ORLANDO–In a message titled Out of the Fire, reflecting the theme of Florida Baptists’ 2025 annual meeting in Orlando, Mike Orr, Florida Baptist State Convention president, focused on Jude 22-23 and stated, “We must evangelize with urgency.”

Orr, pastor of First Baptist Church in Chipley, said that God had been impressing on him “to be more active in the work of evangelism.”

He told the story of a man named Shannon who struggled with drug addiction, mental health problems and homelessness for a number of years. After being paralyzed from the waist down following a bicycle accident, Shannon entered a ministry facility where he made a profession of faith. Since his conversion, Shannon “pursues other men with the gospel of Jesus.”

Orr stated that there are people throughout Florida in “desperate need of hope.” Shannon’s life, he said, illustrates how believers are to live for Christ and serve Him.

“It is unfathomable that we can know Christ and not tell others about Jesus,” Orr said.

Jude 22-23 highlights three imperatives for evangelism.

First, Orr said, Christians “must have compassion on those who are doubting.” Believers and non-believers may doubt Christian truth. Although it is easy to become impatient or frustrated with people who express doubt about the Christian faith, “We must not give up,” Orr said, adding that he is sensing an “openness to God’s truth across America.”

Second, Christians “must have courage to rescue the deceived,” Orr preached. Jude 23a, he said, describes the urgency of evangelism as “snatching” people from the “fire,” which represents “eternal judgment or hell.”

Although the reality of hell is described numerous times in Scripture, Orr said, “We have forgotten the reality of hell, which is eternal judgment for sin.” He described a man with whom he had shared the gospel for years, but the man continually rejected the gospel. As the man lay dying, Orr said his wife described the unrepentant man’s death as “horrific,” as he was seemingly fighting, thrashing his arms, finally understanding his eternal destination.

As firefighters rush into danger to rescue those who are trapped by fire, believers must have the same urgency, Orr said, to “go after those a breath away from hell.”

Third, Christians “must be compassionately cautious around those defiled,” Orr preached. He explained that Jude warned the early Christians “not to become influenced by those defiled by sin when they attempt to influence them.”

The warning applies to Christians today, Orr believes. As Christians “engage those who are not saved, they begin to be influenced by the one they intend to influence. Too many Christians in our time have attempted to become like the world to reach the world,” he said.

Concluding his message, Orr said, “I sense the Lord is calling the Church to a renewed fervor for evangelism.” He said Christians “must pull” non-believers from “the fires of judgment and let them know who it is they need, and His name is Jesus.”