Moody Finds a Lost Sinner

I believe, friends, that the most glaring omission in today's gospel is the lost sinner. Old-time preachers used to say that a sinner could not get saved until they first were lost. Jesus emphasized this, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

God's Word underlines this as well. We see in Luke's Gospel a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. We used to sing the theme in our old hymns, I once was lost, but now I'm found.

But in the average congregation today, there is a noticeable absence. Where are all the lost sinners? No one wants to admit they are lost today, undone, and hell-bound. Modern evangelism has made it too easy to accept Jesus, and it's redefined the lost sinner by calling him the unchurched.

The primary goal of modern evangelism is to increase church membership, to make someone who is not a church member into a church member. Subsequently, our evangelistic efforts are only recognized numerically. The more numbers a church has, the more successful that church is.

That's how most pastors measure their success in ministry today, by the size of their congregation. It matters little if most of the church members are yet unconverted. But where, oh where, are the lost sinners today, in need of a Savior from sin, the worth of a soul is seldom talked about today? As long as I'm running three thousand on Sunday, then as a pastor I'm a big success.

That's how we think the church has become a corporation, run by CEOs, measured by bank accounts. I want to go back in time, friends. I want to read you a story today that most of you are quite unfamiliar with, but we need to be familiar with it.

It tells us how to share the gospel. It tells us how to define what the real gospel is, and how to find a lost sinner. It's a story related by D.L. Moody, about a time he preached in a prison.

Everyone in this story is rich with the gospel of the Son of God, and I want you to pay close attention to it, friends. Listen to this remarkable story. You will benefit from it.

It will help you to share Christ with others more effectively. Hear now the words of D.L. Moody, as he related them in a sermon in 1893. I was invited one day, some years ago, to visit and preach in the tomb's prison, New York.

I had supposed that I should address the prisoners face to face, as I used to talk to prisoners in the chapels of most of our jails. But when I got there, I found I had to stand on a little iron railing, running from one tier of cells to another. There was a tier above, and one below, and one on the same level as me.

There I talked, to a great long narrow passageway, to gates, to bars, and to brick walls. It was pretty hard preaching. I had never attempted to preach in that way before.

I did not know, when I got through with it, how they had received me, and so I thought I would go and see them. I went to the first cell door, and looked in. I found the men playing cards.

I supposed they'd been playing all the time that I was preaching, and took no interest in the sermon. I looked into the window, and said, How is it with you here? Oh, chaplain, we do not want you to have a bad idea of us. I said to myself, There is no one here to be saved, for there is no one lost, and I got away as quick as I could.

I went to another cell. There were three or four men in there, and I said, How is it with you here? Well, stranger, we will tell you. We got to bad company, and the men that did the deed got clear, and we got caught.

I said to myself, There is no one here for Christ to save, for there is no one lost, and I went along to the next cell, and then I said, Well, my friends, how is it with you? One of them said, A false witness went to court and swore a lie upon me. He was perfectly innocent, and ought not to be there. I went on to the next cell, and looked in, and said, Well, my friends, how is it with you? They were innocent, all of them, thank God, but the man that did the deed looked very much like them.

They were perfectly innocent, and so I went on. I never found so many innocent men. They were all innocent.

I found a great many innocent men under lock and key, and they were all trying to justify themselves. There was no one guilty, but the constables, the justices, were magistrates. They were the guilty ones.

I got discouraged. I thought I would give it up, but I kept on, and I found one man in a cell alone. He had his elbows on his knees, and he had his head buried in his hands.

As I looked in, I could see the streams of tears running down upon his cheeks. They were the first tears I had seen. It did me good to look at them.

I said, My friend, how is it with you here? He looked up. It was a look of remorse and despair. He said, Oh, sir, my sins are more than I can bear.

Thank God for that, said I. Ain't you the man that's been preaching to us? Yes, sir. And yet, I thought you said you were a friend to the prisoner, and you're glad that my sins are more than I can bear? I replied, I am glad that they are more than you can bear, for if they are more than you can bear, you can cast them on the Lord Jesus. But I am the worst man in this prison.

Then he began enumerating his sins, and what a heavy load they were. It was refreshing to stand there and hear him tell me it was the Lord Jesus that had gotten into that cell and into that man's heart, and I told him so. Then I told him to pray to God to forgive him and to take away his sin.

He thought God would never forgive such a sinner as he was. I told him, you can get all those sins multiplied by 10,000 forgiven because you've committed probably 10,000 more sins than you have thought of. You can sum them all up and write underneath the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanseth from all sin.

And I stood there and preached the gospel to that thirsty soul. He seemed to drink it in. I said, let's get down here and pray.

And we did. He inside and I outside. And after I got through prayer, I said, my friend, now you pray.

I pray. It would be blasphemy for me to pray for a wretch like me to call upon God. I said to him, call upon God, ask for mercy.

That's what you want. Ask him to have mercy upon you. The poor wretch could not lift his eyes toward heaven.

He knelt down on the pavement, and all he could say was, God, be merciful to me, a vile wretch. After his prayer, I put my hand through the window in the door. He got hold of it and shook it.

And a hot tear fell on my hand. That tear seemed to burn into my very soul. I said, I'm going to the hotel between nine and twelve o'clock.

I want you to join in prayer and make up your mind that you will not sleep tonight till you know. That night, I got much interested in prayer for the man. My heart was so overborne that I could not go back to Chicago without going down to the prison to see him.

I went down and I got the governor of the tombs to let me in, and I went to his cell. And when I got there and saw him, the remorse and despair had all disappeared. He was all gone.

His face was lit up with a heavenly glow. He seized my hand and tears of joy began to flow. He pressed my hand and shook it and said, I believe I am the happiest man in the whole city of New York.

I thought when they brought me to this prison, I should never go out again. I thought I'd never could walk down Broadway again. I thought I could never see my godly mother again.

Now, thank God that they brought me, for if they had not, I would have never have known Christ. He said when he prayed, the Lord Jesus heard his prayer. I asked him what time of the night he thought it was, and he said he thought it was about midnight when the Lord Jesus had come into that cell and saved his soul.

My dear friend, can you tell me why it was that God came into that prison and passed by cell after cell and set that one captive free? It was because he took his place as a lost sinner and asked for mercy. Well, that's the end of the story, friends. You can't get saved until you first get lost.

The gospel is for the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty. Let me ask you, friend, are you hungry for God? Are you sick and tired of your sins? Are you thirsty for Christ? Jesus says, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.