Which Tragedy Is The biggest?
Let's play the child's game, "Big, Bigger, Biggest."
This year, 2.2 million people will die in the U.S. Their passing will lead to months of grieving by tens of thousands of family members and friends. To them, the death of 2.2 million people will be a big tragedy.
Only God knows how many of those people who die will end up in a state of eternal separation from Him, which we commonly refer to as hell. Research suggests, however, that more than 1 million of those people who die will go to hell. Perhaps the number will be more, perhaps less. Nothing in our social science arsenal enables us to measure the true contours of the heart and soul with absolute accuracy; that is God's purview and His alone. But our best research techniques suggest that every day, thousands of people leave this planet for a known and permanently agonizing eternity. The eternal condemnation and suffering of these million-plus people qualifies as a bigger tragedy than the act of dying.
A more devastating aspect of this tragedy is that many of those people were denied an opportunity to learn about the joy and comfort of God's eternal blessings and peace. Nobody--not family members, friends, church members, work associates, educators, public officials, clergy or leisure-time associates--loved them enough to introduce them to the living God. They could have been spared the worst sentence of all had the followers of Christ wholeheartedly shared the good news of salvation through the grace of God and being filled with the Holy Spirit with those who were living independent of God's everlasting forgiveness. Millions of the souls that burn in hell today could have avoided that sentence.
And that is the biggest tragedy of all.
With all that said, I say If you are called to preach, then preach! If you are not then, don't! If you can do anything else and be happy, then do it. I beg you, do it. Sell cars or real estate. Be a banker or go into politics. do anything but preach if you are not truly called by God.
God's message in the new millennium is the same as it was in the previous millennium: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Do you go to bed hearing the cries of the perishing? Do their groanings wake you? Does the thought of their perishing make you walk the floor, or is the gospel just a business to you? Don't step behind the sacred desk if you see the ministry as a vocation that amounts to another way to pay your bills.
With that said, I say ask yourself this question, What can God do with me? If you are truly sent to preach then don't worry about the numbers of your church. Let God deal with that. If God birthed a church of more than 3,000 in one day early in the first century, why wouldn't He do it now? If He used an uneducated commercial fishman with a hot temper and a poor performance record to harvest 3,000 souls in one day, what can He do with you?
Whatever you do, don't start preaching for results. It will make you drift off track. God never called anyone to preach for results. He calls each one of us to say what He tell us to say, when He tells us to say it, how He tells us to say it, and to whom He sends us.
Anything less is disobedience. results are none of our business. That is God's department alone.
If God calls you to preach, then you need to go to the pulpit as if it were a cross. Preach the Word as if you are a dying man with nothing to lose, who is preaching to other dying men and women. Preach as if there is no tomorrow; preach as if it will be your last opportunity to stop somebody from going to hell. If it makes the crowds come, make sure it means nothing to you. If everybody leaves, make sure it means nothing to you. Just preach His Word and leave the results to Him.
Good day and God Bless you all!
Created over 2 years ago
