invitations to the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty.

Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.