One anonymous author wrote, "I would crawl across England over ground covered in broken glass to save one soul from hell which you speak so glibly of."

At the turn of the 20th century, Benjamin Harrison ran for the presidential campaign as the Republican nominee. People said of him that he was a "magnificent orator, capable of enthralling thousands—as long as he did not shake any hands afterward. It was said that every voter who touched his icy flesh walked away a Democrat."¹

We as believers struggle with a different kind of iciness. Icy hearts. Every second almost two people die. That’s over 150,000 souls a day. And you and I know that most of those souls will be found guilty on Judgment Day and must be cast into a lake of fire filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth.

How often we fail to grieve over the condition of the lost! How rarely we find ourselves aching over the dreadful destiny of sinners headed for hell, all the while, happily enjoying the benefits of our salvation! It is my prayer that God’s Word will thaw our frozen hearts and instill in us an undying love for every unbeliever He brings into our life. Hybels and Mittleberg wrote, "You have never locked eyes with another human who isn't valuable to God."² People need Christ. As Mark Cahill said, “If they’re breathing they need Jesus.”³

Evangelist and author, Ray Comfort, commented,

All around us, people we haven't yet met are dying. On an average day, eighty-four people take their own lives and an estimated 1,838 attempt suicide. Every twenty-four hours more than 150,000 people are swallowed by death. Those strangers you pass in the streets, at school, in the store, and in your workplace have either Life or Death written across their foreheads; they either know God or they are lost. Don't see them as masses. See them as individuals.4

In the ninth chapter of Romans, Paul shows us exactly how to do that:

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom 9:1-3).

This is an incredible statement. What could move Paul to write such absurdity, such insane willingness to be effaced into the pits of hell for his Jewish brothers, a people who caused him more suffering than any other? We must go back a few verses to see how Paul arrives at this conclusion. In chapter 8, Paul passionately affirmed the eternal security of the believer’s salvation with a series of rhetorical questions:

• If God is for us, who is against us? (vs 31).
• Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies! (vs 33).
• Who is the one who condemns? (vs 34).
• Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (vs 35).

All these questions hammer the same point: If it was God who saved you, who on earth could take your salvation away?

And then Paul pens his magnum opus on the believer’s eternal security:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39).

But there is just one problem. This fantastic news for the saved means fatal headlines for the unsaved. If heaven is a God-granted guarantee for all who trust Christ, then damnation is the inevitable destiny of all who do not. And for that reason, Paul’s love for the lost bleeds off the page.

When you allow the horrific destiny of the lost move your heart to compassion, evangelism becomes ten times easier. One ancient author wrote, “There is no force in this world more powerful than love itself,” and this could not be truer when speaking of evangelism. From Romans 9:1-3, Paul ignites three flames that can thaw out our coldness toward the lost::

Flame #1: Let Your Love for the Lost be Motivated by the Holy Spirit

Paul writes, “I am telling the truth...I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 9:1, emphasis mine). Paul knew the claim he was about to make would be hard to believe. Men don’t go around offering their own damnation in return for the salvation of the lost. So to convince his readers that he is not lying, he prefixes his unbelievable claim with the promise that the Holy Spirit of God is the reliable witness that what he is about to say is true. Nothing but the Spirit of God could plant this kind of love in the heart of Paul. And nothing but the same Spirit can thaw our hearts and move us to weep for lost people.

It was no accident when Paul listed love as the very first of the nine fruits of the spirit, for a man with everything minus love is nothing (1 Cor 13:1-3). Of all virtues, love stands out as the brand mark of a true believer—it is the essence of the greatest and second greatest commandment. A person who claims Christ but has no concern for the billions of souls slipping towards the lake of fire should reconsider his claim. “Have you no wish for others to be saved?” wrote Spurgeon. “Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that.”

Love is more than a sympathetic feeling for lost people, or a prayer offered every now and then for the criminals and rapists. Love is an act. It’s a do. That’s why Scripture never defines love but only describes it (see 1 Cor 13:4-7). People who love the lost talk to them about Jesus.

More than a Police Description

We spend time with people we love. We get to know them, serve them, tell them the truth, and warn them when they are in danger. Can we honestly say we love our unbeliever friend if the most we can give is a police description of her? Souls are to matter to us because souls matter to God. You cannot stick a price on a soul. Charles Spurgeon said,

If there existed only one man or woman who did not love the Savior, and if that person lived among the wilds of Siberia, and if it were necessary that all the millions of believers on the face of the earth should journey there, and everyone of them plead with him to come to Jesus before he could be converted, it would be well worth all the zeal, labor, and expense. If we had to preach to thousands year after year, and never rescued but one soul, that one soul would be full reward for all our labor, for a soul is of countless price.

Even if we possessed all the gifts in the world, preached a thousand word-perfect sermons, and launched the most powerful ministry program on the planet, if our heart finds no room for reaching the lost, then all our good deeds stack up like garbage cans. If Christ loved us when we were lost (Rom 5:8), we cannot claim to follow His footsteps if we do not love the lost ourselves (1 John 2:6).

Flame #2: Let Your Love for the Lost be Marked by Grief

Paul continues, “…that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart” (Rom 9:2). Paul sheds tears of sorrow as he watches people reject Jesus. We get depressed over a relationship gone bad, losing a loved one, or suffering financial crisis. These trials are real and painful. But when last did we weep over the dreadful destiny of the lost?

In the last book of the Bible, John the Apostle gives us a peek into the bone-shuddering terror of their destiny:

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:11-15).

God’s angel told Daniel that hell will be a place of “disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2). It’s a place of shame and unending sorrow. Jesus called it a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 8:12). The pain of hell will be so unbearable that people will gnash their teeth in misery. It is the place where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44). When a body dies, maggots and worms show up to feast. But when do they leave? When the body has deteriorated. The point? Hell is a place of unending carcass-rotting and scorching fire. Not the kind of place you'd book for vacation. Yet's that’s where every unbeliever is going unless he repents and believes in the gospel—the gospel he may never hear about unless you and I tell him.

What Do You See?

When Dwight L. Moody toured London preaching the gospel, three British clergymen visited him. They wanted to know how this poorly educated American was so effective in winning throngs to Christ. Moody took the men to the window of his hotel room and asked, “What do you see?” One by one, each man described the people in the park below. They looked back to Moody and saw tears racing down his cheeks.

“What do you see, Mr. Moody?” they asked.

“I see souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Savior.”⁵

Ex-mafia man, William Fay, wrote, “When we begin to love others and look at them through God's eyes we will see a people in darkness. In our country alone, according to the FBI:

• A murder occurs every twenty-one minutes.
• A rape occurs every five minutes.
• A robbery occurs every forty-six seconds.
• Aggravated assault occurs every twenty-nine seconds.”⁶

Although every unbeliever is accountable for his sins, we must remember that he is not the ultimate enemy, but a victim of the Enemy. Were it not for five letters, g-r-a-c-e, you and I would be just like him, enslaved to our lusts (Titus 3:3) and blinded by Satan (2 Cor 4:4). Yet the gospel of Jesus has set us free, and the same can happen to them if we will let our grief over their destiny move us to tell them the truth.

Flame #3: Let Your Love for the Lost be Manifested by Sacrifice

Paul comes in for the landing: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3). “Accursed” is the word “anathema.” It means total curse. To be damned. Paul wishes for his own damnation if that could somehow save others! Paul’s sacrifice is the ultimate. No greater sacrifice can be made than to suffer hell for the sake of someone else. That is what Christ did at Calvary, and now Paul follows His example.

In the book of Exodus, God delivered the Israelites from slavery. After unleashing ten plagues of judgment on their enemies, showering them with gifts of silver and gold, and giving them water from a rock and honey-sweet wafers from the sky, the Israelites thanked God by creating a golden calf, falling down before it and crying out, “You are our god who delivered us from Egypt!” (Ex 32:1-6). Tremendous gratitude. And how rational!

God had enough. “Step aside,” He told Moses, “that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation” (Ex 32:10). And Moses jumped in glee and yelled, “Grill ‘em, God!”!” No, that’s what we could almost expect after the way Israel flouted God. His attitude was the opposite.

“Alas,” Moses cried out to God, “this people has committed a great sin [no kidding], and they have made a god of gold for themselves. But now, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out from our book which You have written!” (Ex 32:31-32). That’s Spirit-motivated, grief-marked, sacrificially-manifested love. Moses offered his own damnation in return for God’s forgiveness of Moses’ ungrateful Israelite brothers.

The example of Paul and Moses is phenomenal, but you too can love the lost as they did by asking yourself a simple question: What must I sacrifice in order to tell them the gospel? The greatness of one’s love is measured by how much he is willing to sacrifice.

Sacrifice at Any Cost

This sacrifice may come in the form of time, money, comfort or many other things. And if it’s going to happen, you’ll have to let yourself be inconvenienced. You’re on your way to work and it might not be convenient to pull out a tract and give it to the gas station worker. At the airport it may be far more efficient to make calls on your cell or read up on projects, than to strike up a conversation with the businessman next to you. But what will matter more to you when you lay on your deathbed? I had the privilege of watching basketball player and evangelist, Mark Cahill, demonstrate this kind of sacrifice in the form of money.

One spring, we invited him to our church to preach the gospel during halftime of a basketball tournament we put on for an outreach. The prize for the winning team was no dollar store gift—an iPod shuffle for every player of the last team standing. The clocks rolled, the games launched, and players went to battle. Finally, two undefeated teams stepped forward to play the final game of the day. I’ve seen lots of basketball games, but I’ve never seen anything like this. The competition went through the roof and the players almost threw fists.

The game finished, the winning team rewarded, and a player from the losing team stormed out in a huff. Cahill caught him just as he was leaving the gym and asked what was the matter.

“I wanted an iPod shuffle and I didn’t get one!”

“Is it really worth getting angry over?” asked Cahill as he pulled out his wallet and handed the guy more than enough cash to purchase a new iPod shuffle.

“Thank you, Jesus!” smiled the player. But Cahill didn’t leave it at that. What good is it to send a man with a fistful of cash into hell? Cahill explained to him why no amount of cash would ever satisfy his soul and talked about his dire need for a Savior. To this day I don’t know if that player gave his life to Christ, but one thing I do know: Cahill sacrificed money to reach this man for the Lord.

When Araunah offered his threshing floor to King David for free, David adamantly rejected, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing” (2 Sam 24:24).⁷

Nothing good in life comes without sacrifice and this is most true when it comes to the gospel. Knowing that God paid the highest possible price for your sins—the death of His own Son—how can we expect to reach the lost with no cost to ourselves at all? What sacrifice is so expensive that it’s too high for sharing our faith?

End notes

1. Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New Hork: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979), 390.

2. Bill Hybels and Mark Mittleberg, Becoming a Contagious Christian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 16.

3. Mark Cahill, One Thing You Can’t Do in Heaven (Rockwall: Biblical Discipleship Publishers, 2005), 73.

4. Ray Comfort, The Way of the Master video series.

5. Today in the Word (February 1, 1997): 6.

6. Wiliam Fay, Share Jesus Without Fear (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1999), 133.

7. Italics mine. David paid 50 shekels of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.