12/19/13 Femi about 40
As I
drove home from work, my mind was wandering.
I wondered “Do we still need to go out and share the Gospel in this day
and age here in America like we are called to do in the Bible, or have things
changed? I mean, look at all these
churches around us, think of all the resources available like TV and radio
programs, books, and the internet. If
someone is seeking the Lord, surely they will know where to go to find Him.” However, a stop at a McDonalds to share the
Gospel soon brought me back to reality. I
reached out to a middle-aged man there, asking what he believes about
eternity. “I have never given it any
thought” he said. “Whatever happens,
happens.” His name is Femi, and he grew
up attending an Anglican church in southern Nigeria, and now attends an Episcopalian
church here in Chicago. I have heard
this often, people who attend church without giving any thought about eternity,
but I still asked about it. “Don’t they teach about these sorts of things at
your church?” “I don’t know, I don’t
take it seriously” “So what if what the
Bible says is true, and you stand before God on Judgment Day? What would He say?” “Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, I think I would
be about a 7, and I think that’s good enough, I’m above average, better than
most people.” It was just as I thought,
Femi doesn’t think much about eternity because he is happy and comfortable
right where he is at, and his church apparently helps keep him that way. We might think that the wealth of resources
around us can be a substitute for going out to share the Gospel, but along with
the wealth of Gospel truth available comes an overwhelming amount of false
teaching and false teachers, just as Jesus said there would be. People who are lost usually don’t know they
are lost; if they do they usually don’t know what questions to ask, and if they
do have questions they don’t usually know who to go to for the answers. We can do better than to sit back and wait
for them to find us.
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