What is meant by “the lost”? Well, “lost” is a dreadful word. I should need much time to explain it; but if the Spirit of God, like a flash of light, shall enter into your heart, and show you what you are by nature, you will accept that word “lost” as descriptive of your condition, and understand it better than a thousand words of mine could enable you to do. Lost by the fall; lost by inheriting a depraved nature; lost by your own acts and deeds; lost by a thousand omissions of duty, and lost by countless deeds of overt transgression; lost by habits of sin; lost by tendencies and inclinations which have gathered strength and dragged you downward into deeper and yet deeper darkness and iniquity; lost by inclinations which never turn of themselves to that which is right, but which resolutely refuse divine mercy and infinite love. We are lost wilfully and willingly; lost perversely and utterly; but still lost of our own accord, which is the worst kind of being lost that possibly can be.
We are lost to God, who has lost our heart’s love, and lost our confidence, and lost our obedience; lost to the church, which we cannot serve; lost to truth, which we will not see; lost to right, which cause we do not uphold; lost to heaven, into whose sacred precincts we can never come; lost—so lost that unless almighty mercy shall intervene, we shall be cast into the pit that is bottomless to sink for ever. “LOST! LOST! LOST!” The very word seems to me to be the knell of an impenitent soul. “Lost! Lost! Lost!” I hear the dismal tolling! A soul’s funeral is being celebrated. Endless death has befallen an immortal being! It comes up as a dreadful wail from far beyond the boundaries of life and hope, forth from those dreary regions of death and darkness where spirits dwell who would not have Christ to reign over them. “Lost! Lost! Lost!” Ah me, that ever these ears should hear that doleful sound! Better a whole world on fire than a single soul lost! Better every star quenched and yon skies a wreck than a single soul to be lost!