In 2005, I had finished my master’s degree and had just got a job. I was looking forward to a future outside ministry. I was making a lot of plans but in the same month, I felt a strong burden. I could not concentrate at the office. I felt a strong urge that the Lord was calling me to preach the gospel, though I felt the time was so wrong. However, as I delayed, the urge got stronger and stronger. I decided to run away from the Lord so I moved from London to Manchester. I thought the Holy Spirit was going to grow tired of pestering me. While I was supposed to be on holiday in Manchester, I rather ended up fasting and the Lord appeared to me in a vison. He showed me the marks in his hands and with tears he told me, “I want you to go and tell the world that I did this for them.” I said, “Lord, if you need me to do this, I am ready to put aside all ambitions.” I got up on my feet and I haven’t looked back since. I didn’t look at what I would lose but the fact that it meant so much to him.
Read Luke 14:15-24.
There will always be reasons not to preach but none of them is tangible. God’s work will be done with or without us. The moment we are unwilling to work with him, he will substitute us with people we never expected. We can dedicate all our lives to our properties and mansions and businesses and neglect the calling and work of God but God’s work will be done. He will finish his work and cut it short in righteousness. What I fear is to be substituted. I pray for God to show me mercy for whatever I am not doing right. We should never think we are indispensable. If we don’t do his wok, he will bring others from elsewhere and woe unto you when you are replaced.
All the persons invited to the banquet gave excuses. Beloved, souls are dying. Since I accepted God’s calling into fulltime evangelistic and missionary work in 2005, God has been faithful. Imagine making it to heaven and the Lord calling you and showing you somebody in hell who ended up there because you failed to share the gospel. It is not our duty to convict or convert. It is our duty to preach the gospel. We are in partnership with the Lord of the harvest who will take what we have preached and used it to convert, sometimes after months or years. If we don’t preach, he has nothing in the heart of the person to work with.
In Acts 1:20 somebody was replaced. This was prophesied in Psalm 109:8. I read the story of a great man of God called Hudson Taylor. He moved to China and had a ministry called the China Inland Mission. This was in the 1880s. he did not have any means of transport so he walked and ministered in China with his wife for many years. His feet were calloused but the joy of seeing souls converted and demons coming out of people kept him going.
I got saved in 1986. I had a friend then called Douglas. I felt the urge to share the gospel with him but I kept postponing it because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. One day I was in school when I got the message that he had died. I went to his house, sat on the ground and cried. They did not understand but I knew he was not saved. If he had got saved in his final moments praise God but I don’t know. I wept and said, “Lord, what have ai done?”
Main references
Luke 14:15-24, Acts 1:20