The Purpose of This Blog

In response to the challenge by the Southern Baptist Convention that churches take on the task to share the gospel with unengaged unreached people groups, the missions team of Harmony Pittsburg Baptist Association felt the need for a way to focus prayer on the task. This blog is intended to facilitate prayer for those contemplating their role in fulfilling the Great Commission. This on-line prayer guide may prove useful to those exploring a call to missions involvement as well as to those who have sensed a call to pray for those who will go to the front lines.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Lost: The Real Question

The question "Will those who never have the opportunity to hear about Jesus be lost forever?" has a disturbing answer: YES.  Knowing that there are millions of men and women made in God's image on their way to "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41) should haunt our waking thoughts and chase away our sleep.  But there is another question that hits closer to home:  What will God do to me if I don't do what He asks to warn them and tell them how to be saved?


The prophet Ezekiel received a chilling warning with his call: "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.  Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered you soul" (3:17-19 NKJV).

I have never heard or read an explanation of what the phrase "his blood I will require at your hand" means.  In New Testament times, a soldier who allowed a prisoner to escape served the sentence that the criminal had received, even if it meant death.  In our day, the laws prescribe punishment for negligence.  If reasonable precaution could have prevented the harm that befell another, the negligent party is liable for damages and perhaps imprisonment.  If we fail to do what we can to warn others of the danger that awaits them, if we fail to tell them that there is a way to eternal life, if we fail to obey God's command to preach the gospel to the nations, what will God do with us?  Why doesn't our accountability before God stir us to greater action?

A speaker at an evangelism rally told of being in a large warehouse store when an announcement of a lost child went out over the speakers.  Immediately, all the doors were shut and every employee dropped what they were doing to search for the child.  After several long minutes, the news came that the child had been found.  A cheer went up that could be heard throughout the building.  The speaker posed the question that we all wonder about: why do we not get as concerned about those lost spiritually as we do over those lost physically?

As we pray today, let's ask God to press upon our minds and hearts the plight of those without Jesus.  Tom Elliff, president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, says, "If you were standing by a cliff over which 1.7 billion people were falling to their death, wouldn't you do something?"  Let's ask God what He would have us do.

No comments:

Post a Comment