The Necessity

Praying for the Lost – The Necessity:

Introduction: Reading from . The Bible teaches us that Jesus was the original sower of the Word. HE has now commissioned us to go forth and spread the word, to be sowers. But knowing this we must also understand that not all the seed will produce fruit. Even the farmer and gardener of today understands that. Nonetheless, both farmer and gardener are forever seeking how to have a greater yield. Should we too not also seek how we might have a greater yield in the sowing of the seed / word of God.? Of course we should.

So, I ask the question, how shall the lost be saved except that we sow the seed and how shall we yield we a great harvest? Well, as the work is of the Lord, there is really only one thing we can do as we sow and that is to pray!

How shall the lost be saved? The lost will not and indeed cannot be saved unless someone prays for them. Why would we suggest that?

Well first of all, they are the children of the devil.

· “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

o That which is ungodly is of the devil and that which is of the devil is a lie. Lies are but one of the means by which Satan keeps the lost bound.

Another reason they cannot be saved short of someone praying for them is that they are under the power and authority of the devil.

· , “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.”

o The commission given to Paul and now passed on to us.

Still another reason is that they are being bound by one stronger than they are; Satan is the strong man.

· “No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”

And yet another reason is that they are, in a sense, prisoners of war.

· 17“That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?”

Another reason they cannot be saved short of someone praying for them is that they are blind.

· “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 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.”

Let us look again and closer to . Clearly, all of this is the work of the devil for the sole purpose of preventing man from coming to God.

Not only are they lost, but the way has be hid from them. With the Way hidden how can there be any hope of deliverance, of salvation? The unregenerate man cannot turn over a new leaf. He cannot change his own life; he cannot save his own soul.

The god of this world, Satan, has blinded the MIND. There is no hope of comprehension!

As long as the sinner remains blinded by Satan the gospel message is seemingly hopeless. Blind men simply cannot see. More importantly, they cannot understand the message. And unless the Holy Spirit removes the demonic blinders and opens his mind and heart to the gospel, he cannot be saved because the things of God seem foolish to him. (). “Foolishness” Greek moria the word from which we get the word moron.

The blind man sees the gospel as moronic, stupid and it is the strong man that keeps him blinded. How can we explain the gospel to someone like that? We MUST first bind the strong man. But we can’t! He is bigger, stronger, more knowledgeable, more devious and certainly more wicked than we are. On top of that, he is more determined than we are.

The very testimony of Charles H Spurgeon is that he had thought that he had heard the gospel preach many hundreds of times, until the one time that he did hear it and his soul was saved.

How many times must a man hear the gospel preached before the work of the Holy Ghost takes a hold of his heart? I don’t know but let it be spoken at least one more time by us.

How many prayers must go up before GOD begins to work within a person’s heart? I don’t know but let us be the ones that are willing to pray one more time.

If we cannot get a tur out of people to pray for the lost of this community, how shall we ever get them to come to a camp meeting?

Are you willing to let the people of this community die and go to hell or are you willing to pray for them? Those of you that are willing to pray for the LOST come back to night and we will learn the biblical basis for praying for the lost.

“I confess that I had been tutored in piety, put into my cradle by prayerful hands, and lulled to sleep by songs about Jesus. I had heard the Gospel continually. Yet, when the Word of the Lord came to me with power, it was as new as if I had lived among the unvisited tribes of Central Africa and had never heard the tidings of the cleansing foundation filled with blood, drawn from the Savior’s veins.

When for the first time I received the Gospel and my soul was saved, I thought that I had never really heard it before. I began to think that the preachers to whom I had listened had not truly preached it. But, on looking back, I am inclined to believe that I had heard the Gospel fully preached many hundreds of times before. This was the difference: I then heard it as though I did not hear it. When I did hear it, the message may not have been any clearer in itself than it had been at former times, but the power of the Holy Spirit was present to open my ears and to guide the message to my heart.

Then I thought I had never heard the truth preached before. Now I am persuaded that the light shone often on my eyes, but I was blind; therefore, I thought that the light had never come there. The light was shining all the while, but there was no power to receive it. The eyeball of the soul was not sensitive to the divine beams” (Spurgeon 26-28).