I believe, friends, that the most glaring omission
in today's gospel is the lost sinner.
Old-time preachers used to say that a
sinner could not get saved until they first
were lost.
Jesus emphasized this, for the Son of Man
is come to seek and to save that
which was lost.
God's Word underlines this as well.
We see in Luke's Gospel a lost sheep,
a lost coin, and a lost son.
We used to sing the theme in our
old hymns, I once was lost, but now
I'm found.
But in the average congregation today, there is
a noticeable absence.
Where are all the lost sinners?
No one wants to admit they are lost
today, undone, and hell-bound.
Modern evangelism has made it too easy to
accept Jesus, and it's redefined the lost sinner
by calling him the unchurched.
The primary goal of modern evangelism is to
increase church membership, to make someone who is
not a church member into a church member.
Subsequently, our evangelistic efforts are only recognized numerically.
The more numbers a church has, the more
successful that church is.
That's how most pastors measure their success in
ministry today, by the size of their congregation.
It matters little if most of the church
members are yet unconverted.
But where, oh where, are the lost sinners
today, in need of a Savior from sin,
the worth of a soul is seldom talked
about today?
As long as I'm running three thousand on
Sunday, then as a pastor I'm a big
success.
That's how we think the church has become
a corporation, run by CEOs, measured by bank
accounts.
I want to go back in time, friends.
I want to read you a story today
that most of you are quite unfamiliar with,
but we need to be familiar with it.
It tells us how to share the gospel.
It tells us how to define what the
real gospel is, and how to find a
lost sinner.
It's a story related by D.L. Moody,
about a time he preached in a prison.
Everyone in this story is rich with the
gospel of the Son of God, and I
want you to pay close attention to it,
friends.
Listen to this remarkable story.
You will benefit from it.
It will help you to share Christ with
others more effectively.
Hear now the words of D.L. Moody,
as he related them in a sermon in
1893.
I was invited one day, some years ago,
to visit and preach in the tomb's prison,
New York.
I had supposed that I should address the
prisoners face to face, as I used to
talk to prisoners in the chapels of most
of our jails.
But when I got there, I found I
had to stand on a little iron railing,
running from one tier of cells to another.
There was a tier above, and one below,
and one on the same level as me.
There I talked, to a great long narrow
passageway, to gates, to bars, and to brick
walls.
It was pretty hard preaching.
I had never attempted to preach in that
way before.
I did not know, when I got through
with it, how they had received me, and
so I thought I would go and see
them.
I went to the first cell door, and
looked in.
I found the men playing cards.
I supposed they'd been playing all the time
that I was preaching, and took no interest
in the sermon.
I looked into the window, and said, How
is it with you here?
Oh, chaplain, we do not want you to
have a bad idea of us.
I said to myself, There is no one
here to be saved, for there is no
one lost, and I got away as quick
as I could.
I went to another cell.
There were three or four men in there,
and I said, How is it with you
here?
Well, stranger, we will tell you.
We got to bad company, and the men
that did the deed got clear, and we
got caught.
I said to myself, There is no one
here for Christ to save, for there is
no one lost, and I went along to
the next cell, and then I said, Well,
my friends, how is it with you?
One of them said, A false witness went
to court and swore a lie upon me.
He was perfectly innocent, and ought not to
be there.
I went on to the next cell, and
looked in, and said, Well, my friends, how
is it with you?
They were innocent, all of them, thank God,
but the man that did the deed looked
very much like them.
They were perfectly innocent, and so I went
on.
I never found so many innocent men.
They were all innocent.
I found a great many innocent men under
lock and key, and they were all trying
to justify themselves.
There was no one guilty, but the constables,
the justices, were magistrates.
They were the guilty ones.
I got discouraged.
I thought I would give it up, but
I kept on, and I found one man
in a cell alone.
He had his elbows on his knees, and
he had his head buried in his hands.
As I looked in, I could see the
streams of tears running down upon his cheeks.
They were the first tears I had seen.
It did me good to look at them.
I said, My friend, how is it with
you here?
He looked up.
It was a look of remorse and despair.
He said, Oh, sir, my sins are more
than I can bear.
Thank God for that, said I.
Ain't you the man that's been preaching to
us?
Yes, sir.
And yet, I thought you said you were
a friend to the prisoner, and you're glad
that my sins are more than I can
bear?
I replied, I am glad that they are
more than you can bear, for if they
are more than you can bear, you can
cast them on the Lord Jesus.
But I am the worst man in this
prison.
Then he began enumerating his sins, and what
a heavy load they were.
It was refreshing to stand there and hear
him tell me it was the Lord Jesus
that had gotten into that cell and into
that man's heart, and I told him so.
Then I told him to pray to God
to forgive him and to take away his
sin.
He thought God would never forgive such a
sinner as he was.
I told him, you can get all those
sins multiplied by 10,000 forgiven because you've
committed probably 10,000 more sins than you
have thought of.
You can sum them all up and write
underneath the blood of Jesus Christ, his son
cleanseth from all sin.
And I stood there and preached the gospel
to that thirsty soul.
He seemed to drink it in.
I said, let's get down here and pray.
And we did.
He inside and I outside.
And after I got through prayer, I said,
my friend, now you pray.
I pray.
It would be blasphemy for me to pray
for a wretch like me to call upon
God.
I said to him, call upon God, ask
for mercy.
That's what you want.
Ask him to have mercy upon you.
The poor wretch could not lift his eyes
toward heaven.
He knelt down on the pavement, and all
he could say was, God, be merciful to
me, a vile wretch.
After his prayer, I put my hand through
the window in the door.
He got hold of it and shook it.
And a hot tear fell on my hand.
That tear seemed to burn into my very
soul.
I said, I'm going to the hotel between
nine and twelve o'clock.
I want you to join in prayer and
make up your mind that you will not
sleep tonight till you know.
That night, I got much interested in prayer
for the man.
My heart was so overborne that I could
not go back to Chicago without going down
to the prison to see him.
I went down and I got the governor
of the tombs to let me in, and
I went to his cell.
And when I got there and saw him,
the remorse and despair had all disappeared.
He was all gone.
His face was lit up with a heavenly
glow.
He seized my hand and tears of joy
began to flow.
He pressed my hand and shook it and
said, I believe I am the happiest man
in the whole city of New York.
I thought when they brought me to this
prison, I should never go out again.
I thought I'd never could walk down Broadway
again.
I thought I could never see my godly
mother again.
Now, thank God that they brought me, for
if they had not, I would have never
have known Christ.
He said when he prayed, the Lord Jesus
heard his prayer.
I asked him what time of the night
he thought it was, and he said he
thought it was about midnight when the Lord
Jesus had come into that cell and saved
his soul.
My dear friend, can you tell me why
it was that God came into that prison
and passed by cell after cell and set
that one captive free?
It was because he took his place as
a lost sinner and asked for mercy.
Well, that's the end of the story, friends.
You can't get saved until you first get
lost.
The gospel is for the hungry, the weary,
and the thirsty.
Let me ask you, friend, are you hungry
for God?
Are you sick and tired of your sins?
Are you thirsty for Christ?
Jesus says, if any man thirst, let him
come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture
has said, out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water.