After twenty-three years of missionary work in Southeast Asia, I had a great deal of experience and insight into mission strategy, but was ill-equipped for relocating to the U.S. upon my election as president of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. It wasn’t just the lack of administrative experience in leading the largest evangelical missionary sending agency in the world, but one of the greatest challenges, in addition to adapting to life in a changing American culture, was moving from an Asian provincialism to a global perspective.
As we bought and decorated a house in the U.S., my wife often made the comment, “I want the word of God in every room in our house.” She wasn’t referring as much to the decor as to the fact that wherever we were something would remind us of our calling and passionate commitment to trust God and reach a lost world. At this time, I was in the process of adapting training on spiritual warfare I had used with missionaries on the field to the orientation of new missionary candidates, and the thought occurred to me that Satan probably has the Word of God posted in every room and corridor of hell. The verse with which he must be totally obsessed is Matthew 24:14, where Jesus proclaimed that the “gospel of the kingdom would be preached in the whole world among all nations and then the end would come.” Satan never questioned the authority of Jesus, and he knew exactly what that implied. He was a defeated foe, and when Jesus returned to claim his final victory, all of Satan’s wickedness and deceit would be over; he and all his demonic minions would be cast into outer darkness forever.
The church is not exempt from his strategy to inhibit the advance of God’s kingdom in our own nation, cities and communities, as well as to the ends of the earth.
However, it was to his good fortune that Jesus added a contingency that this would not happen until the gospel had been proclaimed and made known among all nations. He wasn’t referring to the geo-political countries we recognize on our maps, but he used the term panta ta ethne—all the peoples, cultures, languages and ethnicities of the world. There are currently more than 11,000 ethne, half of which are still unreached.
Paul described his mission calling in his testimony before King Agrippa in terms of spiritual warfare. The task of making Jesus known among the Gentiles was one of “opening their eyes, turning them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). We know Satan is behind sin and everything evil and immoral, including oppression and injustice in the world. But we seldom recognize that his devious tactics extend to the lies and deceit in attacking individual Christians to embrace fleshly, carnal values of the world and self-serving motives that rob God of his glory in our lives. And the church is not exempt from his strategy to inhibit the advance of God’s kingdom in our own nation, cities and communities, as well as to the ends of the earth.
First John 5:19 acknowledges, “We are of God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Places where Christ is not revered as Lord, the gospel is not known, and God is not praised and worshiped are indeed the dominions of Satan. Ephesians 6:12 describes Satan as the ruler over powers, principalities, and forces of wickedness. We readily recognize his strategies to inhibit the spread of the gospel and fulfillment of the Great Commission. In this capacity he has been able to keep countries closed to missionaries and a Christian witness restricted throughout the Muslim world, communist countries, and other places.
Satan thought he could deter the kingdoms of the world from becoming part of the kingdom of our Lord by inflicting persecution on the church and believers in hostile territories, but he has found martyrdom and suffering are the most powerful witnesses to authenticate the gospel and are instead fueling the spread of the gospel.
More effective, however, has been his success in obscuring our missionary task. Satan has discovered his most effective strategy is to attack the nemesis in this cosmic battle by causing churches to become self-centered and ingrown while neglecting to engage a lost world. It was as if the Great Commission was considered an afterthought following Jesus’s completion of his incarnation sojourn on earth; missions has become peripheral to why we exist as a church. The evil one has found it easy and natural to convince churches that their primary mission was to be focused on their local community rather than the nations or to send out teams to do good things on the mission fields without ever actually engaging the lost and confronting people with the claims of Christ.
The missionary call is to the church—the people of God—not to just an elite few who go as missionaries.
In this distorted perspective the priority becomes more staff and larger facilities at home to build numbers and enhance growth rather than taking the gospel to those in places where there are no churches. The enemy’s subtle and devious ways have led us to succumb to a myth regarding the call to missions. If one has not had a mystical call of a burning bush or Damascus Road experience, church members assume God has chosen not to call them to missions; this conclusion justifies settling in to a comfortable American lifestyle and enjoying warm, fuzzy church fellowship at home instead of recognizing that the missionary call is to the church—the people of God—not to just an elite few who go as missionaries.
Churches probably know that fulfilling the mission of God should be a higher priority than it is, but Satan has so diluted our spiritual vitality that we are not even winning the lost and internationals in our own community, much less to the ends of the earth. But the capstone of his strategy is likely our lack of faith to take initiative, explore the possibilities, and step out in boldness to engage the world. We are told in 1 Peter 5:9 that we are to resist Satan, “firm in our faith.” First John 5:14 reminds us, “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” Unless churches seize the initiative and in bold faith seek to fulfill the mission of God, Satan’s kingdom of darkness and lostness will remain secure and the peoples of the world bound for an eternity in hell will have no opportunity to know God’s salvation and grace.
Jerry Rankin retired in 2010 after 40 years of missionary service with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. Rankin and his wife, Bobbye, served in South and Southeast Asia for 23 years, including tenure as Area Director for the region; they lived in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and India. This was followed by 17 years as president of the IMB, an organization sending and supporting more than 5,000 missionaries serving among people groups in 170 countries around the world. He is the author of 11 published books on missions, spiritual warfare, and devotional topics. He has traveled to 157 countries and continues to serve in a variety of church-related ministries and interim pastorates in area churches.
Kommentare