Why Should We Win People to Jesus? (Part 2)

Originally Posted on October 26, 2017

(1.) Jesus Commands Us To Do So

In Acts 1:8 Jesus told His followers before He went home to Heaven: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”  The Greek word for witnesses is martures. This is the same word as martyr.  We, as followers of Jesus Christ, are to be so committed to reaching men, women, boys, and girls for Jesus that we are ready to die as martyrs if need be. A genuine, Spirit-filled Christian becomes by nature a witness for the Lord Jesus.  When you live in deep communion with the Lord Jesus, the life of Jesus will naturally flow from your lips.  Dr. Darrell Robinson states: “Sharing Christ is both the natural expression and the obedient lifestyle of a true believer.  It is the outflow of the overflow of the inflow of the Christ-filled life.” Why does the Lord Jesus command us to be His witnesses? Over 93,000 people die every day all over the world without Jesus!  They do not go to heaven.  They go to hell!  Jesus specializes in finding lost people and saving them.  In Luke 15 this same Jesus tells the story of a lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son.  They were all found and great rejoicing took place.  Jesus parallels these stories with lost people being saved.  In Luke 15:10 Jesus states: “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”  Heaven throws a party when one person is born again.  All down through the ages, the living God of heaven and earth has called men and women to go and be His witnesses and to make disciples of all nations. He is calling you. Will you go?  John Knox pleaded before God: “Give me Scotland or I die!” Hudson Taylor, broken over the fate of the unreached multitudes in China, prayed: “I feel that I cannot go on living unless I do something for China.”  Upon landing in India, Henry Martyn said: “Here I am in the midst of heathen midnight and savage oppression.  Now, my dear Lord, let me burn out for thee.”  Adoniram Judson, the famed missionary to Burma, spent long, tiresome years translating the Bible for that people.  He was eventually put into prison because of his work, and while there his wife died.  After being released, he contracted a serious disease that sapped what little energy he had left.  Nevertheless, he prayed, “Lord, let me finish my work.  Spare me long enough to put the saving Word into the hands of the people.”  James Chalmers, a Scottish missionary to the South Sea Islands, was so burdened for the lost that someone wrote of him: “In Christ’s service he endured hardness, hunger, shipwreck, and exhausting toil, and did it all joyfully.  He risked his life a thousand times and finally was clubbed to death, beheaded, and eaten by men whose friend he was and whom he sought to enlighten.”  Although he was unable to go overseas, Robert Arthington enabled countless others to go. By working hard and living frugally he managed to give over $500,000 to the work of foreign missions.  He testified: “Gladly would I make the floor my bed, a box my chair, and another box my table, rather than that men should perish for want of the knowledge of Christ.”  N.T. Dellinger, a 40 year missionary to Belize and El Salvador in Central America said this to me with tears streaming down his face in February 2001: “I don’t want to see anybody go to hell.”  These faithful saints, and many others like them, have clearly understood the wrath and the judgment of God and the consequent horror of men dying without Christ.  Without such understanding, there is no basis for evangelism.  Ask the living God of heaven and earth to break your heart for people who are on their way to hell.  Why Should We Win People to Jesus?  (1.) Jesus Commands Us To Do So.