Seeking the Lost

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matt 28:19-20 

Men away from the Christ are lost. They must be found and led to the Lord Jesus if they are to escape the horrors of eternal fire. The call comes to the followers of Christ: "Make disciples of all nations"; "Compel them to come in." To this great adventure each believer should diligently apply himself. To effectively perform the task of soul winning—

See your field. What a field God has given to you. Multitudes there are who know not the power of God's grace. They sit in the bondage of sin or in the darkness of superstition or trust in a false hope.
These men have no poetry in their life, no hope in their hearts and no song in their soul. They spend their threescore years and ten living by the law of the jungle, with a nameless dread stalking their waking hours and disturbing their dreams.

Wickedness increaseth, delinquency startles us, crime threatens every home. The chill of the Laodicean age swirls about u.s as a terrible wintertime blizzard, obliterating familiar landmarks, and chilling the most resolute. This is the field in which you must work.

See yourself. A sinner saved for a purpose! A beneficiary of the piety of generations now dead! A called-out one whose sole duty is to glorify God and publish the Good News.

You are commissioned by the Christ: "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world." You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Notice it carefully—you are not salt dispensers, you are salt; you are not the light bringers, you are the light, to a generation that desperately needs salt and light.

You have been given a talent to invest for Christ. He will not demand large returns, but He will demand faithful effort. At the peril of your soul you dare not fail.

See your God. An available God; a beholding God; a conquering God. A God big enough for this day of confusion and perplexity, is our God. A God moved with compassion over a lost race, a God whose heart throbs with love for every victim of Satan's deception, commands "Go— tell."

Then to every city and village hurry with the message of Redeeming Love. Tell of the gospel of God that saves from the uttermost to the uttermost. Proclaim a salvation that changes the life stream so that it flows Godward; a salvation that opens prison houses where the slaves of sin are held in galling bondage, and releases from the dungeons of despair the victims of falsehood and superstition. Proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof.

This will require loyalty to God and to the leadership which He has ordained. It will require sacrifice to the point of personal self-denial. It will require leaving the well-planned and smug way of life to go out where the currents run fierce and dangerous.

Live daringly, venture recklessly, attempt the impossible in the Name of the Lord, then see the mountains flow down at His presence.

Be determined that before the year closes new churches will be started and new centers of revival fires will be launched in the Name of the Lord.

-O. G. Wilson (The Wesleyan Methodist, Feb 6, 1956)