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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 7, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 6.

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LOST!

By R. F. Cottrell

WHAT a terrible meaning is attached to this short word! The idea of losing is disagreeable, even of things of but little value; but when we think of losing life, of losing ourselves, the thought is tremendously terrible. When life is at stake, when the person is liable to be lost, how astonishing that men should pass on careless of the conditions on which eternal life is offered, until they awake to the realization of the sad fact that they are lost, and lost forever. It is written, “Whosoever will save his life [by a denial of Christ] shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” Luke 9:24, 25.
It must be fearfully shocking, even to the careless and indifferent, to learn at last that they might have had eternal life, but that it is lost, and they are irretrievably doomed to perdition. But what must it be to those who have professed their faith in Christ, and entertained high hopes of sharing the bliss of the sanctified in the glorious kingdom of God to eternity? What words can express the awful dismay of the backslider and the hypocrite, when, despite their plea of having done many wonderful works in the name of Christ, they shall hear from his lips the astounding, crushing words, “I never knew you; depart from me”?
But nearer still. My brother, my sister, myself, think of the superlative consternation and indescribable woe, if, after having had the light of present truth of the soon-coming of Christ, and hearing and embracing the last message of the gospel, the message that is to prepare the last generation of God’s people for translation without death into the everlasting kingdom, we shall awaken, too late, to the overwhelming fact that we are lost! Let us avert this terrible doom by walking in the light while mercy still pleads in our behalf. R. F. COTTRELL.