By Larry Rosenbaum
It is said that the Roman emperor Nero played his fiddle while Rome was burning. His behavior was understandable: he had started the fire himself, cared nothing about the people who would die in it, and intended to use the fire as an excuse to murder Christians. What is harder to comprehend is the behavior of today’s Christians, who are so different from those who gave their lives as witnesses for Jesus Christ in Nero’s day. We calmly “play our fiddles” while the people around us are heading rapidly into eternal Hell. Actually, I think most of us really do care about the lost, but it would be hard to tell from the way we spend our time and money. Why is this? I am convinced that Satan has used our material wealth and freedom from persecution to lull us to sleep, giving us an abundance of convenient excuses for not witnessing.
If I lived in an apartment building and awoke one night to find the building on fire, would I merely run out of the building or would I bang on people’s doors, waking them and warning them to get out immediately? Would I be content to save only myself, or would I try to save others? Certainly, people might be upset with me if I banged on their doors in the middle of the night, but those I could persuade to leave the building would thank me later.
How can we, who believe in Heaven and Hell and know that ending up in eternal Hell is a far worse fate than dying in a burning building, fail to warn the wicked? What happened to our sense of urgency that would cause us to say with Paul, “I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” 1 Corin. 9:16. In Luke 21, after speaking of the end times, Jesus warned us, “Watch out! Don’t let my sudden coming catch you unawares; don’t let me find you living in careless ease, eating and drinking in excess, and occupied with the problems of this life, like all the rest of the world.” Yet this is exactly what has happened to much of the church.
Many of you at one time had a zeal for God and a burden for souls, but you have gotten caught up in worldly activities and have lost that zeal. I believe that God wants to use this summer’s SOS-San Francisco outreach to restore this fervor in many of you. Jesus is coming soon! Let’s get our hearts right with God and get busy doing the work He has commanded us to do: investing our lives winning souls for His Kingdom.
