It is easy to imagine Paul’s inner urge when he thought of his unbelieving fellow human beings. It is easy to imagine how he could not help but witness to them. It is easy to imagine that Paul could never sit next to someone on his travels without talking to them about their salvation. He calls it a “necessity” – like the need to eat or breathe.
One preacher asks rhetorically: “Could a sailor sit still when he hears the cry, ‘Man overboard! Could a doctor sit comfortably in his chair and let his patients die? Could a fireman be lazy and not help when people are burning? Can you sit quietly and comfortably while the world around you is perishing?” No, a sailor, a doctor, and a fireman obviously could not sit idly by in these situations. So what about us?
No, we can’t really sit idly by while the people around us are on their way to hell, can we? Or can we? We may miss many opportunities that the Lord places at our feet: For example, when we could witness to someone sitting next to us in the office, on the train, on the plane, at school or college. Does this tug at our heartstrings, as it did for Paul? Or have we become so accustomed to it that we do not even notice the omission?
Jeremiah tells us about himself: “For when I spoke, I cried out; I shouted, ‘Violence and plunder!’ Because the word of the Lord was made to me a reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.’ But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.” (Jer 20:8, 9). The discouraged prophet was unable to carry out his plan to stop speaking about God; the fire within him burned too brightly for him to endure and he continued to preach. Do you know this fire when you think of the lost around you? How necessary do you see it to preach the gospel to them so that none will go to eternity without Christ? Or are you a sailor, doctor, or firefighter who stands idly by?
Or do you find silence as impossible as Peter and John who could not help but witness? “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20)? A very active missionary brother from South America, who was asked by his unbelieving sister to stop talking so much about Christ in the village, said to me: “Whether my sister hates me or rejects me, I must preach Christ. I just have to keep going!”
The lost before our eyes
When we want to work with the lost, it is important to keep them in mind at all times. This was the case with Paul, who wrote in 2 Timothy 2:10: “Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”. Were these people already converted? Not at that time! But as he sat there in prison, he had in his mind’s eye those for whom he was sitting there: the unbelievers who were yet to come to faith through his efforts. The Lord had encouraged him in a similar way sometime before: “For I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). Having the great people in this city – the lost who would be saved – before his eyes encouraged Paul to evangelize faithfully.
This need is an inner urgency. One who evangelizes has an inner urge. It is a fire in his heart that will not go out. He cannot do anything about it. He has to preach. He cries out: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16). When he is told to keep his mouth shut, he replies “I can’t help it!” He lived in the consciousness of being sent. Where this inner fire, this inner urge does not exist, the Gospel is proclaimed only half-heartedly. Or not at all.