What’s the Hurry?

I believe that most born-again believers who seek God’s will have a sincere desire to lead people to the Lord. Through His Word, we have life-saving information that can change the destiny of souls from eternal punishment in hell to eternal and abundant life with Christ. So why wouldn’t we want to tell people? If we had practical, easy-to-follow information about how to cure a deadly disease like cancer, wouldn’t we be shouting it from the rooftops? (Luke 12: 2-3)

Yet, when it comes to witnessing, many believers feel inadequately prepared to share the Gospel, or too shy to share their faith with others, or too afraid that others will reject, mock or even persecute them for their “intolerant” or “narrow” Christian views. There are, of course, good counterpoints to all these arguments. We don’t need a seminary education to share the Gospel – the woman at the well, once realizing who Jesus was, rushed out and told everyone (even those who ostracized her) that she had found the Messiah, and she led many to Him (John 4:4-42).

For those who feel they are too shy to verbally witness to someone, God can use them anyway because He looks not for ability, but availability. The Holy Spirit will give them the words to say (Luke 2:11-12). Moses was a shy, stammering, reclusive desert dweller (Exodus 4: 10-12), yet God chose him to speak up to Pharaoh to set God’s people free from captivity (Exodus 3-4). And thanks to modern methods of communication, even the painfully shy or actually mute are without excuse – most people in the developed world can witness through the forum of the Internet, and anyone can enclose a tract with a bill payment, or even leave one with a tip in a restaurant or in a public place where it can be easily found.

As we get further into the End Times, Christians everywhere can expect persecution (Matthew 24: 9-10). In America we are still blessed to be able to assemble freely for worship and to have easy access to Bibles and Christian literature, while our brothers and sisters in other countries face imprisonment, torture, and even death for their faith in Christ. How often do American believers pass up opportunities to witness because we’re afraid our liberal friends will avoid us or think we’re politically incorrect?

Yet Jesus said that if we are ashamed of the Gospel, He will be ashamed of us before God the Father and His angels (Luke 2:8-10; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26). Lost people may think we are narrow-minded to say that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that there is no other way to Heaven (John 14:6), but we know that many will die and go to hell while trying to enter Heaven by the broad gate (Matthew 7: 13-14).

So let’s assume that we are born-again believers, seeking God’s will, with the ability to share with others how Christ has changed our life and maybe even with a few Bible verses to point someone to salvation. Let’s assume that we choose to obey God rather than to fear the criticism of men. Now we’re all set to witness, but do we? At that point a dreaded enemy drags down all our good intentions – procrastination.

We’re around our family a lot, so we’ll just wait for a better time to share the Gospel, when our spouse isn’t consumed with financial worries and our children aren’t pressured over final exams. We see our coworkers every day, but they’re not going to be open to hearing our testimony when we all have to work overtime to meet our deadline. We could invite our neighbors to church and tell them about Jesus on the way over, but they’d probably make us feel guilty for not mowing our lawn on Sunday like they do. And as for strangers God places in our path each day, we’d like to witness to them, but we have to hurry to get home, or to work, or to church, or wherever.

So we put off witnessing, which is why the laborers are few even though the fields have a bountiful harvest ready to be gathered in (Matthew 9:37; Luke 10:2). We’re not promised tomorrow (Proverbs 27:1), but we act like we have all the time in the world. We invest (or foolishly spend) our time in what’s important to us in this life (Luke 12:16-21), not realizing that our life is but a vapor (James 4:14). Before we know what hit us we’ll be face to face with Jesus, without excuse for why we didn’t share the Gospel. Or, we will be rewarded eternally for sharing the Good News of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross to pay our sin debt, and of His resurrection that all who believe in Him will have eternal life (John 4:35-36).

David Jeremiah retold an illustration first offered by New Testament scholar William Barclay, about Satan discussing with three of his demons their plans for tempting and ruining man. To paraphrase slightly, the first demon said, “I’ll tell them there is no God.” But Satan replied, “That won’t fool anyone – they know there is a God. The second demon said, “I’ll tell them there is no hell.” Satan said, “That won’t work, because men know deep in their hearts that they are sinners and deserve to be punished in hell.”

The third demon hit the nail on the head. “I’ll tell them there is no hurry.” Satan smiled knowingly and replied, “You will ruin men by the thousands. The most dangerous of all delusions is that there is plenty of time.”

So let’s not put it off a moment longer – let’s go share the Gospel today!

Love in Christ,

Laurie Collett