Missions

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The Greatest Tragedy

By Lisa S Arnold

The greatest tragedy of all time is not the horror of the Nazi’s slaughtering six-million Jews . . . or even the abortionist exterminating forty-million babies. The staggering shame of mankind is that billions of lost souls have plunged into the great depths of the dark abyss without warning of their fate or prayer for their rescue.

We cannot undo the murderous rampage of Hitler’s Nazi Regime, or stop the onslaught of forty-million babies ripped from their mother’s wombs. And the billions of souls already crossed over into eternal damnation will forever languish without hope of rescue or relief. But the redeeming factor amidst such dismal realities is that you and I possess within us the greatest power ever known to mankind.

A power so mighty that a single word can move mountains and a whispered prayer can alter a person’s eternal destination. This power, the indwelling of God Himself through the Holy Spirit, has endowed us with everything necessary to become energized, passion-driven evangelizers. With such power at our disposal, why then do so few of us draw from its life-giving source?

Is there any doubt that now is the time to allow the Holy Spirit to activate His power within us for the purpose of boldly reaching out to a lost and dying world for Christ? In a world inundated with natural and man-made disasters; neighbors living in desperation and hopelessness; mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers drowning in the mire of worthlessness and despair, there’s no time to lose. What are we waiting for?

The Fear Factor – Many of us wait for a miraculous deliverance from the fear that incapacitates us. But God has provided, through His Word and the Holy Spirit, everything we need to overcome. The great tragedy is that many of us tremble at the thought of witnessing, and are too intimidated to activate the Power Source that will insure victory and spark our desire to share Jesus Christ.

Even if our desire is occasionally sparked, the fear of rejection quickly diminishes it. Our hunger for acceptance—by society, peers, and most importantly by our family—overpowers our desire to rescue lost souls bound for perdition.

Jesus warns us that rejection is inevitable and that the strength of our faith is determined by our resolve when faced with such situations.

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:34-37 NIV).

From the very beginning of Christianity, rejection was an understood by-product of the faith. To follow Jesus, the Jews denied the traditional rituals and beliefs of their father’s. Naming Jesus as the Messiah brought immediate ostracism.

Paul accepted this Truth and died to his past, when physically and spiritually he walked away from all that was and stepped into a new beginning. A former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, his conversion was the ultimate betrayal. When news surfaced that Paul became a Christ-follower, he became a hunted man. His future lie in the hands of men whom he previously hunted and tortured. He faced possible rejection from both sides.

Paul not only faced rejection, but in the eyes of his former friends, the Pharisees, his conversion was a sign of weakness and deteriorating intelligence. He traded wealth, prestige, and intellectual superiority for a religion of fishermen and tax collectors. The whole idea of it was absurd to the Pharisaic elite.

We, too, live in a world that thrives on strength and intelligence. An argument to the validity of Jesus Christ as God causes today’s intellectual elite to throw their heads back in a fit of disgust.

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29 NIV).


Not only do we appear foolish to the world, grasping simple beliefs to assuage our weak minds, we also worship a God who was thoroughly humiliated on an old rugged cross. To all worldly appearances a weak man, or at best, a weak god for a weak people.

The image of weakness follows the Christian in all walks of life. As teachers, we are cast from the public schools; as judges, our beliefs are considered passé; as doctors and nurses, refusal to perform abortions may cost us our jobs; and housewives and stay-at-home mothers are considered feeble-minded, lax, and inconsequential. It is no wonder we are often struck with a feeling of foreboding when contemplating sharing our faith to those who are controlled by the thought patterns of this world.

It is this cultural image of weakness that incapacitates many believers. They find themselves apologizing or suffering embarrassment for being no more than who they are. The preoccupation with their own short-comings and flaws hinders their ability to share Jesus.

Moses doubted his abilities to accomplish his God-given assignment. Three times he attempted to wheedle out of the task God Called him to do.

“Moses, I want you to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.”

“But God! Who am I that I should go?”

“Moses, go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.”

“But God! They won’t believe me.”

“MOSES! Go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.”

“But God! I don’t talk very well.”

Moses was preoccupied with his inabilities instead of focused on God’s capabilities. He did eventually go, and God used him mightily, but the sad truth is, many of us cower in corners victimized by our own inadequacies. God’s awesome power remains untapped and His God-sized assignment undone.

If Esther allowed her inadequacies to stifle her, the entire Jewish race would have been annihilated. Instead, she proclaimed, “I was put here for such a time as this,” and she rose to the occasion.

If Paul dwelt on his inadequacies, hundreds of churches may never have materialized, and the spread of Christianity to the Gentiles greatly hindered.

Esther and Paul triumphed over their fear and remained steadfast in their resolve to the end.

The Fear Solution—We, too, can triumph over fear. The seemingly simple, yet challenging remedy lies in the mindset of the believer. There are no magic formulas, no mystical wands to wave, no televangelists to seek out, not even a special prayer to repeat. There is only one thing to do—purpose in our heart and mind—and let nothing stand in our way.

That’s what Daniel did. When his people were taken into captivity, Daniel “Purposed in his heart” and refused to defile himself by eating of the King’s portion (Daniel 1:8). He absolutely, positively, determined within himself and the rest is history.

Daniel’s determination instigated one of his fiercest spiritual battles. He had to aggressively ward off the fiery darts of Satan as sure as you and I do today. If Satan knows our desire is to bring lost souls to Christ, stopping us will become his all-consuming passion.

Our reaction to Satan’s attacks is determined by how much time we spend generating power from God’s Word. It is the battery charger that energizes us for the battle. It is “Quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit . . .” (Hebrews 4:9 KJV). Without its fighting power defeat is imminent.

God’s Holy Word is our central point of power—our activation station. Through the power of the living Word, Satan will suffer defeat. Claiming its truths and applying them to our lives will send Satan scurrying for cover. But because of his consuming obsession with destroying our testimony, he will never give up; therefore, we must daily “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV).

Daily recharging our spiritual batteries with the power of the Word, and refusing to allow him entrance into our minds will render his attacks ineffective. For who can stand against the Living Word—the very same One who spoke the universe into existence?

Triumph over our fear frees us to fully activate the Holy Spirit’s power, enabling us to become the mighty powerhouses Christ intended us to be.

With the most awesome power in the universe at our disposal, what’s stopping us from taking our place in the line of great evangelizers? Not great because of what they did, not great because of who they were, but great because of what they allowed the ultimate Power Source, the Holy Spirit, to do through them. When our race is completed, will our name be listed among the Christ proclaimers who tirelessly and unselfishly sought out and shared the only true message of hope?

Christ proclaimers such as:

—George Whitefield, who was so impassioned with keeping souls from eternal damnation that he traveled the world endlessly seeking the lost. “He was as fearless in preaching the gospel in one land as another, neither did it matter to him whether his audience consisted of princes or peasants—unless they were born again, he knew they were sinners one and all, badly needing a Savior.

—Jonathan Edwards, who is credited for sparking the beginnings of the Great Awakening. His sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” was the catalyst that spurred this country into a revival like never before experienced. He was so concerned for lost souls that “the eternal torment of the damned was a subject to which he repeatedly and tirelessly turned in his preaching.”

—Dwight L. Moody, who made a decision early in his faith that he would never let a day pass without sharing Jesus with at least one person. He often irritated strangers on the street by asking them if they were Christians. Through his tireless efforts, more than a million came to Christ and the Moody Bible Institute was founded.

—Billy Sunday, who traded a promising baseball career for the opportunity to share Jesus full time; a foolish exchange in the eyes of the world. But millions of Americans flocked to hear him share Jesus Christ and many evangelistic Bible Clubs began as a result of his preaching. Thousands came to Christ through them—one of which was a young sixteen-year-old boy by the name of Billy Graham.

Whitefield, Edwards, Moody, and Sunday all had one thing in common. They were compelled to do their part to keep the millions of souls from plunging into the dark abyss. They spent a lifetime warning the lost of upcoming judgment.

What will they say about us? We cannot undo the horrendous atrocities that sent millions to their death. We cannot retrieve those who already entered eternal damnation. What we can do is begin today to allow God to use us to reach a lost and dying world for Christ.

As Charles Spurgeon once said, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

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