By Mike Lii

Back when I was in high school, my church produced a video designed to encourage evangelism. The concluding scene of that video is burned into my memory. A young man was shown in tears and in relative darkness in order to represent his being in hell. He was looking at his friend—a believer who was in the light. The condemned man’s question to his friend was crushing: “Why didn’t you tell me, man?”

The implication of the condemned man’s words was clear: “I wouldn’t be in hell today if you had just told me the gospel. It is your fault for not sharing your faith, and because of that, I ended up here.”

Wow! What a tremendous burden and responsibility! My takeaway from that video was that there are people who will end up in hell unless I share the gospel with them. On the flipside, the only reason some people will be in heaven is that I shared the gospel with them. People’s eternal destinies depend on whether or not I evangelize them, so I’d better get out there and share my faith.

Is this an accurate and appropriate motivation for evangelism? Will people end up in either the lake of fire or in the eternal kingdom just because I evangelized or failed to do so? If this is an incorrect motivation, then what should motivate believers to evangelize?

We actually have from Scripture an answer to the question of whether a lost person would have believed if only someone had brought them the gospel. Recall the rich man’s desperate plea to Abraham, found in Luke 16:27-31:

Then he [the rich man] said, “I beg you [Abraham] therefore, father, that you would send him [Lazarus] to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.”

Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.”

And he [the rich man] said, “No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent (emphasis added).”

But he [Abraham] said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded (emphasis added) though one rise from the dead.”

Notice that the rich man has the gospel wrong. He thinks he is in the place of torment because he failed to turn from his sins. However, he believes that if someone comes back from the dead to tell them to repent, then his brothers will do so.

Abraham corrects him. He tells the rich man that his brothers will not be persuaded—will not believe—even if someone comes back from the dead to tell them. The rich man’s brothers’ problem is not that they have not repented; their problem is that they have not believed.

However, we have an answer to the question of whether these brothers would have believed if someone had come back from the dead to tell them the gospel. Abraham tells the rich man that even if someone came back from the dead to tell them, the rich man’s brothers would still not be persuaded of (believe) the truth.

Will there be people in hell who would have believed the gospel under different circumstances? The answer is an emphatic, “No!” Those in hell would not have been persuaded of the truth of the gospel, even if evangelized by someone who had come back from the dead.

Given the frequent calls to believe in Jesus for everlasting life (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; 11:25-27; Acts 16:30-31), the Bible presupposes that man has the capacity to believe in Jesus. Otherwise, these calls to faith are meaningless. Why ask men to exercise faith when they have no capacity to do so? “Faith in Jesus” is not given by God, but comes in response to God’s illumination. God does not force anyone to believe. Believing the gospel is man’s response and responsibility.¹

The God of the universe knows of all the possibilities and under what circumstances one may come to faith in Jesus. When we think someone’s salvation depends on us, our view of God’s power and love is too limited. Would an all-knowing God, who loves everyone in the world and who has infinite resources at His disposal, be limited by any believer’s unwillingness to share the gospel with anyone who would believe it?

Obviously, the answer is, “No!” God’s desire for all to be saved (1 Tim 2:4) is not going to be thwarted by anyone’s unwillingness to share the gospel. If one is unwilling to be part of His plan, God can use others to accomplish His purposes. If God knows that someone will believe if they hear the saving message, then God’s love for that person will find a way for them to hear the gospel. This is true today, has always been true, and will continue to be true.

One may ask, “Well, in that case, does it matter if I evangelize, since no one will end up in hell because of my lack of effort?” There will be a loss, but not the loss of anyone’s eternal life. The loss is on the part of the person who does not share his faith; this person loses the opportunity of gaining eternal reward. This principle is true not only in evangelism, but regarding any opportunity a believer may have to perform good works.

Recall, in Judges 4:6-9, what Deborah the prophetess said when she admonished the Israeli commander, Barak, to fight:

“Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?”

And Barak said to her [Deborah], “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!”

So she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”

The Lord had already commanded and promised that Jabin’s army would be delivered to Israel. However, Barak refused to go unless Deborah went with him. Even without Barak and Deborah, would Jabin’s army have been delivered into Israel’s hand? Of course it would have been, because the Lord had promised that. The question was not whether Jabin’s army would be defeated, but whether Barak would be part of God’s plan. Barak became a part of God’s plan, but only after Deborah agreed to go with him. This unwillingness to obey God’s command without reservation resulted in a lessening of reward for Barak. The glory of the triumph over Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, went to another. The reward went to “the hand of a woman.”

Likewise, when we fail to share our faith, God will still accomplish His plan of bringing the gospel to anyone who will believe. No one will go to hell because of our failure. However, we will have lost the opportunity of being a part of God’s plan and of gaining the eternal reward we could thus have earned.

This understanding has relieved me of the tremendous responsibility and pressure of thinking that people’s eternal destinies rest in my hands. I just need to share the good news that Jesus promises eternal life to all who believe in Him for it. No one is going to go to hell because I was not eloquent enough or because I failed to speak up. Each opportunity to share my faith is an opportunity to earn eternal reward, but God will make sure that anyone who will believe will eventually hear the gospel, whether by me or someone else. The Lord Jesus has already promised that those who will believe are out there. “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matt 9:37).

God always accomplishes His plans. The question for us is whether we will be a part of this plan and earn the rewards that go with it.

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Mike Lii is a finance attorney. He and his wife, Letitia, a member of the GES board, and their son, Payton, live in Dallas and serve at several Free Grace churches. Mike and Letitia also run the Zane Hodges Library online (zanehodges.org).

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¹ See “God’s Role in Conversion” by Zane Hodges, Grace in Focus, July 1993, and “Man’s Role in Conversion” by Zane Hodges, Grace in Focus, September 1993.