The Fields are ripe for The Harvest.
Read John 4:35
Opening Statement…. This morning, I started of by asking the question, why are we not in Hell today…
This evening, I want to start by asking… why do we want others to go to Hell?
Of course, our response would be, “Well, we don’t want anyone to go to Hell”
But we just cant get past that age old saying of, “actions speak louder than words”
Friends, let me start this evening by giving you some very troubling and startling statistics…
The Children’s Defense Fund has reported that every single day in America….
Every day…
1 young person under the age of 25 dies from HIV infection.
5 Children or youth under the age of 20… commit suicide
9 Children or youth under age 20 are homicide victims
34 children or youth under 20 die in accidents…..
Listen now friends….
Every day in America, 180 CHILDREN are arrested for violent crimes…
Every day in America, 367 Children, are arrested for drug abuse….
Every day in America, 437 CHILDREN are arrested for drinking or drunken driving.
Every day in America 2,861 high school students… drop out.
Every day in America, 3,288 children run away from home.
Every day in America, 4,248 Children are arrested….
Every day in America, 7,883 children are reported abused or neglected.. that is each and every day in our country my friends….
Each and every day in America, 17,297 public school students are suspended…
According to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. children under age 15 are:
12 times more likely to die from gunfire than children in 25 other industrialized countries COMBINED……
U.S. Children under age 15…
Are, 16 times more likely to be murdered by a gun,
11 times more likely to commit suicide by a gun,
and 9 times more likely to die in a firearm accident, than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined…..
No, I am not slamming firearms tonight.
According to the American Family Association Journal Nov/Dec 2002… 55% of Christian students from Christian homes are DENYING their faith before they graduate college…..
Please bear with me tonight friends as I give you these statistics…. Because they have really weighed heavy on my heart… and I believe we should know what state the souls of the young people in our country are in today…
SBC life Magazine, Dec 2002, has an article about Dr. Freddie Gage- a very well known Southern Baptist Evangelist. This article stated that there was an article in Newsweek Magazine that had the following quote;
“Church goers take comfort: Hell has all but disappeared from modern Christian Theology.”
Hell has all but disappeared from modern Christian Theology……
Now, I take that as a slap in the face from a secular writer…..
But I have to ask myself the question…
Is it a slap of distain for Christians… or is it a slap of reality that should jolt me awake enough to see the realities of the lost souls all around us today…..
Even more statistics were given in the article that Gage pointed out….
He said that “Evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention is failing to keep pace with the nations population increase, particularly among teenagers. ..
He pointed out that since 1979 there has been a steady decline in youth baptisms among Southern Baptists. Last year, out of 40 Million Teenagers in our nation, we baptized only 82,000, the majority of whom were children who have grown up in the Church, Re-Baptisms, or those coming from other denominations..”
Now listen closely friends…. He said,
“We had more teenagers killed on our Highways as a result of alcohol related deaths, than southern Baptist baptized last year…. Last year, 116,000 teenagers went to prison compared to the 82,000 that we baptized, this is appalling….”
And Gage went on to note that it is not just our youth that we are not reaching.
He said, “out of 285 million people in America, the greatest harvest field on planet earth, we Southern Baptist reach less than 90,000 out of a pagan culture”.
So my friends, Southern Baptist are failing in the task to carry our the great commission, a commandment given to us by Christ himself in Matthew 28:18-20 when he said,
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] 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, [20] and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Well, maybe the other mainline denominations are picking up where we are falling behind…
I have another statistic,… Adherents .com states that since the 1960’s the United Methodist church has lost 23% of its membership.
Presbyterian has dropped … 32% and Episcopal has dropped … 26% while Baptist denominations have increased slightly.
So, I don’t think there is anyone making up for our shortfall.
So, to me any way friends, this means that if you and I do not carry out the great commission, than who is going to do it?
Why do we want others to go to Hell….
Remember, actions speak louder than words.
One of the passages of scripture I mentioned this morning is found in Luke chapter 16. It is the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
This is a good passage to preach about the torments and anguish of Hell….
But tonight, I want you to notice something else that is noted here.
Read Luke 16:19-31
Focus on verses 27 and 28
Luke 16:27-28
"He answered, ’Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, [28] for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
Now, the torment in Hell was bad enough that this man.. realizing his fate is set for all eternity… begs to have his family told of the torment… so they will not suffer the same fate.
Most probably, each and every one of us has some family member whom we are not sure of their eternal destiny….
What are we willing to do to keep them out of Hell??
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, said “If I had my way, I would not send any of my preachers to Bible school, but I would put each of them in Hell for 24 hrs. It’s the best training a preacher could have. When they come back out or Hell, they would be flaming soul winners…..”
Dr. Fred Gage said, “If every Christian went to Hell, we would become flaming soul winners. How can a Christian say they believe in Hell and never make an attempt to win a soul… How can they go week after week, month after month, never attempting to win a lost soul to Christ.”
Friends, I know that I am a selfish person…. Because I thank God that I don’t have to go to Hell, just to be able to tell others about Christ!
As I studied about the terrors of Hell this week, it made me reflect even more seriously about those great patriarchs of old like Moses,…..
when the people of Israel had sinned against God, Moses loved them enough… he cared for them enough that in Ex 32.32 He said to the Lord God..,
But now, please forgive their sin--but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
Do I love souls enough to be willing to spend eternity in Hell for them???
Boy, that is a hard question for me to ask…. And one I don’t want to answer…
This week, I labored over today’s messages. The Lord had given me the idea for both of today’s messages some time back. of course I did not know when he would want me to use them, and I certainly did not comprehend that he would have me tie both messages together, and use them on the same day.
Anyway, last Sunday night, after Church, I knew that the Lord wanted me to use these messages today. … and then the many hours of research, study, and preparation began. Yes, it does take many hours.
I remember keeping up with the time it took me to prepare my very first sermon… and it took approximately 42 hours to prepare my very first sermon. And it still takes me many many hours of preparation and study.
Well, Thursday night I was finished with this mornings message, and probably about ½ way finished with tonight’s message when I had to go to town and get something. As soon as I got in the van, Adrian Rogers came on the radio.
And it just so happens that he was about to preach on evangelism. Now, since I live in town now I was only in the van about 5 minutes, but that was long enough for me to hear Adrian Rogers make a profound statement…
He said, “We can’t all be preachers…. But we can all be reachers…”
We can’t all be preachers, but we can all be reachers.
My friends, each of us can be a reacher…
You know, God does not ask us all to preach… God does not ask us all to teach, God does not ask us all to go to sporting events with a rainbow wig on our heads and holding cards that read John 3:16….
Now, He may ask you to do that… and if He does… then do it.
But, God does command all of us to be witnesses for Him in one way or another.
The Bible teaches us that when we become Christians, we have been purchased with the most precious resource known to mankind…. The blood of Christ Jesus…
And we become bondservants of His, willing workers for the harvest, … and we are to be about His work, of giving every soul on earth the opportunity to receive salvation, to be saved from the torments of Hell.
Every Christian has a testimony… every Christian has a story to tell about the Love of Jesus Christ, and about what Christ has done for them….
Do we truly care that millions of souls will burn in Hell for all eternity???
As we come in contact with family, friends…. Folks, even as we come in contact with complete and total stranger…..
Or people that we just don’t seem to get along with….
Do we Really want them to spend eternity in Hell……..
If we do, then we better check our own salvation….
I was talking about other denominations earlier.
The George Barna research institute did a study and determined that despite their evangelistic reputation, just four out of ten adults attending a Baptist Church shared their faith in Christ with a non-believer in the past year.
This is less than the proportion of any other denomination….
As Christians, we have been given the most important and special gift available to mankind…..
As Christians, we know the truth about eternity….. and about Hell.
As Christians, we know the only possible way…. Not many different ways,… but the one and only possible way to get into heaven…..
And it is the easiest thing in the world to do…..
Yet most of us…. Are not telling a single soul about it.
Every Christian can witness…
I believe every Christian is commanded to witness…
But, I understand that it is difficult for some… especially when they have never done it before…
And you don’t have to start off preaching on the streets… you don’t have to start off by standing in the middle of the grocery store with a megaphone…
Brother Kenneth mentioned last week, that one of the best ways we can witness is by the way we live our lives around our fellow man….
We are about to start a visitation program… and I really don’t like the word program.
We are about to start obediently following the Lord in His work, partly by going out and trying to reach others for Christ.
We are in the process right now of having Church information cards printed up… Brother Hacker should have them completed soon.
And then I would like for us to take some time, to visit, and witness to others.
Uncomfortable witnessing??? Ok, hand them one of our church information cards… It tells about the Christ of the Bible, and it tells how to accept Him as Lord and Savior…
Care enough to invite someone to Sunday School where they can be taught from Gods holy word….
Gods word will do the rest…
Care enough to invite someone to Church where they can hear the message of Christ preached from the Word Of God…
If you are uncomfortable witnessing at this time..…. Care enough to hand them the information they need to keep their very souls out of the pits of Hell…
And let me tell you something friends, when you are able to be involved and be a part of the Lord bringing salvation to a soul… nothing in the world feels better….
As I was preparing this week, earlier in the week a little slogan came to my mind… now, I don’t know where it came from…
I will not say the Lord gave it to me…
And I wont say he did not…
But, It was the day before I heard Adrian Rogers say we cant all be preachers, but we can all be reachers… so I know it didn’t derive from there.
But it came to my mind….. “each one reach one….”
Now, this may be a slogan for some major Christian organization… I don’t know…
It could be a slogan for the SBC.. I don’t know….
But it fits….
Each One Reach One….
God is not asking you to feed 5,000…..
God is not asking you to heal the multitudes….
God is asking you to reach one soul at a time….
I have seen to many visitation programs fail…. People commit to be there every week and after a month or two…. No one is left….
Don’t do that my friends…
Hey, if you cant make it every week, don’t commit to make it every week.
But Commit… Commit to once a month… or even once a quarter….
Think of it… if each one of us reached one soul THIS YEAR….. look at the souls that would be kept from Hell.
Commit,…. Commit to yourself…. Commit to the Church… and above all, commit to the Lord God….
Commit to follow His leading and guidance….
Commit this year my friends…. Commit to reach one…
Oh friends, not for the sake of Church growth….. although Church growth will follow.
But for the sake of souls…..
Commit to do your part in witnessing to at least one person…. To give them the opportunity to stay out of Hell…
Most of you know Brother Bob Stewart… I love Brother Bob. Brother Bob hands out these Little Business cards… and they say… Get out of Hell Free Card… kind of like the monopoly get out of Jail free card. Get out of Hell Free… and then it gives information about Christ.
Yesterday, three teenagers from Cornerstone Baptist Church knocked on my door. They handed me a tract that asks , “Do you know where you will spend eternity” and they invited me to Church.
Teenagers witnessed to me by their actions…. When was the last time we did anything like that?
Each one reach one..
Oh my friends, I cannot truly say that I would be willing to go to Hell to keep others from going….
But guess what friends….
I don’t have to…
Each one reach one….
Please commit with us today…. To try to reach one soul for all eternity…..
Remember, God does the saving… all we have to do is introduce Him…
Each one reach one……..
Why do we want others to go to Hell…..
We don’t….
So lets do something about it….
The fields are ripe for the Harvest my friends….
The Lord is looking for willing laborers for the filed……
Are We willing today….
Make this commitment with me friends…..
