I remember no one sin that my conscience doth so much accuse and judge me for as for doing so little for the saving of souls, and not for dealing with the lost soul ones more fervently and earnestly for their conversion.
Will it not awaken us to compassion, to look on a languishing man, and to think that within a few days his soul will be in heaven or in hell? Surely it will try the faith and seriousness of ministers, to be much about dying men! They will thus have opportunity to discern whether they themselves are in good earnest about the matters of the life to come.
“Not called!” did you say? “Not heard the call,” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.
God is great, and worship is our response to His greatness! The church’s primary purpose is to insure that God receives the glory He desires and deserves. That is why the saints gather together to corporately rehearse the greatness of God through worship. The focus of the church should be the worth-ship of God. Evangelism’s main goal is first and foremost to recruit worshippers for God. When Christ is embraced as offered in the Gospel, the believer is brought into a personal worshipping relationship with God the Father.
The Goal of Redemption, Tabletalk, Feb. 2004, p. 55, Used by Permission.
It is ironic when one stops to think about it. In an age when facilities for rapid communication of the gospel are available to the church as never before, there are actually more unevangelized people on the earth today than before the invention of the horseless carriage.
The Master Plan of Evangelism, Fleming H. Revell Company, p. 37-38. Get this book!
If one sees oneself as being saved without the obligation to be saving, then clearly one needs to grow in salvation. The evidence of salvation – that God’s grace has taken effect in one’s life – is to be found in one’s participation in bringing salvation to others.
Luke – Exegetical Commentary, Zondervan, www.zondervan.com, 2011, p. 112.
Too many Christians are stuffing themselves with gospel blessings while millions have never had a taste.
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 182.
Leave your home, your comforts, your bed, your ease, your all, to feed lost souls. The Lord of glory left heaven for this; it is enough for the disciple to be as his Master. It is said of Alleine that “he was infinitely and insatiably greedy for the conversion of souls.”… The Lord give you this heavenly compassion for this people. Do not be satisfied without conversion… Remember that a moral sinner will lie down in the same hell with the vilest.
Memoir and Remains.
God has removed the sting of death for each believer. I should save my sorrow for those without Christ and seek to win them (Larry Clark).
We face a humanity that is too precious to neglect. We know a remedy for the ills of the world too wonderful to withhold. We have a Christ too glorious to hide. We have an adventure that is too thrilling to miss (Theodore Williams).
Evangelism can never be finished, but missions can be finished. The reason is this: missions has the unique task of crossing language and culture barriers to penetrate a people group and establish a church movement; but evangelism is the ongoing task of sharing the gospel among people within the same culture.
Desiring God, 1996, p. 194, Used by Permission, www.desiringGod.org. Get this book!
Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
It is not only in the world today that evangelism is needed. It is needed in the church.
What Should We Think of the Carnal Christian? 1978, p. 23. By permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
You need to believe it is essential that others hear the Gospel because the eternal destiny of an individual’s soul is hanging in the balance. Being convinced of this reality, combined with our love for others, compels us to share the message of salvation.
Sermon, Effective Evangelism, Proverbs 11:30, October 8, 2017.
Answering a student’s question, “Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?” thus (answered Spurgeon), “It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.”
Evangelism…far from being rendered superfluous by God’s predestination, is indispensable, because it is the very means God has ordained by which His call comes to His people and awakens their faith.
Romans – God’s Good News for the World, 1994, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Used with permission of InterVarsity Press UK, p. 252.
Universalism, fashionable as it is today, is incompatible with the teaching of Christ and His apostles, and is a deadly enemy of evangelism. The true universalism of the Bible is the call to universal evangelism in obedience to Christ’s universal commission. It is the conviction that not all men will be saved in the end, but that all men must hear the gospel of salvation before the end.
Quoted in: Who Will Be Saved? Edited by: House, Paul and Thornbury, Gregory, Crossway, 2000, p. 104.
To win men to acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord is the only reason Christians are left in this world.
The average person in the world today, without faith and without God and without hope, is engaged in a desperate personal search throughout his lifetime. He does not really know where he has been. He does not really know what he is doing here and now. He does not know where he is going. The sad commentary is that he is doing it all on borrowed time and borrowed money and borrowed strength; and he already knows that in the end he will surely die! Man, made more like God than any other creature, has become less like God than any other creature. Created to reflect the glory of God, he has retreated sullenly into his cave; reflecting only his own sinfulness. Certainly it is a tragedy above all tragedies in this world that man, made with a soul to worship and praise and sing to God’s glory, now sulks silently in his cave.
The fall of man has created a perpetual crisis. It will last until sin has been put down and Christ reigns over a redeemed and restored world. Until that time the earth remains a disaster area and its inhabitants live in a state of extraordinary emergency. To me it has always been difficult to understand those evangelical Christians who insist upon living in the crisis as if no crisis existed. They say they serve the Lord, but they divide their days so as to leave plenty of time to play and loaf and enjoy the pleasures of the world as well. They are at ease while the world burns.
The God who is worthy to be known and served for who He is, is Himself the answer to this world’s longings. And those who know Him best are best equipped to serve Him. He is their message. If we have discovered the glory of God in the face of Christ, we must not hold back. The God of glory must be made known.
A Vision for Missions, Permission by The Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA. p. 152.
