Nathan, if you told your friend that he has no sense of duty to go, then you'd probably have quite the argument on your hands. And we are obligated to turn the world upside down in our day. For one thing, many spin doctors are out there saying it never happened back then and that Christian history is a total fabrication. Rather than to argue over each historical piece of minutia, we simply need to demonstrate absolutely all of the power of God to this crooked and perverse generation.
The millenium is the universal triumph of the Gospel's message in every heart on earth, and if Christ didn't return to raise the living and the dead a thousand or even five hundred years ago for the judgment and then to bring in the New Earth, then very obviously what was done in the first couple of centuries of Christianity didn't suffice for what He had in mind for the Gospel into every nation before the end could come. The end of Judaism came in the first century, but there's more than one end spoken of in Scripture. Those that Paul addressed in Acts 17 didn't care anything about Judaism and some of them had likely never even heard of it. Yet, he declared a global judgment to them rather than just a worldwide judgment to Israel's world. The Gospel to all of the world is the message of commanding the surrender of every nation to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And obviously the message transitions from that point, after one has repented, to one of discipleship and those that cleanse themselves according to 2Corinthians 7:1-2 and 2Timothy 2 will go on to great and glorious things in this life -- as Romans 2 says "immortality." That immortality in Romans 2 is a bit different in context from elsewhere in the New Testament and very likely would be immortality in the sense that an Hercules, an Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Napolean Bonaparte, or a St. Paul would understand it (i.e. something approximating military glory, whether natural or spiritual). My reasoning is that in that context for those that are wanting such immortality, in that context alone of all of the passages of the New Testament, eonian life is said to be their reward rather than the akataluton life spoken of Christ in Hebrews 7.
Many things in the New Testament that are spoken to ministers or of ministers and their passion to get the Gospel out aren't necessarily applicable to the average believer down the street. But don't minimize the "woe is me if I don't preach the Gospel" that genuine Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers, Bishops, Adminstrations, Gifts of Healings, and Workers of Miracles in the Body of Christ have. If you honestly can't relate, then perhaps your calling is genuinely to the one talent. But some of us, even with a UR consciousness, honestly feel we'll be totally consumed with the flames of Gehenna if we don't get this message out. Not a fear, but a sense of good judgment that since we've weighed carefully as James says to in his epistle in the New Testament whether or not we're supposed to be teachers anyway. And since some of us are, then we've got to watch which direction the wheel of nature is being turned, and whether our kindling is being properly used for the blessing and healing of any that are sick among us, or whether it's the flames of Gehenna that are reason for us to weep and howl as the book of James says because of our wealth that was set aside for the last days is becoming nothing because we bore no sense of responsibility for the praying that rain should come or not come that we were called to.
