Don't be Governed by Fear
I want to share with you a very special story that I came across just recently. It concerns a Mayor of a town in the US. Mayor Booker arrived home at his apartment to find one of his security men knocking on the door of the building next door to warn them the second floor was on fire. As the security officer managed to get two women and a man out of the building, he learned that the daughter of one of the women, was still upstairs.
With his security officers doing everything to physically restrain him, the mayor got loose and ran into that burning building. Upstairs, Booker encountered a kitchen, engulfed in flames. He said later, "Just as I was looking down, wondering if I would ever find that girl, and struggling to breathe, I heard her." He followed her voice as he heard explosions and saw flames all around him. When he reached the room where the daughter was, it was totally in flames. In he went and quickly picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her out through exploding windows and falling burning embers from the ceiling, which burned both the daughter and the mayor. Meanwhile, the security officers were pretty sure that their mayor was not coming out alive, and Booker was thinking the same thing. He said, "Every time I breathed in, I just felt a blackness. We were fighting for our lives." The mayor told reporters, "I had a conversation with God I never had before." Amazingly, Booker made it out with the girl he'd rescued, collapsed on the ground, just coughing violently.
Needless to say, the news accounts hailed the mayor's incredible bravery. But his approach to the whole incident was a little different. He said, "I did not feel bravery. I felt terror." Which raises the question,"Why did he run right into those flames?" Well, his answer was right to the point. He said, "If I didn't go in, this girl was going to die." Yes he was afraid of what might happen to him if he went into the burning house, but more afraid of what might happen to the girl if he didn't.
In the Bible we read about the rescue that the Lord's people are to be involved in. In Jude 23 we have God's call to: "snatch others from the fire and save them" and then in Proverbs 24:11 to: "rescue those being led away to death". But too often, Christians afraid of what might happen to them if they try to tell people about Jesus - if they set out to do the rescue as called upon by God Himself - they stay silent, hold back, leaving unbelievers in their deadly situation.
So what keeps Christians from talking to others about Jesus? Listen to some of the answers: "Fear of being rejected". Or "Fear that I might lose them as friends". Or "Fear that they that they might not like me". Or "Fear that I might mess it up". You see what is happening here? The fears that silence us as Christians have one thing in common. They're all about "me"; what might happen "to me". There is no thought about the power and grace of God, and that with God all things are possible. And the forgotten party in all this? - the ones who don't believe, the ones who need rescuing. The rescue is all about them. "If we don't go in, they're going to die." Yes. Who is going to undertake the rescue?
Unfortunately, we can't actually see the horrific spiritual danger our friends and neighbors and co-workers are in, unless we ask Jesus to help us see what He sees. Those people you see day after day are, in the Bible's words, "lost" (Luke 19:10), "perishing" (2 Corinthians 2:15), "without hope and without God"(Ephesians2:12).And ultimately, it says, they will be "shut out from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9): unless someone goes in for the rescue, and tells them that Jesus loves them so much that He took all that Hell means (the suffering, the death on the Cross, and yes actually descending into Hell) so they would never have to. Jesus came to rescue them from eternal damnation.
If the mayor had waited for the rescue professionals to do it, that girl would be dead. Had he let his fears decide, had he waited for someone who could do it better, if he'd said, "It's not up to me", a life would have been lost. He knew what we must never forget - the life in danger is in the hands of the person closest to them. That means there's a list of people in my world for whom I am their best hope of rescue, because the Good News of Jesus isn't just beliefs to share, but it's life-or-death information.
I don't think we are ever going to lose the fear. And that's good, because it drives us to depend on the power of God. On our own - we will always fail. Spiritual rescue is possible because of the love of one Man - Jesus. Who didn't just risk His life for you and me; He gave His life. And He stands ready to rescue you from a spiritual death penalty you can't escape any other way. Spiritual rescue is the love response of a Christian, who because of what Jesus has done for him or her, will risk all to rescue a person from Hell. Christians sing the hymn "Rescue the perishing" so easily and readily, but they are not as quick at actually responding to God's call to do so. May I urge you to be about God's rescue plan.
In closing, could I challenge any who are reading this and who have themselves not been rescued, to allow John 3:16 to completely overwhelm them: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." Through believing in Jesus and repenting of all your sins, you will be rescued from Hell. And then join me in bringing the Good News to, and rescuing others! Grace and peace