Avenged Sevenfold (2007) "Lost"

[reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]
As performed by A7X

Centuries pass and still the same
War in our blood, some things never change
Fighting for land and personal gain
better your life, justify our pain
The end is knocking
The end is knocking

We've all been lost for most of this life
(lost for most of this life)
Everywhere we turn more hatred surrounds us
And I know that most of us just ain't right
(most of us just ain't right)
Following the wrong steps, being led by pride

How many lives will we take
How many hearts destined to break
Nowhere to run, can't escape
Full of ourselves, tied to our fate
The end is knocking
The end is knocking, yeah

We've all been lost for most of this life
(lost for most of this life)
Everywhere we turn more hatred surrounds us
And I know that most of us just ain't right
(most of us just ain't right)
Following the wrong steps, being led by pride

With peace of mind so hard to find
We're dwelling on the drastic signs
Another way to numb our mind
And as you close your eyes tonight
and pray for a better life
you'll see it flying helplessly away

We've all been lost for most of this life
(lost for most of this life)
Everywhere we turn more hatred surrounds us
And I know that most of us just ain't right
(most of us just ain't right)
Following the wrong steps, being led by pride

"M. Shadows explains, 'We wanted to make a song that kind of reminded us of our old school stuff.'

"The Rev adds, 'The lyrics are really impacting,' as the song is based primarily on war.

"'The song is about mankind just always being obsessed with war. That’s just how it kinda is. Y’know, there’s people who preach for peace and stuff, it’s a really nice thought, but mankind has always been based on war, and conquering... and you always know that empires will crumble and there’ll be another war to be rule of supreme,' says Shadows, describing the basis for the song.

Since the earliest recorded histories of humankind war has been a central fact of life. It wasn't supposed to be that way. Originally, God had made humankind in His own image, making us to fit Him in a perfect way, filling us with His own breath. God had created humankind to be in eternal fellowship with Himself.

God loves His people deeply, in ways we can hardly imagine, having designed us to be His intimate companion, just as He designed Eve to correspond to Adam. God intends for us to be made one with Him in a profound intimacy, and it was Jesus, the rescuer, Who would provide the way for eternal fellowship with God.

Because we are made in the image of God, our original design was to display God’s holiness. And because God made people like Himself, people have the ability to be in relationship with God. Being in loving fellowship with God is every person’s greatest purpose, every person’s greatest good, deepest fulfillment, pleasure, happiness and satisfaction.

So how did we get from love and peace to war and hate?

Cain ushered in war, it seems. He's the first hater, the first killer, although it's the serpent who is called The Murderer and the Father of Lies in the Bible. From Cain's line came a bloodthirsty crew who, by the time of Noah, had nearly wiped out the "good" son's line, the line of Seth (Seth replaced Abel in Adam and Eve's family, and it was during his life that men began to call on God).

Even after Noah and his family stepped out of the ark and into a newly scrubbed world, the only human beings left; even after God made a solemn covenant with that little band of eight faithful people to respect life as sacred; even after all that, sin came barrelling in, because people are sinful, and, bottom line, war is a symptom of sin.

The whole plan of salvation is aimed at rescuing people from this condition. When God offers salvation to you and to me, He is offering us deliverance from sin in three ways.

1) The first way is a one time act of being saved from the penalty of sin. God clearly says that sin will always result in death. For you and me who have been cleansed and made new by Jesus, that penalty of death is paid for by Him. We are forgiven sinners, we are now called saints, the term used for those who now believe in Jesus and have had His righteousness settle their accounts.

2) The second way God delivers us from sin is in the present tense, from the power of sin. This is accomplished in every believer’s life through belief in God’s word, trust in the power of the Holy Spirit working together with your obedience to God. You now have the freedom, the power, to choose not to sin. Before you and I were saved, we were slaves to sin, but now we can make a choice not to sin, it is not our master any more.

3) The third way God delivers us from sin is in the future tense, when we will finally be made entirely clean from the presence of sin. That's what John, one of Jesus' disciples, said. Those who have been reborn will one day see Jesus as He is because we will be just like Him, glorified, sin-free.

The crucifixion is the climax of God’s story of relationship: reconciliation between God and people that will ultimately result in the reconciliation of all creation to God.

The whole Bible is the story of God’s relationship to His creation, to people. We started out in Paradise: a perfect relationship with God. Then the first man and woman initiated estrangement between God and His beloved world through their sin. The root of sin is self-centeredness, selfishness. I want what I want. I am going to get what I want. I am not going to let you stop me. I am going to stop you from getting what I want away from me. God explained what would happen next. Instead of the beautiful harmony of Paradise, people would be battling with each other and with creation and with God.

The cost of sin, the penalty, was death, but like superman throwing himself on a bomb, God had always planned to absorb the full cost of sin for your sake and mine so that we could be one with Him again, as we were in Paradise.

That was Jesus’ mission, to reconcile people back to God, to create an intimate, organic union where believers enter into the fellowship of the trinity and experience the life of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus also came to reconcile people to each other, to bring back together what people tore apart because of sin, because of self-centeredness and selfishness.

Reconciliation happens when people who are at odds with each other are made one with each other again. The ultimate reconciliation applies to salvation. Your sins and mine estranged us from God, we were separated from God, placed under His wrath, that cleansing power that will one day rid the universe of death and corruption. So God the Father sent God the Son to bear the penalty of death of our sins, to fully absorb God's just wrath into Himself on the cross.

Since Jesus the rescuer reconciled those who put their faith in Him to God; and, through His Spirit, reconciled believers to each other, those who have been reborn have a responsibility to be agents of reconciliation for other people.

That's why there are some groups of Christians who refuse to engage in war and "preach peace," as M Shadows mentioned. This is one very real and practical way to resist the urges of sinful hatred and violence.

Nevertheless, Jesus made it clear when He talked about what would happen at the end of time that there would be terrible violence and war -- not because God wants this, but because people want it, because the serpent wants it and he has people under his thumb. Yes, God could put a stop to the whole thing. But He doesn't. He permits people to make their own decisions about love and hate.

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