Two Tasks

I am always encouraged when I read the writings of men or women of the past who used the same analogies and seemed to feel the same frustrations that we do, when it comes to reaching the lost. Thomas Watson, way back in 1660, wrote of something he called “cruel mercy.” He quoted Jude 23 (“Rescue others by snatching them from the fire!") and then said, “If a man's house were on fire, and another should see it and not tell him of it, for fear of waking him--would not this be cruelty? When we see others sleeping in their sin, and the fire of God's wrath ready to burn them up--and we are silent--is not this cruelty?” All around us we have professed firefighters who prefer to stay in the comfort of the fire station and let people burn. So you and I have a two-fold task 1. To awaken those within the Church to their sober responsibility to reach out to the unsaved. And, 2. To reach out to those who are ignorant as to their true state before God. Perhaps the two tasks are one in the same.