Love for the Lost

By Joe Slater “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jeremiah 8:20).     September is upon us; autumn will arrive before we know it. Any fall crops still in the field will be harvested.     Jeremiah, “the weeping prophet,” lamented the condition of the immoral idolaters in Judah by comparing it to a crop failure which would, of course, result in famine. Jeremiah’s people had ignored innumerable warnings. Now it was too late. The prophet envisioned invasion by the Chaldeans and the unspeakable suffering and destruction it would bring.     True to his calling, Jeremiah had thundered God’s judgments against His rebellious people. Nevertheless, as he contemplated the impending bloodbath coupled with the misery of the survivors, it broke his heart. “Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (Jeremiah 9:1).     Paul echoed Jeremiah’s spirit as he wrote, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). Unbelieving Israel’s lost condition caused “great sorrow and continual grief in my heart,” he wrote in Romans 9:2. Like Jeremiah, Paul had faithfully proclaimed God’s word to his fellow-Jews; and he had paid the price for it as they persecuted him.     Do you understand that every responsible person outside of Christ is lost? Does it bother you? Do you love the lost enough to speak the truth of the gospel of Christ to them? “How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?”“ (Romans 10:14).     Think about it!

- Joe Slater serves as minister of the Lakeside Church of Christ in Springfield, IL. He may be contacted through the congregation's website: https://www.lakesidecoc.us/