While I believe as Christians our chief goal in life should be to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, evangelizing the lost must be our second main endeavor. O, would we be like David Brainerd, who once remarked: “I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts.”1 And David Jeremiah adds how we should all be thinking about the lost: “If we understand what lies ahead for those who do not know Christ, there will be a sense of urgency in our witness.”2
I appreciate how Charles Spurgeon shared what our attitude toward the unsaved should be: “Love your fellowmen, and cry about them if you cannot bring them to Christ. If you cannot save them, you can weep over them. If you cannot give them a drop of cold water in hell, you can give them your heart’s tears while they are still in this body.”3
My friends, evangelism is serious business because the eternal destinies of souls are at stake. And sharing Christ is one of the main ways we demonstrate our love for Him. G.V. Wigram said it well: “The question of speaking to souls is a question of personal love to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not say you have no gift for it. Do you love Christ? If so, you will never lose an opportunity of speaking a word for Him.”4
I know for myself that I often get discouraged seeing the hardness of the hearts of those I witness to and pray for, but the great missionary Hudson Taylor convicted me on this point when he said: “Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.”5
I like how Kirk Cameron puts it: “If you had the cure to cancer wouldn’t you share it? … You have the cure to death … get out there and share it.”6 But it goes even deeper than this because not only does our willingness to share the gospel demonstrate our love of Christ and those we are sharing with, but we are commanded to share the gospel. Again, Hudson Taylor, sums it up well when he said: “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.”7
Sadly, in today’s era of evangelism, too much emphasis is being placed on a social gospel and not the true gospel. And this has caused our message of saving souls to be hampered. Pastor John MacArthur states this case clearly as follows: “Our responsibility has never been to moralize the unconverted; it’s to convert the immoral. Our responsibility is redemptive, not political. We do not have a moral agenda; we have a redemptive agenda. We can’t reform the kingdom of darkness that Satan rules.”8 Instead, John Stott, summed up well what evangelism is when he stated: “To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe.”9
I believe that our role as Christians is not only to share the good news about Jesus Christ, but to rely on the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to serve as the ultimate evangelist and to be earnest in prayer for those we are sharing with. Prayer is so important and often little used in evangelism. Andrew Murray said it so well: “The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history.”10
So, to sum up, evangelism should be the lifeblood of all Christians. Our sharing Jesus demonstrates out true love for those around us. We need to rely on the Holy Spirit to convict the lost of their sins, and we need to pray for the miracle of salvation for those we share the good news with. And as far as our attitude toward evangelism goes I think we should take to heart the words of the great missionary and evangelist to Africa, David Livingstone: “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.”11
1 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
2 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
3 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
4 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
5 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
6 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
7 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
8 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)
9 Inspirational Quotes on Evangelism (bibleportal.com)