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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Alistair Huong

Are You Sure You Are Lost?

Father in heaven, we're grateful for the Sabbath day.

We're thankful for the time we can spend together in study of your word.

And now as we pause, I pray, Lord, you might clear our mind of the clutter that has accumulated in the week.

Anything in our hearts that separates us from hearing your voice, may you forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

And may your Holy Spirit be here to be our teacher, our guide, and to lead us into all truth.

And may the speaker today be upheld by your strength, and may Jesus Christ be lifted up.

We pray and ask these things now in Jesus' name.

Recently, I read this story online, Which means it must be true, right?

As it's often been said, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

So I can't vouch whether this is a true story or not, but it's a good 1.

Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man.

He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the back country.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost.

Finally, I arrived an hour late and I saw that the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.

There were only the diggers and crew left, and they were eating lunch.

I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late.

I went to the side of the grave and looked down, and the vault lid was already in place.

I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.

The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around.

I played my heart out for this man with no family and friends.

I played like I've never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played Amazing Grace, the workers began to weep.

When I finished, I packed up my guitar and started for my car.

Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard 1 of the workers say, I've seen nothing like that before, And I've been putting in septic tanks for 20 years.

And the story concludes, apparently I'm still lost.

I guess the first time I shared this story, it was with a bunch of college kids, and there was deathly silence, because they didn't know what a septic tank was.

But this story I think is an apt illustration, very humorous illustration of how many of us, I think, are when we're in church.

We're in the right place, doing the right things, singing the right songs, maybe even Amazing Grace, we might even be weeping with the preacher and the song leaders and the people sitting next to us, but is it possible that despite all of those things, we might still be lost?

You know, I've heard it been said many times more than once it might be a professor and his Bible class or some survey that's taken in some youth conference or some place right it's been done more than once where people say we have asked our young people do you have an assurance of salvation?

Do you have an assurance that you are right with God.

And inevitably the response comes back, it's a shockingly low percentage of our young people.

Our young people, they just have no assurance, no assurance, no assurance.

And Then a huge amount of the effort and the energy exerted from the pulpit and youth ministries around the world is now emphasizing we need to give our young people an assurance of salvation.

We design programs to foster this type of assurance.

And you know, I do think that is a problem because of all people on the earth, Seventh-day Adventists who know the Bible truth, who know Jesus Christ, and know the truths of what's going to happen at the end times, we of all people should have the closest relationship with Jesus and have the most assurance that our lives are right with him.

But nevertheless, I think there's something missing in these surveys.

The question, I think, ought also to be, well, if you're not sure whether you're lost, or if you're not sure you're saved, are you sure you're lost?

Because just because someone says, I'm not sure that I'm saved, we don't know that this person, which is the assumption, oh all of our young people are just burdened down with guilt, they're weighted down with the sense of unworthiness and they're just breaking themselves up instead of coming to Jesus for mercy.

Maybe the other issue is we're not sure we're saved but we're not sure we're lost either.

And if you ask me, I think there is a question to be asked, a valid question, and that is which 1 of these 2 options is the bigger problem?

Is it a bigger problem to not be sure that I'm saved, or is it a bigger problem that I'm not sure that I'm lost?

Revelation chapter 3, at the end of the chapter, the angel comes down and has a message for which church?

The people living in the antitypical day of atonement, the people at the end of time, you and I.

Revelation chapter 3, we'll just read a few of the verses.

Verse 14, and unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, these things say of the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

I know thy works, that you are neither cold nor hot.

So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold or hot nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth." Verse 17, because you say is I am rich and increased with goods and I've need of nothing and no it's not that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

So Jesus here comes down and he says to Laodicea, the problem is not that you have no assurance of salvation, the problem with Laodicea is you have no assurance of condemnation.

And so when I look at the Bible, particularly the message to the Laodiceans, which I believe apply to the vast majority of us, the issue is not, do I have the assurance of salvation primarily, even though that is important.

We do want an assurance of salvation, so don't get me wrong.

But what good is it to have an assurance of salvation when we don't think we need saving to begin with?

And I need to make a little disclaimer here before I go on, and that is there are people, and maybe some of you here in this congregation fall in this category.

There is a class of people, and if you read the testimony of Ellen White when she was a young woman, She falls in this category that I am not speaking to today, and that is the people who truly are broken people because they have an overwhelming sense of guilt in their life.

There are those people, yes, like Ellen White, who had the fear and they are just so consumed with their own unworthiness that they're almost paralyzed and they're afraid to come to Jesus.

There are people like that and I'm not putting them down, but I am speaking to a different class today.

I'm speaking to those of us who happen to fall more in line with the problem of Laodicea.

Those who say, I'm not sure that I'm saved, besides Ellen White says, didn't she?

She happened to be talking about the 1 saved always saved, and we don't believe that.

But neither do I think I'm so bad that I'm lost.

This is the kind of thinking I'm talking about.

I might make a mistake here or there, but I'm still in church on Sabbath.

I'm not 1 of those people that dress inappropriately on Sabbath morning.

I know where the books of the Bible are, I might, you know, do a few things here and there that I need to pray and ask forgiveness for, but I'm not so bad.

That person, surely God can't keep that person out of heaven.

Or maybe those of us who say, you know, I don't do anything illegal.

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Are You Sure You Are Lost?

Transcript

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