Why are we silent, if we are? Why are we silent? Are we fearful, nervous, bashful? Well, pray. Surely we can be bold for the Saviour, if the opportunity arises. Can't we push past those qualms, those surface fears, that shyness? Think of what he has done for us. Nothing would stop him coming to atone for our sin. Nothing would stop him, the holy one, coming into this fallen world and suffering so much for us. Can’t we raise a voice for him? Are we faithless because we have not witnessed? We don't think it would do any good, so every time we get an opportunity, we don't think it would serve any purpose, because we don't trust him to use us and to bless us and help us.
Have we become uncaring? Sometimes it happens to us all. We don't care about that person’s soul. That is terrible: that we should have been given so much and we don't care about the plight of others.
It may be you have a hard lot in life. It may be you have a professional job which means you have to be somewhat tough and face difficult things, and steel yourself to get on. Don't let it harden your hearts for souls. Pray for softness of heart, for Christian sympathy. Be fearful if you find you don't care about people around you. Has this secular life governed you too much, caring about many things in the world and never giving time to souls, to meditating on your blessings?
Is it perhaps that you're just unprepared? What would I say? You are caught out. An opportunity comes; I'm not sure how to handle the situation with this particular person. Shouldn't we give some time to preparing? I've got in my place of employment or place of study, this person, that person who I have quite a lot to do with. I must pray for that person, but I must also think. Supposing that person turned to me and said – let's take something obvious – ‘Why do you go to church?’ What exactly would I say? Well think about it. Prepare. Have some ideas ready. Then when the moment strikes, you won’t be caught out, and backing off. Give some time. We daydream, even busy people; we waste a lot of time thinking about all sorts of things that don't matter. Why not allocate some of that time to preparing for an opportunity which hasn’t even come up yet. What would I say? How would I handle this protest, that protest, this question, that question? Have I read anything about witness? Do I know how to respond to awkward responses? All these things really we are stirred to, as we read these passages. ‘For he that hath to him shall be given, and he that hath not from him shall be taken even that which he hath.’
We can apply these words to the seeker. He has heard some of the word of God and he thinks about it and it affects him. If he listens to it and respects it, he will get a little more. You hear truth, that you need a Saviour, who suffered and died for sinners and you invest your faith in that truth – ‘I believe that, I desire to find him and know him’ – you will receive a little more truth. Invest your faith, your belief in the things you hear from God’s word and it will open ever-increasing blessing from God. But if you don’t invest any belief in faith and you don’t respect and you have no humility before his word, ‘he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.’ That is what happens. There are people who may come to Sunday School, Bible Class, they understand various things. You speak to young people, they understand the essence of the gospel but, perhaps tragically, at some point these things are rejected. Sometimes you meet that person ten years later and they don’t seem to understand anything anymore. You speak to them about things and that degree of knowledge you know they had – technically at any rate – about the gospel, about their need, about Christ and how he saves, that’s gone! It’s almost as though they never heard anything. Even what they had has been taken away, because they wouldn’t hear it, they wouldn’t listen. Many times I have spoken to people and I know their background and I have thought, well, it’s as though they never attended church; they never went to Sunday School; they never understand a thing. Because they despised this message and didn’t invest the knowledge that they had, even the little they had was taken away.