"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," -Matthew 28:19
Have you ever babysat a toddler? Or maybe you have a little sibling who's about 2 or 3? If you do than you are probably aware that they are always asking questions, trying to gather information about this new exciting world that they have recently entered. I'm sure you are also aware that 90% of those questions are "Why?" Sometimes we need to ask this question, ourselves. Why must we go out to all the world? Why do we have to teach others about God?
The first reason is that if you don't, who will? I'm sure you have all heard the story of Esther. I'm sure you have all heard the wonderful story of a young, beautiful lady that became a queen because of how beautiful and charming she was. But Esther had to go through some struggles too. Esther was unsure of what she wanted to do. I mean, what if she died? What if the king didn't like her question? What if she failed? In Esther 4:14 Mordecai tells her "If you keep quiet in this time relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
In the passage you just read, we see that Mordecai is telling Esther that yes, God's will will be done, but it's Esther's job to make sure that it happens. Esther was put in that situation to make sure that her people will be saved. God puts us in situations so that we can save our people from destruction. By "our people" I mean the general population of the world. Maybe God gave you a good friend so that you could help them become a believer. Maybe God allowed you to be put in this situation so that you can show others that even in hard times, you still have to do the right thing. It's important that we are always looking for opportunities because who knows, maybe you were put there for that reason.
The second reason is that if we don't, the punishment is eternal. Have you ever heard the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? I'm sure you have. The rich man refused to help Lazarus in time of need, and when the rich man died he went to Hades and was begging Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers so they didn't end up in the same place. Abraham's response was, in Luke 16:29, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear from them." The rich man, in response, told him in the next verse that if someone from the dead came, they would believe. However Abraham sees through this thought and responds with the logical statement that if someone doesn't hear from the prophets, they won't listen to anyone else. We can see this also through the life of Jesus, as he raised from the dead himself, and performed miracles, and still people didn't believe in Him.
So what if all the evangelists just stopped evangelizing? What if we all decided that we were all happy with the amount of Christians that there were in the world, and it was time to stop telling others the Word? Well, everyone would end up with the rich man. There is only one way to heaven as we see in Mark 16:16 which says "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." This isn't saying that you don't have the be baptized and just believe, in this context it's talking about how people were being baptized but didn't believe in what they were doing. However we can see that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, so wouldn't it make sense if we wouldn't be saved without these things that make us saved? So we need both. But who is going to save others? Who is going to help them get to heaven if they don't know these things? We need to help others see this.
There are many other things I could talk about, but I'm sure you don't want to read this article for 7 years and I really want to eat sometime before then. But it's okay if you ask "why?". It helps us to see things for ourselves. It helps us see why God wants us to do things and gives us motivation to do so. Now I'm not saying that we need to go around questioning absolutely everything, just looking for a fight. But God has a reason for every single one of His commandments and it's important for us to see and study these reasons. Today I'd like to encourage you to study things for yourself and go teach everyone. Whether it's a friend, or a mission trip, or just helping in Bible class. Anything you can do to further the kingdom is a great thing.
