2. _Christ has redeemed me,_ so I confess. We were in great need of such a Lord and of the redemption which He was to bring. For without such a Lord _we are lost and condemned creatures._ We are _lost_ creatures. What does this mean? Remember the beautiful story of the _Prodigal Son._ The father in this story said of his son after his return that he had been lost. Wilfully and sinfully the son had left his home and his father and gone into a far country, where he spent all his goods with riotous living. He was now far away from his father, separated from him and his home. He was lost in that far-away country, where great misery and distress soon overtook him. Without his father he would have _perished_ with hunger. Thus we are lost without Christ. We have sinned against our heavenly Father, we have transgressed His commandments. By committing sins we have left our Father and are separated from Him. We are in a far-away country, in this sinful world, where misery and distress surround us. We are without God and without hope in the world. Without our Lord we must perish, suffer eternal death. _Without Christ we are indeed lost._ Every one of us must confess: I am a lost creature. _"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way."_ Is. 53,6. 3. I confess also that I am a _condemned_ creature. God, as you have learned, is a righteous and jealous God. He _threatens to punish_ all that transgress His commandments. When Adam and Eye transgressed God's command, the threatened punishment came over them. _"In the day that thou eatest thereof,"_ God had told Adam, _"thou shalt surely die."_ Gen. 2,17. _Death_ is the punishment of all sinners, not only death here on earth, but _eternal death,_ that is, _eternal damnation._ That is the sentence which God passed upon all that have sinned, that they should be separated from Him in eternity, from Him in whom alone we find life and true happiness.--It was the _devil_ that tempted Adam and Eve to sin. They heard and obeyed his voice instead of the voice of their Father. He became their Lord and master. _"He that committeth sin is of the devil."_ 1 John 3,8. Because we have sinned, we are under the power of the devil, we belong to his kingdom. Without Christ we are all lost and condemned creatures, that is, _we are separated from God, our Father; we are under God's judgment of damnation; we are under the powers of sin, death, and the devil. They are our masters. "We were by nature the children of wrath."_ Eph. 2,3.