Evangelism Starts Here

In all honesty, I think the reason more Christians are not sharing their faith is they really could care less. Their attitude is, “Look, we’ve got ours. That’s your problem.”

Jesus told the story of ten bridesmaids, five of whom were wise, and five were foolish. The five who were wise had oil in their lamps, and the five who were foolish did not. When the cry went out that the bridegroom was coming, the bridesmaids who had no oil said they needed some, while those who had it said, in effect, “Get it for yourselves.” In other words, “It’s not our problem. We’re set. We’re happy. You work out your own problems.”

Quite honestly, I think that is the way many people feel in the church today. They don’t want to be bothered with it. They just don’t care. They hear so much about the need for evangelism and hear sermons on how to share their faith with others. Programs are designed to mobilize the church to do it. But all this is of no consequence if we as believers lack one simple basic: a burden and a concern.

The great British preacher C. H. Spurgeon said, “The Holy Spirit will move them by first moving you. If you can rest without their being saved, they will rest too; but if you are filled with an agony for them, if you cannot bear that they should be lost, you will soon find that they are uneasy too. I hope that you will get into such a state that you will dream about your child, or about your hearer perishing for lack of Christ, and start up at once and begin to cry, ‘O God, give me converts, or I die.’ Then you will have converts.”

We have to care.