“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:”–Romans 9:1–3
Every one of the more than seven billion people living on the face of the Earth will spend eternity either in Heaven or in Hell. Over a billion people were born in the fifteen-year period between 1999 and 2014. Each of them must either choose Christ as Saviour or die in their sins—and yet many, many of them have never even heard the gospel. Charles Spurgeon said, “If there be any one point in which the Christian church ought to keep its fervor at a white heat, it is concerning missions. If there be anything about which we cannot tolerate lukewarmness, it is in the matter of sending the gospel to a dying world.”
The reality is that the mission field is not just far off places where the customs and language are different from our own. The mission field is also our jobs, our neighborhoods, our restaurants, and our families. The people you meet today are headed toward eternity. Our society is obsessed with avoiding the reality that life will end. People spend large amounts of money trying to look and feel young. Companies sell “life” insurance that doesn’t keep you alive and doesn’t pay you if you live. Cemeteries used to be located right by the church so people saw them every Sunday. But no matter how much we try to avoid or deny it, “…it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). If we keep this inescapable truth in our minds, we will not find it hard to witness to those we meet.–Dr. Paul Chappell
