Frequently people come to us freely acknowledging they are not saved. They believe there is a God. They fully understand their lost condition. But they say quite frankly they feel helpless, unconcerned, unable to do anything about it. The tragedy of it! And one reason is because YOU who claim to be Christians are indifferent and unconcerned! The answer is found in Isaiah 59:16. Looking down the stream of time in this prophecy, God sees into our day and the condition of lukewarm Christianity. "And he saw there was no man, and wondered that there was NO INTERCESSOR." No intercessors praying for God to strive with lost sinners by His Spirit! And no man CAN come to the Son except the Father, thru His Spirit, draw him! God works thru human agencies. In James 5:16 we are commanded to PRAY one for another. And in I Sam. 12:23 the prophet says to sinners: "God forbid that I should SIN against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." Jesus told us to ASK for the Holy Spirit, assuring us God is more willing to give His Holy Spirit, WHEN ASKED, than we are to give bread to our hungry children. (Luke 11: 9, 13). Is it not because YOU are not ASKING — because you are ceasing to pray for lost sinners — that they are so indifferent, so utterly helpless and unable to do anything about their lost condition, even tho they realize it? This class forms a vast portion of the unsaved. They have no conception of the enormity of sin. They are not under conviction. They feel no real sorrow, no pangs of remorse, no sense of true repentance at all. No desire to turn from it. They are wedded to the ways and pleasures of the world, and helpless to do anything about it. The minister is just a helpless when he tries to talk to such a person. No minister can talk, persuade, or preach anyone into a real BORN-AGAIN experience. Conversion is a miracle — the receiving of a new life — the very nature and life of God. It is mortal flesh receiving God's Spirit. True, the Scriptures point the way, and with them the minister can point the way. Yet none can come EXCEPT THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER DRAW HIM. And so unless YOU are back of our evangelistic efforts with real, earnest, intercessory prayer — unless YOU can come to have some real compassion for these lost, helpless, dying souls, and will pray earnestly until God convicts them of sin, all evangelistic effort is in vain. In other words, the vast majority of unconverted sinners are indifferent today because YOU are so indifferent about their plight! The wages of sin is DEATH. If you should see a helpless woman about to fall off a high precipice, and plunge to certain destruction below, would you sit by indifferent and unconcerned, or would you spring into action? MILLIONS are plunging into eternal death, yet you sit careless and unconcerned! Are you not sinning in ceasing to pray for them? God has set you a watchman. YOU see the conditions in the world, and you know by the prophecies foretelling them that we are in the very last days. YOU are not blinded. YOU see the sudden destruction coming upon the world. And God says to you: "When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand!" (Ezek. 33: 17, 18). Perhaps God has not called you to go out and preach or publish a magazine. He does not give to all the same work. But God has a work for every Christian, and certainly you ARE called to stand back of those whom God is sending out to preach and publish the warning Gospel message. There are at least three ways you can do this. By the first tenth of HIS money which He permits to come into your hands (for your ALL belongs to HIM and He demands the first tenth of it, with free-will offerings, leaving you all the balance). In passing out literature and speaking to people when there is opportunity. And above all, by INTERCEDING for lost sinners in EARNEST SUPPLICATION AND PRAYER before God! If you are just a lukewarm, indifferent Christian God says He is going to spue you out of His mouth! (Rev. 3:16). The trouble is, too many of us are overcharged with the CARES OF THIS LIFE, with our work, our business, our house-work, so that we never have much time for God, or to be concerned over other millions about to perish! Read Luke 21:34 and 8:14. The time is too serious for pretty platitudes, or the soft and smooth things so many are demanding of their ministers. "All Scripture is profitable for... CORRECTION, for REPROOF, for instruction in righteousness." (II Tim. 3:16). Unless you are willing to let it correct and reprove, and arouse from this spiritual slumber, the Scripture in NOT PROFITABLE to you. The Church is asleep, and it is now high time to AWAKE, for now is our salvation much nearer than we supposed! (Rom. 13:11). The remedy is MORE PRAYER! NOW!
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