The Bible teaches that many men are lost.
They are like wandering stars….loosed from orbit….drifting through space…. Enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season, they are like one in outer space — feeling no weight, no burden of guilt, no pull toward home. LOST.
If sinners are ever to know their serious condition they must be told frankly. I intend to do that here.
Furthermore, Christians need to see the lostness of men through God’s eyes.
Our TEXT is JOHN 3. Here is the drama of redemption. God is working to retrieve his wandering stars, his wayward sons. To study this story of salvation is to see how very LOST men are.
I. MAN’S NEED
Jesus told Nicodemus, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again,” verse 3. God’s kingdom is not of this world. The world is passing away. Mere flesh and blood cannot win heaven. “You must be born again,” verse 7. That is your need.
Indeed, man is naturally so LOST from God that the Father HAD to give his SON to recover man. “So the Son of man must be lifted up,” (to die on the cross) verse 14.
How then can folks today walk by Calvary and say they have no need of it as if, “We are not sinners really!”
Friend, don’t you ever say there is nothing wrong in lives today. There is plenty wrong!
Take an average city and an average home there. It is well furnished materially, but how is it spiritually? As a family do they study God’s Word together and bow in worship before God? No, the Bible lies closed and the TV wide open. Then comes the crisis, brim-full with bitterness!
Nothing wrong, you say? Enter the hospital and stand with the young couple there at the crib side. See through their tears the dying moments of an only child. Walk the hushed corridors at night and hear the groans, feel the sorrows. Dare you tell the suffering and bereaved ones that evolution just hasn’t carried us far enough yet? I tell you SOMETHING IS WRONG in this world!
Nothing wrong? No real evidence of sin in the world? Then go to Korea and walk among the hoards of hungry orphan boys and girls — living like animals, roaming to steal — even kill — for a bit of garbage.
Turn back the pages of history and there witness scenes of barbarious, charging armies piercing, ripping and hacking one another to pieces. Is it that they just have not been “fully socialized” but will “progress in time?” No! Leaves from modern history are even more horrible. Think of the countless thousands who have screamed their last agonizing prayer on fields of battle. And, even now the world’s largest nations are plotting our destruction.
NOTHING WRONG! Just a world gone mad — with a universal epidemic of sin! “All have sinned.” And, this includes the popular sophisticated neglect of Almighty God.
The great love verse of the Bible, John 3:16 indicates that men are PERISHING until they commit themselves in faith to Jesus Christ. Dying forever. Physical death sends them headlong into eternal death. It is either two births (spiritual as well as physical) or it will be two deaths (eternal as well as physical). Which will it be for you?
II. GOD’S OFFER OF LOVE
Everywhere there is evidence of God’s love. He has tinted even the darkest cloud with a ray of love. Jesus cited the Father’s detail care of creation as positive assurance of His love for man. God made this world for us.
Every father is drawn toward his child by his own likeness there. We are in God’s image. How it must hurt when the Father sees this image besmeared.
Picture a typical Dad coming home after work. At his touch, the light switch responds and there is light for his room. At his call the faithful dog lies at his feet. But his very own son will not obey! This is God’s burden with men. At His orders, the sun rises, the birds fly South, the stars move on course, the electrons arrange themselves in atoms, but man…!
“The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand,” (Isaiah 1:3 cf. Jeremiah 8:7).
So, the Father said, “I must (verse 14) send my Son to die for them.” The Son said, “I will become man and fulfill the law for them and offer my blood as atonement for sin.” The Holy Spirit said, “I will call to their hardened hearts in clangor of the city, hush of the country, over the counters of trade, on fields of bloody battle.
Alas! The Son came as a weak, lovable babe and the sword of a king sought Him. Then when He spoke the word of command to demons they obeyed, but when He spoke the word of love to men they killed Him. He held His hands over raging seas and they sank in submission; He held out His hands to men and they drove in the spikes.
With mangled body and broken heart, “Christ died for our sins.”
This gift of love was made because we are sinners. Have you repented — been born again?
III. MAN’S RESPONSE
It is shocking to see how men have responded to God’s love: “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil,” verse 19. Yes, men hate the light, verse 20. They love their sins. They detest even holy people who show up their sins. They criticize the dearest God has and poison others. They do not love the Bible, nor delight in prayer. Look at Christ — what have you cared about Him!
Friend, as you read these words — are you lost? Like the wandering star speeding through the last thin remnants of air….darkness is deepening….about to be lost forever….with no further contact with home and hope. Read verse 18. You are “condemned already,” under the “wrath of God,” verse 36.
Take one last look at Calvary where Jesus died for your sins. Study verse 16, and “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31).