The Dark Reality of Being Eternally Lost

Ray A. Seilhamer
Bishop, 1993-2001

October 1998

Jesus said, "I come to seek and to save those who are lost."

What does it mean to be lost?

In the mid-1960s, I went deer hunting with Harry Smith, one of the members of the Devonshire church in Harrisburg, Pa., which I pastored at the time. Harry rolled a map out on the table and told me how the mountain ranges run. The next morning, bright and early, I took a path through a swamp and followed Harry’s directions to a certain trail marked with red paint. There, I watched the sun come up.

I’m not very patient, especially when it’s cold. About 9:00, I started to walk...and walk...and walk. I was lost, but I didn’t know it. By 2:30, I was lost...and I knew it. And there was nobody around.

Knowing that water flows downhill, I found a stream coming out of the swamp and followed it, sometimes crawling over rocks on my hands and knees. I reached a highway just after dark, exhausted, and then found a house.

It is terrible to be lost in the mountains. A million times over, it is terrible to be lost spiritually. There is no purgatory which you go through, and then things are all right. If you die without Christ, you are lost forever.

If we believed that, our priorities would be different. We would do everything possible to prevent people from going to hell.

We are more universalist than we are willing to admit. We wouldn’t voice that aloud, but it’s the reality. We behave as if, in some mystical way, all people out there will be saved.

Liberal theology says that when Jesus died on the cross, everyone was saved--they just don’t know it yet. Our job, according to this view, is to announce to them that they are saved. That, of course, is heresy. Jesus Christ did die on the cross for everyone, but each person must make a personal decision about whether or not to follow him. That is what we need to tell them about. And there are many ways to get the message across.

Tony Campolo speaks several hundred times a year all over the world. Early one morning, he found himself drinking coffee in a downtown Honolulu restaurant, unable to sleep because of jet lag. About 3:00, the door flew open, and eight prostitute women entered, having finished their night’s work and wanting to relax before heading home. They were loud and boisterous. Tony heard one of them say, "You know, tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be 39 years old."

Eventually, they left. Tony said to the proprietor, "Did you hear that? Agnes said tomorrow is her birthday. Whaddya say we throw her a party? I’ll come back tomorrow night with decorations."

The owner and his wife like the idea. They baked a cake and got word out on the street.

Twenty-four hours later, about 3:00, Agnes and the other women entered. The restaurant was decorated festively, and it was filled with people who shouted "Happy Birthday Agnes" as she entered and then began singing to her. Agnes was stunned. The manager came out with the cake, and she had to be reminded to blow out the candles.

"Go on, Agnes," someone said. "Cut the cake. Let’s celebrate."

She said, "Must I? Could I just keep this cake for a few days? I’ll take it to my apartment down the street, just for a few days."

Holding the cake like the Holy Grail, Agnes walked out and disappeared into the night. Everybody in the room was silent.

Tony said, "Let’s pray," and he offered up a prayer that God would bless Agnes on her birthday and bring fresh love and healing to her.

When Tony finished praying, the proprietor said, "Hey, you didn’t tell me you were a preacher."

Tony just grinned.

"What kind of church do you preach at?"

Tony said, "I preach at the kind of church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at three-thirty in the morning."

"Ah, cut it out, you don’t either," the owner said. "There isn’t a church like that. If there was, I’d go to it."

Would you do that? Would something like that be acceptable in your church?

A healthy congregation requires a balance between winning, building, and equipping. Most of us focus on building. We’re in Sunday school classes and Bible studies and in the pews on Sunday, going over and over the same biblical texts and, basically, getting fat. We eat and eat, but don’t get any exercise. We need to stop letting that be our focus, and start reaching out--building relationships with non-Christians and telling the Agneses of the world about the saving grace of Jesus.

Sadly, some of you would rather change pastors than change philosophies and methods in order to reach people for Christ. You think the church belongs to you and should be shaped just the way you like it. You are concerned only about yourself. People outside the church can go to hell before you let your church change in order to reach them. God will hold you guilty in judgment because of your narrowness.

Do you really believe that people outside of Christ are lost? Or are you a defacto universalist, believing that when your unsaved neighbor dies, somehow everything will work out and he won’t spend eternity in hell?

Jesus said he came to find and save persons who were lost. That needs to be our consuming focus as well.