One day Hudson Taylor was traveling on a Chinese junk from Shanghai to Ningpo. He had been witnessing to a man named Peter who rejected the gospel but was under deep conviction. In the course of events, Peter fell overboard, but no one made any effort to save him.
Taylor sprang to the mast, let down the sail, and jumped overboard in hopes of finding his friend. But no one on board joined Taylor in his frantic search.
Taylor saw a fishing boat nearby and yelled to them to help, but they wouldn’t do it without money.
Finally, after bartering for every penny that Taylor had, the fishermen stopped their fishing and began to look for Peter. In less than a minute of dragging their net, they found him, but it was too late. They were too busy fishing to care about saving a drowning man.
We can easily condemn the selfish indifference of those fishermen, but by indicting them, we may condemn ourselves. Are we too busy with our jobs and other activities to take the time to rescue those who are perishing without Christ?
Experts say that three people die every second. If this fact is true, then 180 people die every minute, 10,800 people die every hour, 259,200 people die every day, and 94,608,000 people die every year. Of the 6 billion people on earth today, experts also say that two-thirds of them have never heard the Gospel one time. If these percentages hold true, then 63,103,536 people die every year without ever hearing the Gospel one time!
A missionary in Africa was once asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response was shocking. “Do I like this work?” he said. “No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse … But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? God pity him, if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to ‘Go,’ and we go.”
The gospel—the good news—is that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again to show that God accepted Christ’s payment for our sins. How amazing that God would take action to save us from our greatest problem sin and our greatest terror hell!
Men are overboard everywhere drowning in the depths of their sin. What are we doing to reach them? What are we doing to save them? The church is the only means by which the message of the gospel will reach the world. The church is to teach those who are saved to reach those who are not saved.
This is the message that we must tell everyone we meet. We must tell everyone we can while we can. There is nothing more important than the gospel! As Christians this is our No. 1 assignment: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15.
Listen to Pastor Jack’s sermons on the way to church every Sunday morning at 10:30 on 98.9 WSIP FM. To read more of Pastor Jack Ward’s articles and hear his sermons at Tomahawk Missionary Baptist Church visit tomahawkmbc.com. Watch his sermons on his Facebook page. Find him on Rumble, Bitchute and Brighteon video platforms.