LOST PERSONS, IN CHRISTIAN terms, are precisely the ones who mistake their own person for God. They falsely identify, and cannot recognize, what is closest to them—themselves. Then, as we have noted, everything becomes delusional. Such a one really does think he is in charge of his life—though, admittedly, to manage it “successfully,” he may have to bow outwardly to this or that person or power. But he is in charge (he believes), and he has no confidence in the one who really is God. As we have seen, such ones “do not see fit to center their knowledge upon God.”
(Of course by “denial” we mean to include not only rejection of what is the case, but also affirmation of what is not the case.)
The outcome is a humanity “filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.” And although they still know of the condemnation of God on such things, “they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:29-32).
in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.
(2 Timothy 3:1-5)
We’re not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost.
We may know we are lost or we may not. Many a driver is lost long before he knows he is—though rarely before his wife knows it. pp. 54-56, PROFOUND SOURCE
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