Six co-workers gave reports about services held in three different continents. The main message was: The need is great. People are hungry for the Gospel. Who will go and tell them about the Lord Jesus so that they can be saved from eternal damnation?
One’s heart bleeds for the millions of people wandering around aimlessly, not knowing the Lord and going towards a lost eternity. People of the calibre of C.T. Studd are needed, who went to those countries and selflessly gave their lives so that the Gospel could be spread and souls be saved. May God give us a love for the lost.
Romans 10
14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
May none of us be satisfied to just sit at home, busy with our own lives and without any concern for a lost world. The Lord Jesus sent us to the ends of the world with the Gospel of salvation. We have the Bible, we have Jesus Who is the answer to the needs of all mankind. Each one of us needs that love for the Lord that will cause us to forget everything else and go in obedience to His command for us, “Go to the ends of the earth!” We need to be people who don’t think of ourselves, but of others. Everyone should be a messenger from heaven. Woe to the one who just brushes it aside and takes no notice when God speaks to him.
POINT 1: Saying “Yes” when God calls.
Example: There was a man in Tasmania who was climbing a mountain together with his friend. When he got to the top, he heard a Voice coming from above saying: “Give Me your heart!” He looked around but saw nobody. He continued climbing. When he got to the top, he heard the Voice again: “Gardner, Gardner, give Me your heart!” He wondered whether it was maybe God speaking to him, so he looked up and said with great cheek, “No, God, I won’t give You my heart now!” At sunset they reached the hut where they were going to sleep. At night he heard dogs barking nearby. He went to the window and looked out and saw his friend counting money and pieces of gold. A spirit of greed entered him. For days he only thought of how he could get hold of the treasure. Eventually he decided to kill his friend. He dug a hole nearby and buried the corpse. But out of fear that the body might be discovered or that a wild animal would dig it up, he dug the body up again and threw it into a river. Eventually, however, the body was discovered and Mr Gardner was arrested and put into prison. The case was tried and he was sentenced to death. A man of God in that area, Edward Reed, visited him the night before he was to be hanged. He found Gardner lying flat on the cement floor, crying and weeping brokenheartedly. When Gardner saw Reed, he said: “Sir, don’t think that I cry about being hanged tomorrow. There is no pain in my heart about being hanged, but tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock I will stand before God, the One Who said to me, ‘Give Me your heart!’, and I answered in a cheeky way, “No, I won’t do it now!’ Now I have to stand before Him.”
Jesus spoke of people for whom it would have been better if they had not been born. One can play the fool now and be busy with your own things, but you will stand before God One Day, the One Who said: “Whom shall I send?” Do you just carry on with your life? When Jesus was 12 years old, He said to His mother: “Don’t you know I should be in My Father’s business?” Are you in God’s business or in your own? Your 8 o’clock is coming. Will you also be in the situation of this man: “I don’t have regrets to be hanged, but how will I stand before God?” If you say “No” to Him now in disobedience, you open yourself and say “Yes” to all the demonic forces, and we don’t know where you will end. Maybe there are signs in your life already of things which will make you cry in the end: “I don’t regret having to hang, but to appear before Him”. Do we know the value of one soul? Are we prepared to sacrifice for the sake of reaching lost souls?
POINT 2: God’s glory in us.
As Jesus was crucified, buried and rose again with the glory of God, we were in Him. Is God’s glory seen in us? In our faces? We died with Him, were buried with Him, rose with Him. We are partakers of His glory. May the glory of God be seen in us.
POINT 3: Abiding in Him.
Jesus said, “Abide in Me and I in you and My words in you, and you will ask what you will and you will get it”. “Abide in Me” – the word in Greek means like a soldier being part of the army, in his regiment, batallion. The ancient Greeks had strong soldiers who were an integral part of that regiment. Their strength was in that they stayed together. When the enemy attacked, they had to stay part of the regiment.
Now Jesus said, “Abide in Me”. So we must stay in Him, be an integral part of Him. Then we will be safe.
POINT 4: Holding on to what we have received.
Like Naboth when king Ahab wanted to buy his vineyard in return for a better one or any price he wanted. But he said: “May it be far from me that I part with my inheritance”. He was killed but didn’t part from it.
We have a heavenly inheritance. Let us not easily part from it but rather say: “Lord, I will rather part from everything I have than from You”. May we abide in Jesus and He mean more than anything else to us.
Point 5: Losing our saltiness.
I also wanted to speak about the 10 virgins. Five were wise and five foolish. In Greek it means: “They have lost their saltiness”. The salt has lost its saltiness. A Christian who was aflame for the Lord, but then went down, down, down and lost his saltiness. When the time for the wedding came, they could not enter because they had lost their saltiness. May we not be Christians who have lost their saltiness.