I have many lingering impressions from forty years of missionary service and the privilege of leading the largest missionary-sending agency in the world during the transition between two millennia. Historians and researchers have documented how there has been more advancement in fulfilling the Great Commission in the last eighty years since World War II than in the previous 2,000 years. Record numbers of missionaries have been commissioned, creative access strategies have enabled the gospel to penetrate previously closed and restricted countries, and church growth movements have made the gospel accessible to remote peoples who had never been touched by the witness of missionaries.
It has been awesome to travel to 157 countries and to be in a position to see God working in unprecedented providence and power throughout the world. Wars, terrorist threats, ethnic violence, natural disasters, strained international relations, and economic uncertainty have left people disillusioned with traditional cultures, religious beliefs, and political powers as they search for something that will give hope and security. They are finding that Jesus Christ and knowing God is the answer. Our contemporary world reflects the prophecy of Haggai 2:22 that God would one day overthrow the authority of nations and destroy the powers of kingdoms.
Missionaries report movements to God on a massive scale and testify of miraculous manifestation of God’s power. I am always thrilled to tell about Muslims embracing the gospel in spite of persecution and being rejected by their family and threatened by their community. Movements from village to village emerge because of their compulsion to share the truth and the life-transforming power of the gospel.
Missionary reports in American churches are often met with skepticism but also by the question of why we do not typically see things like this happening in our own country. It may be due to a shallow concept of salvation, reducing religious practices to a traditional formality, or lack of a vital faith that would allow God to work in the power of the Holy Spirit. For whatever reason, it is a tragic indictment on a nation with a rich Christian history and such a prolific presence of churches throughout society.
However, after musing on this question and understanding the reality of spiritual warfare in my overseas experiences, I came to a possible explanation based on the analogy of Israel. Beginning with God’s covenant with Abraham, Israel was to be a people to represent him and his mission. Psalm 67 says that he would bless them and be gracious to them, not for their own sake as God’s chosen people, but in order to make his way known upon the earth and his salvation among all nations.
Israel was to proclaim good tidings of God’s salvation and tell of his glory among the nations, his wonderful deeds among all peoples that all the ends of the earth would praise his name (1 Chronicles 16:23). God’s people were to be on mission that God would be known and praised and worshiped among all people. But Israel became self-consumed, more concerned about being the recipient of God’s blessings themselves and their own success and prosperity than making his known among the nations.
Perhaps, as with Israel, the church has become ingrown, self-centered, and blind to why it exists, and our hearts have grown hardened to the mission of reaching a lost world as a result.
The Apostle Paul reflected in Romans 11 that Israel had forfeited their role and been rejected from being used of God to restore and extend his kingdom to all nations because they had become blind to the purpose of their calling as God’s people. Their hearts were hardened to their mission, and God’s purpose would be fulfilled by the Gentiles. God had reminded them in Isaiah 49:6, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations so that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
This warning applies to the people of God today. God did not create the church as the redeemed people of God and then give them a mission—God had a mission to redeem a lost world and created the church as his instrument to fulfill that mission. Perhaps, as with Israel, the church has become ingrown, self-centered, and blind to why it exists, and our hearts have grown hardened to the mission of reaching a lost world as a result.
God has not given any church permission to draw a circle around its town or community and say, “This is our mission, our Jerusalem, and we're just going to focus on reaching people where we live.” Certainly we are to witness and minister to the lost around us, but it does not exempt us from obeying God’s call to reach the whole world. Research has shown that churches that send out missionaries, provide opportunities for people to go on mission trips, and give generously to missions are the ones that are also growing and thriving in their local outreach and impact.
Satan doesn’t have to create resistance among people of other religions or build political and ideological barriers to Christianity to distract us from the mission. If he can create indifference among God’s people, those who have the message of hope and are the ambassadors of salvation, he can keep us from being obedient to spread the gospel to the nations and expand God’s kingdom. God will accomplish his mission on earth. May we be ready and willing to join him in his mission as recipients and stewards of the blessing of salvation.
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.
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