PREACHING THE GOOD BAD NEWS
by
Jim Schofield
March 2003
Gospel, n. good news
Revelation
21:8 -- But the
cowardly, and sinners unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral,
sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which
burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Years ago, in a church in
southwest Colorado, I saw a woman stand before the congregation to relate
something recent in her life. Mary had
a friend at work that she knew was not a Christian. For several years, she had struggled with the desire to share the
gospel with her friend. She didn’t want
to upset her, didn’t want her friend to think she was “weird,” didn’t want to
be annoying or seem self-righteous. So
she put it off and put it off.
And then… Mary’s friend died unexpectedly in a car
accident. And now, just days later,
here stood Mary before her church, literally in tears, expressing her terrible
regret and the tremendous sadness she now felt because she knew where her
friend had gone to. The consequences of
Mary’s silence had now hit home.
I’m sure you’ve heard the scripturally based adage that we are to preach the Good News to the unsaved, the lost… “The sinner unbelieving.” No Christian is unfamiliar with this idea. People are going to Hell, and God has given us the responsibility to share the gospel with them, that they might be set free and reborn by the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Without the Truth, we know what fate awaits them.
Romans 6:21
What fruit did you have then in the things of which
you are now ashamed? For the end of
those things is death.
Romans 6:23a
For the wages of sin is death,
Revelation 20:15
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
But how deeply and sharply do we feel the impact of such an essentially abstract concept? The afterlife – whether in Heaven or Hell – is a far-off time and place and not part of our everyday world. It hardly seems to apply in a practical sense when we are waiting for a bus or working at our place of employment or having lunch with a friend or relative. Our minds tend to be on other things, other issues, other concerns. Practical concerns of everyday life.
Many Christians need to reexamine how they see the unbeliever, and realize the infinitely serious consequences of not sharing the gospel with such a person. Once they feel the emotional impact that is carried with this seriousness, they will not only desire to share their faith, but they will also care enough to be prepared for that moment. One must be equipped with the Truth in order to share it with someone else. And one must also know how to share that Truth effectively, and at the right time.
How much have you really thought about the consequences of Mary’s silence? Of your silence? In order for Christians to experience real motivation to preach the Good News, we must first understand the Bad News.
The Bad News is that people are dying out there. The vast majority of people in the world don’t know Christ, and they are dying off at a terrific rate, often without any warning. Every second of every hour of every day, people are going to Hell. This is a fundamentally unpleasant thought, which probably accounts for part of the reason we tend to think about it as little as possible. We don’t want to think about co-worker Phil existing in eternal torment in the Lake of Fire, do we? We want to make sure he gets our memo. We want to swap family stories at the water cooler. We don’t want to think about cousin Stacey burning in Hell. We want to think about seeing her at the next family reunion, or writing her an e-mail to ask how things are going with her live-in boyfriend. And nine times out of ten, we don’t want anything at all to do with that stranger at the bus stop or sitting two seats away in the movie theater as we wait for the film to start. We’d rather sit and twiddle our thumbs than say hello and talk about anything with a stranger. All this despite the fact that, as Christians, we know the consequences for a person not knowing Jesus Christ. Indeed, a person cannot become born again without understanding that. So, how do we shake up our routine way of thinking? How do we change the way we look at an unbeliever? Allow me to use a much more earthly analogy.
Imagine quietly sitting near a person– a co-worker, a stranger, a friend or family member. And as you look at them, you somehow know something terrible about their future. You know that a group of terrorists are going to kidnap this person and many others, take them hostage for twelve months.
This terrorist group’s style is to abduct people and keep them locked up and hidden for a year. And during that year, they torture this victim … every day … to degrees beyond the comprehension of most. They even go so far as to provide medical assistance to the victim in the form of blood transfusions, wound cauterization and antibiotics to keep the victim alive and awake, so the victim will experience the full extent of the torture… every single day for a year. Excruciating pain, using implements of torture inspired by some of the horrors of the Dark Ages. Torture both physical and psychological as they extensively mutilate the victim, leaving very permanent signs of the torture on the victim’s body. It is not uncommon for them in the last part of the year to systematically remove limbs. In the last few weeks of the abduction, the person is finally blinded, permanently deafened, has their tongue cut out, their nasal passages burned with acid. Each of these applications is designed to permanently remove one of the victim’s five senses. Finally, a nerve agent is administered which forever takes away the victim’s ability to experience tactile sensation. No more sense of touch. In the end, the abductee is completely cut off from the physical world, consigned to a living hell of permanent oblivion. They are finally dumped in a public place, left for someone to find.
You look at this person, and you know all of this is going to happen. Maybe tonight, maybe a month from now, maybe 10 months from now. But it will happen, when they least expect it. Furthermore, you have information that can prevent this from ever happening to this person. With this information, the person can definitely avoid ever being captured and tortured by these evil fanatics.
Now, here’s a really stupid question. Do you tell them? Can you even imagine yourself not telling them? In your imagination, put yourself in that situation. How many milliseconds would go by before you started warning them of what’s to come, and telling them how they can definitely avoid it? Would you be worried about this person thinking you’re weird or annoying? Would you be restricted by shyness? Would you tell yourself that it’s none of your business, that this person’s fate isn’t for you to worry about, so you should just keep quiet? How ridiculous do those ideas now seem?
And yet, when we are talking about a person’s eternal fate after this earthly life, we are talking about something infinitely more serious than this terrorist analogy. A person thrown in the Lake of Fire will experience spiritual torment a million times that of a victim of those terrorists and their mere physical torture. And rather than spending a year in such agony, their fate will continue without hope and without end for all eternity. A billion years from now, they will still be suffering.
Now, let’s not lose sight of some other very important facts that aren’t part of that terrorist analogy. The terrorists’ victim doesn’t deserve their horrible fate. But someone who is lost and dead to Christ deserves the eternal fate toward which they are headed. There are no two ways about it. A sinner deserves to go to Hell. A saint does not. Who condemns the sinner?
Romans
8:34a
Who is He who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen,
And what consequence will Christ impart on those who do not accept Him?
Matthew
13:40-42
Therefore
as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of
this age. The Son of Man will send out
His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and
those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew
13:49-50
So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
But this is where the Good News comes in.
The Good News is that God loves us so much that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, so that we wouldn’t have to pay the ultimate price, ourselves. No matter what we did in our past, no matter how great and terrible our sin, His death was enough to pay for it, and His resurrection conquered death for all who believe. As one of my favorite bands, ApologetiX, once said, “You could be workin’ on a burglary or sittin’ in a nunnery,” but one thing is for sure. You need the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ or you will suffer that eternal fate in the Lake of Fire.
Jesus is the Truth. If they do not know and accept the Truth, then the Truth will *not* set them free. It will condemn them to an eternity of torment. That is Bad News for an unbeliever. You cannot separate the Bad News from the Good News. Without knowing the Bad News, they cannot understand the meaning of the Good News. If they aren't condemned to eternal death, why do they need a savior to grant them eternal life? When telling the Good News to an unbeliever, you must also share with them the Bad News.
The Bad News is the reason we must feel powerfully compelled to share the Good News with anyone we can. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6:2, “behold, now is the day of salvation.” Not tomorrow or next week, but today! And when you find yourself at that moment of truth, faced with an unbeliever heading toward that terrible fate, will you be ready? Will you know the gospel they need to hear? Will you know what to tell them? How to tell them? How to share your faith effectively? Are you equipped with the truth of God’s word? It isn’t enough to just be willing to tell them. If you don’t know what to tell them and how to convey it, you’ll just be wasting your time. Do you want to be unprepared when you’re faced with that potential terrorist’s victim?
Of course some people like to avoid the issue with any number of excuses. Two such excuses stand out in particular.
"I won't
evangelize to this person because, well, they're American, they're kind of
good, they might just be a Christian.
I'll take the chance.”
This is essentially playing Russian roulette with someone’s eternal life. How many bullets are in the chamber? One… or five? Unfortunately, today the situation in America is more like a chamber with five bullets than one. Most people who label themselves as Christian… aren’t.
“I won’t evangelize to this person because I’m sure
some other Christian will witness to them down the road. Someone else will step up to the plate and
bring the truth of God’s word to this sinner.”
This is almost like playing Russian roulette with a revolver. Not only are most people in this sinner’s life not Christians, but what are the odds that one of the rare Christians this person meets will witness to him or her? The Body of Christ is in pathetic condition today. Moral relativism and, yes, even paganism are infiltrating churches to an unprecedented degree. And pressures of political correctness are growing in our culture, threatening social and even legal reprisals for those who share the gospel. Few Christians can even defend their faith when confronted on it, much less are willing to go forth and share it with others. To assume someone else will “step up to the plate” and share the Good News (and the Bad News) with this sinner is like expecting to beat the house in a corrupt casino. We live in a world that is a highly organized system of evil at war with God. If you think you can rely on anyone else to witness to this sinner, you have another thing coming to you. You may be the only person who ever shares the truth of the gospel with this unbeliever. Or you may be the only person who will share the gospel with them in a way that will open their ears, their mind, their heart. What happens when you coldly walk by this person, as those men did in the story of the Good Samaritan?
Some people think choosing to withhold the Good News from someone is an act of apathy. But I would submit to you that for someone to remain silent as they callously watch someone step off that cliff into the hellish abyss… this is not an act of apathy, but arguably an act of hate!
Imagine not sharing the Truth with someone who needs it. Imagine that person dying the next day. Past the point of no return. Gone to a place from which there is no return. Would you be able to live with yourself?
Not only did Mary let an opportunity pass her by; she wasted hundreds of chances to help her friend see the light. She believed she had plenty of time. But really, she had no time at all. No, Mary isn’t personally responsible for her friend’s fate. But she will forever regret her terrible act of omission, her failure to just take the time to share the Truth with her friend. Don’t experience Mary’s heartbreak and regret. Remind yourself of the Bad News… so you won’t forget why it’s so important to share the Good News!
I
charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the
living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the
word! Be ready in season and
out of season. Convince, rebuke,
exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.