Making plans for this effort and taking with the brethren at Heritage Christian University made me think more about the evangelistic emphasis of the university. This emphasis was begun by the university’s first President, brother Charles Coil.

We are aware that there is a great emphasis in Scripture on seeking the lost. I want to remind us of this great theme in the Bible and this great work of which we are all a part.

There are three parties that are involved in saving the lost. If all three are doing their part, the result will always be that the lost person is saved. These three persons are God, the lost and the evangelist. If all three of these are interested in the same thing---saving those who are lost and doing God’s will---then the lost will find salvation.

We know that God is interested in the lost. He is the father of the lost son in Luke 15. He rejoiced when the son came back home. He said to the elder brother, "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad. For this thy brother was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." (Luke 15:32.) It is God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit throughout biblical history who are working out the great plan of redemption of mankind.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16.) "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would dare to die. But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:6-8.) "Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away everyone of you from his iniquities." (Acts 3:26.) "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim. 2:4.)

"If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:31-32.)

The right kind of lost person. If one, who is lost, is seeking and searching for truth, you then have the second important party in reaching the lost. If the lost are indifferent and do not care for the things of God, if they have hardened their hearts, if they love this present world and sin, then such a person will remain lost.

Jesus said, "Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks receives; he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks it shall be opened." (Matt. 7:7-8.) "But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience." (Luke 8:15.) The prodigal son, though wasting his inheritance with riotous living, was the right kind of lost person. The elder brother, though home with his father, was the wrong kind of lost person. King David, though sinful like all the rest of mankind, was the right kind of sinner (penitent and humble when he realized his sins). King Saul was the wrong kind of sinner.

Winning the lost does not depend wholly upon God the Father. God has faithfully done his part in providing for man’s salvation. He will make the Gospel known to those who desire to do his will. The lost have an important part in their own salvation. Luke recorded that Peter "with many other words did testify and exhort, saying, Save yourself from this untoward generation!" (Acts 2:40.) Winning the lost is not totally the responsibility of the saved. The lost have a responsibility to seek after God. Isaiah wrote, "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. He will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:6-7.)

The saved should seek the lost. The third important party in winning the lost is the saved person. We are commissioned to go into all the world and make known the saving Gospel to the lost. (Mark 16:15-16.) Paul gave that same commission to Timothy, a second generation preacher. "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2.)

"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us." (2 Cor. 4:3-7.)

When all three of these meet and are seeking the same thing, then the lost person will be saved. A good example of that is the conversion account of the Ethiopian eunuch. (Acts 8:26-40.) He was returning home from Jerusalem after attending a Jewish feast. While riding in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. He was seeking to understand God’s will and especially when the eunuchs would be able to enter into the congregation of God’s people and worship. God the Father knowing the heart of this treasurer provided someone to teach him the way of God. The eunuch did not know it, but God has commissioned an angel to work in directing Philip, the evangelist, to him. The Spirit of God also told Philip where to go and find him. God was involved, the eunuch was seeking, and the evangelist was searching for the lost and wanting to assist him in his salvation. Every time, when these three factors are present, the lost will be saved. Every lost person can be saved if they desire. I believe that. I do not believe in predestination of certain people to the exclusion of others. I do not believe that seeking people will not find. Jesus said that they will find and the door will be opened. How many times we hear from lost people that they have been looking for someone to help them. God provides the teacher if the lost are seeking. We must be ready to be used of God.

A good prayer to pray is, "Lord, here am I send me. Use me to help others who want to go to heaven. Lord, speak, thy servant heareth." I like the song that says, "Lead me to some soul today. O teach me, Lord, just what to say." (Praise for the Lord, 387.) Good things will happen if we first prepare ourselves to teach others and ask God to use us to save the lost.

The act of preaching or teaching the Gospel is based upon certain assumptions. These assumptions are true and form the foundation upon which we go to seek the lost.

People without Christ are lost in sin. An immediate and compelling underlying assumption in preaching the Gospel is that people are lost in sin without Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins. Where I go, you cannot come. . . I said therefore unto you, that you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins." (John 8:21, 24.) "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14:6.)

The Bible says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23.) As it is written, "There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands. There is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way." (Rom. 3:10-11.) Our own conscience speaks this same truth. We stand self-condemned by the accusation of our own hearts. We need not any other to tell us. But the Scriptures reveal the source of this sinfulness. "Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered the world and death by sin. So death passed upon all men for all have sinned." (Rom. 5:12.)

No one will ever seriously seek after salvation until this truth is acknowledged. Christians will not earnestly seek the salvation of others unless we believe that non-Christians are lost in sin. More and more our world rejects such a concept. They deny the reality of sin and seriousness of rebellion against God.

There are eternal consequences. Preaching the Gospel is based upon the assumption that lost people face an eternity separated from God. This assumption is true.

"There was a certain rich man . . . And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from here to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from there. . . Neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." (Luke 16:19-31.)

"These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. 25:46.) "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21.)

"Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man that built his house upon a rock. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. Everyone that hears these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. The rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell and great was the fall of it." (Matt. 7:24-27.)

The Gospel is based upon these simple truths---all men are lost in sin without Jesus Christ. There are serious eternal consequences to dying in sin. Have you thought about these things? Have you obeyed the Gospel?