In this writing, I’m defining “missionary” as someone sent by the Lord to bring the gospel to the lost and to do so by building bridges of trust and care to help soften the hearts of those hearing the gospel and create a greater receptivity to the truth. ZOOM Global is the 21st century epitome of this kind of kingdom work.
I want to begin by making two statements I believe to be absolutely true, but which, apparently, are not believed by the majority of American Christians:
Several years ago, Brother Andrew of “Open Doors” experienced the following American response to an appeal for missions:
Every Christian, without exception, is to have a missionary heart. This means that he will either be a missionary or he will pray for and support those who are missionaries.
Missions was the primary work of the early church. All other areas of life were secondary and were allowed to exist only if they enhanced the missionary enterprise. The New Testament is essentially a book of missions; missionary outreach was the context and atmosphere in which the New Testament was formed and was the prime motivator of everything the early church did.
“I remember going to Denver to one of the biggest churches there. We had an emotionally moving service, with many people in tears as I described the plight of the suffering believers behind the Iron Curtain and showed slides to illustrate what I was saying. At the end of the meeting, the pastor came to the pulpit and made an impassioned plea for the entire congregation to dig deep into their purses - TO PAY FOR NEW CUSHION COVERS FOR THE PEWS!” (Emphasis his).
Several years ago, Brother Andrew of “Open Doors” experienced the following American response to an appeal for missions:
“I remember going to Denver to one of the biggest churches there. We had an emotionally moving service, with many people in tears as I described the plight of the suffering believers behind the Iron Curtain and showed slides to illustrate what I was saying. At the end of the meeting, the pastor came to the pulpit and made an impassioned plea for the entire congregation to dig deep into their purses - TO PAY FOR NEW CUSHION COVERS FOR THE PEWS!” (Emphasis his).
Now, I want to build my case for the validity of the statements I made in the beginning. Let’s start with a few observations on the New Testament related to missions:
Every book in the New Testament was written by a foreign missionary;
Every letter in the New Testament that was written to an individual was written to a convert of a foreign missionary; Every epistle in the New Testament that was written to a church was written to a foreign missionary church; Of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, every apostle except one became a missionary.”
Missions was the context of action, the vocational call of the Body of Christ in the first century.
What was it that led these early Christians to develop such a passion for missions? It has been said that if we could see as Jesus saw and feel as Jesus felt, we would do as Jesus did. From a publication called “The Baptist Missionary Review” comes the following excerpt from an article on their early pioneers in Assam, India;
“The religious vocabulary of these men often seems a bit overdone to us today. But to them life was a serious pilgrimage between two eternities. Their theology put backbone into them and gave them a powerfully constraining apologetic for foreign missions. They were very sure that the heathen were already damned and going to hell; they had not the slightest doubt but that all heathen religions were contraptions of Satan to hide the truth and entrap men’s souls; they were very sure that Jesus Christ was the only Savior of the world; they did not come to the mission field to share with the Indians the truth of their respective faiths; they came to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ revealed in the Gospel of the grace of God to sinners as the one hope of salvation. They preached these beliefs and lived in the power of them day by day. Missionary service to these men was a question of supreme loyalty to Jesus Christ. Flippancy had no place in their make-up. They were ambassadors for Jesus Christ. They took themselves and their work seriously.”
Is this a fanatical branch of Christianity or is this simply the outshining of Christ in His people. If it is true that the greater our conformity to Christ, the deeper our heart for missions, then this passion for missions would have to be true of God Himself. Is it? If it is, could it be shown Biblically?
John 1:14 tells us that the “Word”, God’s Son, became a man and dwelt among us. Why? Why did the Son of God take upon Himself the form of a servant, made in the likeness of sinful flesh? Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 5:19 that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself . . .”, and in Luke 19:10 our Lord says, “The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.” Although a great deal is involved in our salvation, the bottom-line is this: God left heaven and came to earth in Christ for the express purpose of securing our forgiveness. He left His home and traveled to a foreign land to reach the lost! The Incarnation is both the central theme of the New Testament and the greatest missionary enterprise in history! The missionary spirit is rooted deep in the heart of God as revealed in Christ.
That heart for reaching the lost at any price was transferred to the apostles who followed in the footsteps of their Lord. In Rom. 9:1-2 Paul writes, “I tell you the truth in Christ . . . I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart . . . for my countrymen [Israel] according to the flesh.”
Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, His apostles were inwardly driven to reach those who needed Jesus’ love. Now the baton has been passed to you and me. We are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is to be Christ in His people, continuing His work beyond the first century “. . . even unto the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).
So, let me ask a question to clear up any misconceptions that may have arisen over the issue of missions. If the church is not going to reach the world, who will? Jesus was a missionary; the apostles were missionaries; the early church became a missionary venture into the then known world. So, why does the 21st century church not reflect this same passion? I believe there are two primary reason:
We don’t believe in the urgency of missions. We don’t believe, beyond theological theory, in the lostness of the lost - their plight and destiny do not grip us as it did our forefathers. From A.S. Ormsby’s book, “Alone With God” comes this story written by an atheist,
“If I were a religionist, did I truly, firmly, consistently believe, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and the practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, religion would be everything to me. I would cast aside earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as less than vanity. Religion should be my first waking thought and my last image when sleep sunk me in un-consciousness. I would labor in her cause alone. I would esteem one soul gained to heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences should never stay my hand nor seal my lips. I would speak to the imagination, awaken the feelings and stir up the passions. Earth, its joys and its griefs should occupy no moments of my thoughts; for these are but the affairs of a portion of eternity on the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlastingly miserable or everlastingly happy. I would deem all who thought of only this world merely seeking to increase temporal happiness, and laboring to obtain temporal goods, pure madmen. I would go forth to the world, and preach to it, and my text would be, ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’”
The Bible teaches that our faith is evidenced by our works (Jas. 2:18). If we truly believe anything, will that belief not manifest itself in action?
The second reason that modern Christianity lacks in regard to missionary passion is our unwillingness to suffer.
“Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place, and labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things unto this day. I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore, I beg you, be ye followers of me.” (1 Corinthians 4:11-16)
As soon as many of us get a glimpse of the implications of missions, whether across the street or across the ocean, we pull back. To be followers of Paul would exact too great a price from our lifestyle, our comfort zone. Much to our consternation, the Bible does not play down the personal sacrifice and suffering involved in the work of missions. In 2 Tim. 2:3 Paul tells Timothy, “You must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
The result of American Christians withdrawing from the battle has brought about two disturbing facts: For every one missionary sent from the West, ten are going out from other countries. Only 3% of the churches in America even have a mission’s committee. Yet there are currently over 2.5 billion people who have never heard the gospel.
Some time ago, my wife and I attended a mission’s conference at Prairie Bible College in Canada. We heard many stories of missions, but one particularly touched me. It seems a missionary had taken some Bibles into a Russian republic and had given one to an old woman in a small church there. It was the first Bible she had ever received and as tears streamed down her face she rubbed the Bible against her cheek and thanked the missionary and the Lord with all her heart. At the conference, we saw speakers themselves crying over the longing they saw in the faces of the young soviet Christians. They hunger for the Word and for the Lord, and have almost no one to help them. Some of the comments of the missionaries were,
“America is inundated with Bible teachers and few seem to care.”
“Are we going to see what we’ve seen and hear what we’ve heard and say ‘no’ to the needs in India, Africa and other darkened countries?”
In spite of the lukewarmness in many of our churches God is moving in these last days for a final ingathering of souls. This is the last generation; the church may soon be taken from this planet and the night will fall, Antichrist will rise and reign. Those churches throughout the world which are open to God’s purpose are being ignited with the spirit of evangelism and missions. Though the majority of Christians are not called to jump on the first plane to Africa, I still contend, as I mentioned at the beginning of this writing that all Christians should be involved in some way in missionary work, whether it involves going out themselves or supporting those who do. We are all called to witness (Acts 1:8), but I also believe that we are all called to do our part in penetrating the darkest areas of our world with the Gospel of Light.
The following is a poem written by a missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission in Nigeria,
“If you had been to heathen lands,
Where weary souls stretch out their hands
To plead, yet no one understands,
Would you go back?
“If you had seen the women bear
Their heavy loads, with none to share,
Had heard them weep with none to care,
Would you go back?
“If you had seen them in despair
Beat their breasts and pull their hair
While demon powers filled the air
Would you go back?
“If you had seen the glorious sight,
When heathen people seeking right
Were brought from darkness into light,
Would you go back?
“If you had walked through Africa’s sand,
Your hand within the Savior’s hand
And knew He’d called you to that land,
Would you go back?
“If you had seen the Christian die,
With never a fear though death were nigh,
Had seen them smile and say goodbye,
Would you go back?
“Yet still they wait, a weary throng,
They’ve waited, some, so very long.
When shall despair be turned to song?
I’m going back, would you?”
“And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations . . . and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
