NOT ONLY A SINNER, BUT LOST.

Hoa Maori, Issue 25, 1 July 1892, Page 3

NOT ONLY A SINNER, BUT LOST.

|&&& FTEE an open-air meeting, a short gA*/ time hack, a young man came JW'M. ■ up to me, and said, “Do you think any one can be saved now, if he wants to be ?” “Yes, assuredly,” I answered, “for God’s Word says, 1 Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation;’ and again, 1 Whosoever will, let him tale the water of life freely.’ ” He did not seem satisfied, so I asked him, “Do you own yourself a sinner before God?” “Oh, yes ! I know lam a sinner,” He seemed to say this rather lightly, so I said, “ Do you own yourself a lost sinner?” “I don’t know that I am prepared to own that,” he replied. Here, then, was the root of the matter, here the secret of the difficulty He wanted to get God’s blessing, ha wanted to obtain salvation without confessing his lost, helpless condition. Not only have we all sinned, but we are lost and helpless-, yes, as helpless as the poor man who fell among thieves between Jerusalem and Jericho, and was left by the roadside naked and half-dead. How different sin is in God’s sight and in man’s sight! .Because a man does not, get drunk, does not swear, is not an open sinner, he begins to think he is hot very bad after all. " Unconverted reader, have you been thinking thus ? have you been foolishly comparing yourself with others,' and ' concluding that your sins are not nearly so black as

some, or, in fact, most other people’s ? What folly! What sort of people does God put first, when He speaks of those who who shall have their part in the terrible darkness and misery of an eternal hell? The murderer? The liar? No 1 but those of your class, the “fearful" those afraid of confessing Christ; and the " unbelieving," those who have heard, j ust as you hut have not heeded, God’s message of salvation through the Lord Jesus.— xxi. 8. How much more seriously does God think of your sins that you do yourself 1 “Helpless” — “lost.” Will you own it ? “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”Eom. v. 6. “ The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”—Lukexix 10. A.J.H.B.