According to statistics, if 10,000 people live near your church, four of them die every week. It is therefore not satisfactory that one is saved every month or even once a week.

The need for the Gospel is so blatant that anything I could say would only reinforce the evidence. Yet, I find that the devil has some tricks to hide the evidence. First, Satan tried to prevent the birth of the Savior. He arranged the murder of Abel and then launched all his missiles against the ancestors of Christ, to finally massacre innocent people in Bethlehem. With murder and genocide failing, the only alternative left was to prevent proclamation of the Gospel.

At first the devil used only persecution and false gospels, but now he has a real armory. One of his weapons is to give believers other priorities. It does not bother him if we work hard for our church, as long as it keeps us away from the disaster that the Gospel can accomplish in its evil realm.

We can specialize in doctrine, in fraternal communion, in the path of prosperity or in the maintenance of our soul, in ways that have no relation or consequence to the proclamation of the Gospel to every creature. These are good activities that, however, leave no room for the most urgent task.

We can even develop interpretations of Scripture that grace us with this task and soothe our conscience towards the lost. Prayer itself, though so vital, can become a substitute for evangelization. But, as Suzette Hattingh says : "Prayer without evangelization is an arrow sent for nothing !". If we organize prayer gatherings, they must be directly involved in an evangelistic effort, and not take place to present general queries.

Jeremy Sourdril