Ever heard this . . . "The only reason God left you on earth was to spread the gospel!" Is this true? I think it was stated this way often in order to assure a new Christian that indeed immediately upon salvation, they had everything they needed in order to enter heaven's gates, but that they needed to stay in order to tell others. That IS partly true. We ARE to testify to Christ's salvation in a dark world. But to state that this is the ONLY reason for our being here is misleading at best, unbiblical at worst. Read what A. W. Pink (1886-1952) had to say:
ONCE a man makes the conversion of sinners his prime design and all-consuming end and NOT THE GLORY OF GOD, he is exceedingly apt to adopt a wrong course. Instead of striving to preach the Truth in all its purity, he will tone it down so as to make it more palatable to the unregenerate. Impelled by a single force, moving in one fixed direction, his object is to make conversion easy; and therefore, favorite passages (like John 3:16) are dwelt upon incessantly, while others are ignored or pared away. It inevitably reacts upon his own theology; and various verses in the Word are shunned, if not repudiated. What place will he give in his thoughts to such declarations as, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. 13:23); “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw Him” (John 6:44); “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:14)?
He will be sorely tempted to modify the truth of God’s sovereign election, of Christ’s particular redemption, of the imperative necessity for the super-natural operations of the Holy Spirit.
Pink, A. W. (2005). The Arthur Pink anthology. Bellingham, WA.: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Amen.
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