There are countless Christians all over the West, whether here in Australia, in America, or elsewhere. All these Christians are called to share the good news of what Christ has done for us. The last command he gave to his disciples was to go into all the world and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).
But sadly, too many believers are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. There would be various reasons for this: fear, not wanting to rock the boat, having a false view of tolerance, worrying about offending others, and not really loving other people as we ought.
This ought not to be. The joy and excitement of becoming a new creation in Christ should alone motivate us to share the good news. We should WANT to let others know about it. An episode recorded in 2 Kings 7 offers a prime example of all this.
The context (2 Kings 6:24-33) is this: Samaria has been besieged by Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram. This results in a severe famine. But God uses Elisha the prophet to tell people some comforting news: the famine will be lifted (7:1). A key part of the story is found in verses 3-4:
Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”
So they get up and go there, checking things out. To their amazement they discover that the enemy’s camp has been completely deserted! They then really lived it up, eating and drinking and taking gold and silver. But it soon occurs to them that this is not the proper response.
As we read in verse 9: “Then they said to one another, ‘We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household’.”
2 Kings (Reformed Expository Commentaries)by Ryken, Philip Graham (Author)
Plenty of spiritual truths can be mentioned here. God said through Elisha that help was on the way, and it came through four unnamed lepers. Moreover, even they knew that holding onto such good news was wrong. I like what Philip Graham Ryken says about this story in his expository commentary.
He begins by saying that “good news is meant to be shared.” He then says this:
The words of these lepers rebuke every Christian with a silent testimony: ‘We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news …; let us go and tell the king’s household’ (2 Kings 7:9). In his comments on this verse, Alistair Begg warns that in the evangelical church “we have the Good News but are more interested in saving it than sharing it.”
There is something wrong with a Christian (or a church, for that matter) who does not share the good news. It is reprehensible to stay in one’s tent counting the booty without ever going back to save the city. It is not enough to find good news. It is not enough to enjoy good news. It is not enough to celebrate good news. Good news must be shared.
Evangelism, therefore, is a Christian duty. Evangelism is the right word to use in this context because the New Testament word for gospel is euangelion, (e.g., 1 Cor 15:1). To evangelize is to share the gospel, to give people the good news of God’s victory. All these words mean essentially the same thing. Thus, the example of the lepers shows the urgent necessity of sharing the good news of the gospel.
Ryken goes on to say that there are “two good reasons why it is not right to keep good news to ourselves. First, others are literally dying to hear it…” He looks at the example of pioneer missionary Hudon Taylor here, and then says this:
Here is another reason that it is not right to keep good news to ourselves: it will bring others as much joy as it has brought us. Evangelism is not a duty, but also a joy, as the lepers discovered. Once they shared their good news, it travelled fast:
“So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, ‘We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.’Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household.” (2 Kings 7:10-11).
Notice the irony: men who were forbidden to enter the city nevertheless had a message that would save it! There were skeptics, of course, as there always are. When the king was awakened by the sudden commotion over the latest news, he suspected a trap. He “rose in the night and said to his servants, ‘I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, “When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city”’” (2 Kings 7:12).
In military terms, the king thought that the Syrians had made a tactical withdrawal in order to set up an ambush. Was he right to doubt the good news? Understandably, people want to investigate good news for themselves. Yet however shrewd the king thought he was, the people who simply heard and believed turned out to be right in the end.
It is the same way with the good news of the gospel. The claims of Christ cannot be held off forever. Either Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, or he isn’t. If he is, then standing back and waiting for better evidence before we believe is not shrewd, but foolish. There are no skeptics or agnostics in hell, only enemies of God. The people who simply hear and believe will be proved right in the end.
Whether you have been a believer for five months or fifty years, you have the most important message that anyone can – and should – hear. We dare not selfishly keep this good news to ourselves. We need the attitude of the apostle Paul when he said in 1 Corinthians 9:16: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”
Let me conclude with the words of some great saints of God. I have already mentioned the famous English missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. He said this: “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.”
The great Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon put it this way: “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
And the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, said this:
“Not called!” did you say? “Not heard the call,” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.
Thanks Bill, needed this article.
Thanks Lynette.
Hence a need to be able to do apologetics – “Always ready to give a reason…”.
Correct John. My latest piece on apologetics is found here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/03/31/christian-apologetics-and-charlie-kirk/