A man must be lost before he can be found by the grace of Christ. One must be in desperate straights before he might be saved by God’s salvation. A man must be cognizant of and convicted by his unworthiness before God will redeem his sin and use that man for God’s own glory. A proud man has never been saved in his pride. Everyone who has been saved has first been humbled before God.
This is what Christ means when He says,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Mt. 5:3-4)
The kingdom of heaven and salvation is only granted to those who recognize their spiritual poverty (Christ’s words have nothing to do with monetary poverty) and their inability to offer any act of righteousness to God that is worthy of merit before God. And the comfort of God’s grace and salvation is only available to those who grieve over their poverty and lack of righteousness.
These truths are the basis of Jonathan Edwards’ first point in his sermon, “Pardon for the Greatest Sinners:”
They who are not sensible of their misery cannot truly look to God for mercy; for it is the very notion of divine mercy, that it is the goodness and grace of God to the miserable. Without misery in the object, there can be no exercise of mercy. To suppose mercy without supposing misery, or pity without calamity, is a contradiction: therefore men cannot look upon themselves as proper objects of mercy, unless they first know themselves to be miserable; and so, unless this be the case, it is impossible that they should come to God for mercy. They must be sensible that they are the children of wrath; that the law is against them, and that they are exposed to the curse of it: that the wrath of God abideth on them; and that he is angry’ with them every day while they are under the guilt of sin.—They must be sensible that it is a very dreadful thing to be the object of the wrath of God; that it is a very awful thing to have him for their enemy; and that they cannot bear his wrath. They must be sensible that the guilt of sin makes them miserable creatures, whatever temporal enjoyments they have; that they can be no other than miserable, undone creatures, so long as God is angry with them; that they are without strength, and must perish, and that eternally, unless God help them. They must see that their case is utterly desperate, for any thing that any one else can do for them; that they hang over the pit of eternal misery; and that they must necessarily drop into it, if God have not mercy on them.
Those who come to Christ for salvation must be cognizant of their lostness. One must be lost before he might be saved.
Words of Grace 