[268 words]
Someone once said that “every man needs to hear the call of the Gospel message before he hears the trumpet call to Judgment!” I couldn’t agree more! God has entrusted within us, His earthen vessels, the Gospel treasure (2 Cor. 4:7), and He commands that we share it with those living in darkness (cf. Mat. 13:1ff; Mark 16:15-16; Rom. 10:10ff; Phi. 2:15-16; 2 Tim. 2:2; 1 Pet. 2:9). The Gospel, God’s power to save (Rom. 1:16; Jam. 1:21), will be the Standard by which all will be judged in the last day (John 12:48).
The apostle Paul took seriously his evangelistic responsibility. To the Ephesian elders he wrote, “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:20-21).
The early church, amidst extreme persecution, ”went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). They believed in the coming Judgment and the terror of the Lord, and thus sought to persuade men before it was too late (cf. Acts 17:30-31; 24:25; 2 Cor. 5:10-11). And so too should we!
One day the Lord will “descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God” (1 Thess. 4:16), and on that Day only those who have heard and obeyed the Gospel will be saved! May we, servants of the Lord, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them (teach the lost) to come in (obey Gospel) that His house (the Lord’s church) may be filled” (Luke 14:23).
Terry Townsend
Curry church of Christ
Jasper, AL