"Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

"And he spake a parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

"And when he cometh home, he called together his friends and neighbors, saying, Come rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."—Luke 15:1-7.

I am going to speak to you on "The Condition of the Lost," and the awfulness of being lost. Reading the passage just quoted, we should notice two things in particular that stand out. I don’t mean to imply there are not many things clearly taught in these verses, but there are two things that stand out predominately, and they are the words "lost" and "sheep."

I do not know the haunts and habits of sheep, not ever having been a sheepherder, but I have been told by those familiar with their habits that there is nothing so lost as a sheep when it strays away. Thus, of all the animals in the world, Christ couldn’t have used a more apt figure to represent the utter helplessness of lost mankind, nor could He have more accurately described the lost sinner, than He does in using the illustration of lost sheep; for there is nothing so lost as a sheep when it becomes lost.

Then the other thing in this passage which we notice particularly is, of course, the sheep itself. I am not going to speak this evening on the sheep, but I mentioned it only to point out the subject itself, and that is the ACTUALITY and the REALITY of being lost.

Here is something that is undeniably a fact which cannot be shrugged off and dismissed from one’s mind, and that is the fact of being lost if one is without Christ. I might just add this: in spite of what you may have entertained in your hearts, or what you have been told in times past, people without Christ ARE lost, not simply "going to be lost after awhile," but they are lost now in the eventful present.

The saddest thing in the world is to be lost, without God, without life, without hope and without Christ. That is the most pathetic, most horrible thing that one can think about. You can talk about the Atomic Bomb with all its devastation and all the destruction that might come as a result of its being dropped, but it comes nowhere near the awful fact that all around us there are those who are without Christ—lost.

I recognize there are those who don’t like to think about this particular issue. Parents don’t like to think of their children as being lost, and sometimes children don’t like to face the fact that their parents are lost. We are prone to think in terms of the other fellow’s children perhaps being lost, but not our own. But may I say, with all the fervor and strength of my heart and soul, that he or she who is without Christ is LOST, lost much worse than a sheep when it becomes lost.

Beloved, this fact of being lost is something that we cannot escape. In spite of the fact that many, no doubt, would like to dismiss it from their minds and never again think of being lost, I tell you, beloved, every moment that we live we are faced with the undeniable fact that we rub elbows every day with men, women, boys and girls who are actually lost. But how many Christians care enough to try to win them to a saving knowledge of Christ? Very few, I fear. May I shame you who are Christians into being submissive to the will of God?

If one child, in leaving the church auditorium some evening, should get lost on the way home—that is, lost from the presence of its parents—the police force, friends and the whole community would be called out to search and search until the lost child had been found. The parents would be wailing and lamenting, tasting their own hot, salty, briny tears because their child was lost. Yet there is a child, perhaps, in your own home who is lost, lost to God, lost to Christ, lost to life and lost to the New Birth; but you lie down at night and sleep soundly without a thought of the doomed, helpless, lost condition of that lost child. HOW can you rest? HOW can you be so UNCONCERNED? Every day of your life you see the other man’s children who are lost, without God and without hope in the world, yet not one tear of sympathy is shed in their behalf.

We are living in an age of indifference and unconcern. I don’t believe that in all my twenty years of ministry I have ever seen the lack of concern as in the last few years—that is, unconcern and indifference over the lost. Of you who profess to be the children of God, I venture to say, not ninety-nine per cent of you have spoken, given or offered one word of Scriptural advice in the past twelve months to a lost man; and yet you get up and sing: "Oh, how I love Jesus." Then you wonder why the lost look at us with a sneer; you wonder why they look at us with skepticism. Perhaps they reason in their hearts: "If you believe what you say you believe, that ‘men outside of Jesus are actually lost,’ then why have you not done something about me? Why haven’t you witnessed to me of the saving grace of Christ? Now why?"

You know how I feel about segregation and integration, don’t you? I say this in order that none of you will go away and say, "Brother Cox has turned over and taken the other side." I haven’t! Brother Cox will die as he is tonight. But I say this in order to point this out: in my community there lived a Negro—only one— who had a little girl about two years old. This little girl got lost and the weather was very cold; the ground was frozen. Every white man in that community went out, and they searched all night for this lost child. Next morning about daylight they found her in a deep rut in a county road. She was hunched down, frozen stiff. They picked her up, took her home, revived her and she lived. One little Negro girl alarmed and struck a note of sympathy in that whole community. Yet men are lost in sin all around you and not one word do you speak to them about Christ. How can they believe that we are Christians? How can they believe that we are missionary-minded?

"But," you say, "Brother Cox, this church sends and spends more money for missionaries than any other church its size."

Granted; but it’s so much easier to send money to foreign missionaries than to be a missionary at home. That’s a good alibi we have, to escape from one’s own responsibilities. Let us face facts as they present themselves. We are indifferent and unconcerned; we care nothing for the lost. Let us just face it and be honest, you don’t care; you are not concerned; you just don’t care. Let’s just face it.

Someone will say, "You shouldn’t say that."

But I am saying it because you just don’t care, that’s all. Man does that which he is concerned about. The man, therefore, who is not concerned for the lost will not do anything for the lost because he is unconcerned. He doesn’t care if they are lost; he doesn’t care if every lost man dies and goes to a Devil’s Hell— you deny that.

I say this because we are living in an age in which folk, Baptist folk, are unconcerned. (Incidentally, I believe I know as much about Baptists as anyone else in the world. I know Baptist people up one side and down the other. I understand Baptist folk: I’m a Baptist.) But Baptist people have gotten to the place where they hesitate about becoming concerned and thoroughly aroused to the point of tears over the lost that they have all but dried up spiritually.

Three times in the New Testament we see Jesus weeping; twice we see Him weeping over the lost.

You might say, "I don’t believe that."

It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe it—it’s still true. In John 11:35 we see Jesus weeping at the grave of a friend; in Hebrews 5:7 is testimony as to His weeping over a world that had rejected and rebelled against Him; and in Luke 19:41, He wept over the city in which He was soon to die. Don’t TELL me the Lord didn’t show and express His feelings over the lost: He DID.

You might say, "Then, it is a fact that men are lost—why?"

Listen to this: you don’t have to do anything to become a sinner; you don’t have to do one thing; merely be born into the world and you are a sinner. That’s all there is to it, just be born.

Now I am not preaching on total depravity, but let me say this: the most obnoxious doctrine in the world to many folk is the doctrine of total and inherent depravity. Men don’t like to believe there is sin in everyone that is born into the world. Men don’t like to believe that. It makes no difference whether you believe it or not, it is true; it is a Biblical and experiential fact. Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

Men are born and condemned as such (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12). "We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that ‘they are all under sin" (Rom. 3:9). Sin, or depravity, is the CAUSE of being lost—SIN.

Then if sin is the CAUSE of being lost, what is the EFFECT of being lost? For every cause there must be an effect; I believe in CAUSE and EFFECT. So then, what is the effect of being lost? This: men are spiritually DEAD and cut off from God; completely alienated from God, enemies of God. Romans 8:7: "The carnal mind is ENMITY against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

Paul said, "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."—Ephesians 2:11, 12.

He was talking to the Ephesians, although they were saved at the time he wrote the Epistle to them, and he is telling them their condition as Gentiles prior to their conversion. He said they were aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

"But," you might say, "it isn’t so awful being lost."

Well, let us see: the Word of God says that it is. God, talking about the wicked, the lost, said in Jeremiah 23:12: "Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the Lord."

It is an awful thing being lost. Can you feature being lost in the darkness, with snow on the ground and it frozen; you try to stand up, and one foot goes one way and the other foot goes the other way. Then suppose you are on the brink of a precipice; the ground is frozen, you are in the darkness and you can’t stand up; you are slipping closer and closer to the edge of this precipice, and any moment you may go over the edge.

You say, "Why, that is an awful thought!"

Well, that is the condition of the lost: "Their way shall be unto them as SLIPPERY ways in the DARKNESS: they shall be driven on, and FALL therein." I tell you, beloved, this idea of being lost is a fact, and the awfulness of it cannot be denied.

You have heard me tell about the aged man who heard me preach on Hell: it was during one of the greatest meetings it was ever my privilege to be in; a meeting in which aged men tottering on their staffs were saved. One night this old man, tottering on his staff, came down the aisle, led by his wife.

I was preaching on Hell, and suddenly he had come face to face with the knowledge that he was lost (before, he didn’t think he was). As he came toward me, holding up one hand toward Heaven, saying, "Brother Cox, I’m lost; I don’t want to go to Hell—I’m lost: I need Christ," he wasn’t far from the kingdom right then.

After he had said this to me, I told him, "There isn’t but one thing that will keep you out of Hell and that is Christ." He wasn’t far from the kingdom right then: for when he became conscious, realizing his need of Christ, he was immediately saved.

In a few years I held his funeral, and I told the people this man’s experience; how this aged man who suddenly realized his spiritual condition said, "I’m lost, and I need to be saved. I don’t want to go to Hell."

Just like the old prodigal son in Luke 15:17, he faced the fact that he was lost. When this prodigal son was faced with the fact of his condition, he was there feeding the swine, the most degrading thing that he could engage in. He was so hungry that he would have gladly eaten the husk (not the kernels, but the husk) that fell from the swine’s mouths—the husk and not the corn—and no man gave him one thing to eat. He was helpless. No man fed him; no one was there to bless him, to comfort him; no one to lead him, and suddenly he came face to face with his lost condition and said, as he reasoned, "The servants in my father’s house are fed, while here am I starving to death. While I am perishing, in my father’s house there is bread to spare." He awoke to the knowledge that he was lost and far away from his father’s house. What did he DO? "I will arise and go to my father’s house—I will arise.

I tell you, the father’s love was reaching out, touching and fingering his heart, breaking up the fallow ground thereof. Like a beam of light, it came across the miles; the distance was bridged and spanned with the father’s love as it revealed to him his need. He faced the fact that his need could only be met back at the father’s house, and he said, "I will arise and go to my father, and I will say I have sinned against Heaven and against thee; I’m not worthy to be called thy son; make me thy hired servant."

He faced the fact that he was lost—terrible awakening. Here was a man that had everything, and found himself at last in the hog pen. Let me tell you, beloved, every lost person in the world is in the hog pen, ready for the slaughter; he is ready to be taken from the swine’s pen to the slaughter-house to be slain under the inexorable justice of God, who will not spare. It is a terrible thing to be lost!

When the Philippian jailer, in Acts 16:30, came to the terrible knowledge he was lost, brother, he came face to face with his need; he saw himself as he was, a helpless creature in the sight of God, destitute of life, destitute of God, of Christ and of the Spirit of God, helpless, without hope in the world as he cried out to Paul and Silas, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Here was a direct admission that he was lost: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved? I am lost; I am LOST; I’m lost." I tell you, beloved, this idea of being lost is a fact.

When I was a lost boy many years ago, I could hardly sleep at night as I was made to see I was lost; I was afraid to lie down and go to sleep for fear I would wake up in Hell—lost. But there came a time when the Shepherd found the sheep; and He brought it home and I came rejoicing. Not only did I rejoice, others rejoiced with me.

Notice in the parable before us: "Who of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he FIND it? and when he hath FOUND it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing."

Watch it now: He goes after it, looking, searching until He FINDS it. There is no giving up; He searches until He finds it. the Lord identified Himself over and over as the Shepherd. He is the one being used in the illustration before us. He is the one who SEEKS relentlessly on and on, seeking after the lost until they are found.

I used to read that over and over. I don’t know how many times I have read that, and almost every time I read it I get a new thought or idea. Just recently as I was reading this I thought about the shepherd who suddenly looked around and a sheep was gone, and he started searching for the little lost sheep. And there was the poor little lost sheep wandering over the hills and valleys; its feet were bleeding and everywhere it looked, nothing but stark terror and it was frightened almost to death. But here is the shepherd, searching relentlessly, searching, looking for the lost sheep. I could almost picture the shepherd as he finally looked down into the valley and there was that poor, lost, straying sheep. Before it was certain death; but the shepherd, hurrying as fast as he could, runs down the hill, down the valley, and picks up that one little scrawny sheep, with its wool all twisted, dirty, matted and part of it gone; but the shepherd picks it up, hugs it to his bosom, and hurrying home, calls his friends, saying, "Come rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost."

"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."—John 10:16.

Ezekiel 34:11, 12, 16: "For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, even I, will both SEARCH my sheep, and SEEK them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I SEEK out my sheep, and will DELIVER them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day . . . I will seek that which was LOST, and bring again that which was driven away, and will BIND up that which was broken, and will STRENGTHEN that which was sick."

Lord, what will you DO? "I will SEARCH out my sheep." What will you do when you FIND them? "I will BIND that which was BROKEN, and STRENGTHEN that which was SICK."

You know, the Lord is a relentless searcher. If He hadn’t been He would not have found me, and He wouldn’t have found a lot of you, either. But He said, "I search for my sheep and seek them out." He seeks on and on until He finds them, and when the sheep has been found there is always rejoicing.

Then I want you to notice the last thing: He will search for how LONG? Until He FINDS it. Then what is the RESULT when He finds it? "Rejoicing." When the shepherd brought the little sheep home there was rejoicing. The Lord says, as He draws a vivid picture of what takes place in Heaven when a soul is saved, "Likewise, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance."

Rejoicing in Heaven itself; in the City of God there is rejoicing by the angels themselves when a sinner is saved. Why shouldn’t there be rejoicing on EARTH? And if the parable holds true—and it does—there was rejoicing when the shepherd brought the sheep home and invited his friends to come: "Rejoice with me: I have found my sheep that was lost."

May the Relentless Searcher search you out and bring the wandering ones home is my prayer. Amen.