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What It Takes to Be Saved 11 – Man’s Part - A Recognition that I Am Lost
What It Takes to Be Saved 11 – Man’s Part
A Recognition that I Am Lost
Mike Willis
In this series of articles on “What It Takes to Be Saved,” we have previously shown what God did to make salvation possible for mankind. Last week we asserted that there are conditions man must meet to have his sins forgiven, contrary to the doctrines of universalism and Calvinism. In this article, I am asserting that one must recognize that he is lost before he can be saved by the shed blood of Jesus.
In the book of Romans, Paul quoted seven passages of Scripture from the Old Testament to reach the conclusion that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
* . . . as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12; quoting from Pss. 14:1-3; 53:1-3).
* “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive” (Rom. 3:13; quoting Psa. 5:9).
* “The venom of asps is under their lips” (Rom. 3:13; quoting Psa. 140:3).
* “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness” (Rom. 3:14; quoting Psa. 10:7).
* “Their feet are swift to shed blood” (Rom. 3:15; quoting Prov. 1:16);
* “. . . in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known” (Rom. 3:15-17; Isa. 59:7, 8).
* “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18 quoting Psa. 36:1).
Paul applied these scriptures to the Jews to show them their need for salvation from sin. Solomon put it bluntly when he said, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Eccl. 7:20).
No man can be saved by Jesus until he acknowledges and accepts that he is lost. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:1-3). These passages show that sin is not something to be winked at, joked about, or treated as unimportant. The apostle Paul spoke to the Gentile audience in Athens telling them that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him (Jesus) from the dead” (Acts 17:31).
The good news is that Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost (Luke 19:10). You may be lost, but there is no reason for you to stay lost!
