Gospel Prism

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:14

Introduction

Our last value is as follows:

We value WORLD EVANGELIZATION to UNREACHED PEOPLES because of their hopelessness apart from the Gospel and our longing for the return of Christ.

Notice the two capitalized phrases, ‘world evangelization’ and ‘unreached peoples.’ World evangelization to unreached peoples is more than merely a specific delineation of missions. As Matthew 24:14 points out, world evangelization to unreached peoples is the final condition upon which the greatest moment for any Christian will be realized as we shall see. And reaching the unreached according to this text, reminds us of the following conclusions in light of all things for the sake of the Gospel: 1) It reminds us of the Saving Gospel, 2) It teaches us that the Gospel is an Unstoppable Progression, 3) It declares that there is a Gospel Testimony, 4) It reaches out to Unreached Peoples, 5) It culminates in Ultimate Worship.

Saving Gospel

So first, reaching the unreached reminds us of the Saving Gospel. We believe that the Gospel of the Kingdom (4:23; 9:35) is the complete and whole message of God saving the world through the work of Jesus Christ. Matthew 24:14 states: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Jesus begins with the gospel of the kingdom which he reiterated throughout his ministry (Matthew 4:23; 9:35). And we must never lose sight of the fact that inherent in the Gospel (good news) is a message of salvation. This is the consistent message of Scripture. People continue to lead their own lives apart from God. Since Adam and Eve first determined for themselves that they would choose what was right or wrong for themselves without depending on God, no one since has ever perfectly depended on God, except Jesus. So Paul condemns all of us by stating the natural and rightful consequences of our continual refusal to trust God in all things:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator… For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. (Romans 1:21-26)

But the time had fully come (Galatians 4:6-7) when God out of His great mercy would send His Son for this purpose: “God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” (Romans 3:25). God Himself through His perfect Son would bear the crushing weight of God’s wrath against our very own rebellion against Him! And according to Romans 10:13-15, without the proclamation of this good news, there is no opportunity for salvation and hope for anyone.

This urgency to proclaim the Gospel to the hopeless has been the fundamental missionary principle that has driven people to go to places where there is no Gospel ever since Paul’s day. John Eliot was one such person. He was a pastor in New England in the early 1600s. John Piper, in his biographical sketch of John Eliot, recounts: “And so when he was slightly over 40 years old, Eliot set himself to study Algonquin. He deciphered the vocabulary and grammar and syntax and eventually translated the entire Bible as well as books that he valued like Richard Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted. By the time Eliot was 84 years old, there were numerous Indian churches, some with their own Indian pastors. It is an amazing story of a man who once said, ‘Prayers and pains through faith in Christ Jesus will do anything!’” (Mather, Great Works, vol. 1, p. 562). Sidney Rooy, in his book The Theology of Missions in the Puritan Tradition, had this to say about Eliot:

The sovereign good pleasure of God, Eliot says, is seen in the over-ruling of human sin by God’s holy counsel. The sovereign grace of the cross sets the doors of heaven wide and open and draws men who have lost the divine image of true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness…The deepest estrangements of men from God are no hindrance to the sufficient grace of Christ. (p. 236)

Men like John Eliot and William Carey and Adoniram Judson and David Brainerd and Amy Carmichael and Jim and Elisabeth Eliot were stirred to go to the unreached not because of guilt, but because of their understanding of God’s saving grace, His plan of redemption, and what we know as the Gospel. Paul Tripp describes such a perspective well when he says:

When Christ is my hope, he becomes the one thing in which I have confidence. I act on his wisdom and bank on his grace. I trust his promises and I rely on his presence. And I pursue all the good things that he has promised me simply because I trust him. So, I am not manipulating, controlling, or threatening my way through life to get what I want, because I have found what I want in Christ. He is my hope. (Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2007), 107)

Unstoppable Progression

Second, reaching the unreached teaches us that the Gospel is an Unstoppable Progression. Nothing can stop the progression of the Gospel throughout the whole world. (“will be proclaimed”). If we understand that God is the one who does the work of salvation and that His work progresses unceasingly and is unable to be stopped, then we need not ever be disheartened in the progress of the Gospel. According to the Joshua Project, a ministry dedicated to the task of bringing the Gospel to all unreached peoples, there are a total of over 16,000 people groups in the world with only 6,748 who are still unreached. That equates 41.4% of the people groups of the world or 2.68 billion people who have still yet to even have an opportunity to hear the Gospel. When we just look at the raw numbers, it seems quite overwhelming and can be disheartening, especially when we take into consideration the advance of Islam around the world.

But here is where we need to go back to Matthew 24:14. Jesus is not hesitant in stating that the Gospel WILL advance to all peoples. There is a certainty there that is undeniable. So what is the root of Jesus’ confidence? It’s this unshakeable understanding that He is the God who saves. When the Israelites escaped from Egypt and suddenly they encountered the banks of the Red Sea in front of them and heard the hoof beats and rumbles of the Egyptian chariots behind them, they trembled with fear. For all intents and purposes, they were goners. And yet, Moses responded, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.” (Ex 14:13) After God delivered Israel from the Egyptians, these were the first words out of Moses’ mouth: “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God.” (Ex 15:2) Moses sang the song of the Gospel, that God is a saving God. When Jesus made this bold proclamation that the Gospel WILL BE PROCLAIMED, He did so knowing full well that His Father was the God who saves and whose salvation is unstoppable.

So we do not respond in fear or without confidence that this work will be left uncompleted. Yes, absolutely, the numbers are staggering and it is not as though there are millions of people who are going to these unreached places. There aren’t. But if we truly believe that it is God who saves through the Gospel by grace, then we rest assured, as Jesus so firmly states, the work will get done.

Gospel Testimony

Third, reaching the unreached declares that there is a Gospel Testimony. The fact that we know the work will get done, should not lessen the urgency for such work. Those who believe that we are preaching a Saving Gospel believe that people are being saved from hell. Paul makes it clear that this Gospel must be proclaimed (Romans 10) since there will be judgment. And Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:14 teach us that the Gospel testimony (martyrion) will lead to either salvation or judgment. If we look at the text again, Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” The word ‘testimony’ is the Greek work martyrion where we get the word ‘martyr’. And in this instance, the word has that nuance, of one’s testimony in the midst of persecution. Just looking at the preceding context Matthew 24:9-13 which reads, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved,” shows us that Gospel preaching to all peoples will bear witness against these nations. These people will either come to worship Christ or they will be judged for their lack of response to the Gospel. And the very witness of the Gospel will be a testimony to their hard-heartedness! We see this in other instances of the word ‘testimony’ (martyrion).

James 5:3 says, “Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence (martyrion) against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.” In other words, the rich who are merciless to the poor will have their very riches testify against their treatment of the poor before God. Also, Jesus says in Mark 6:11: “And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony (martyrion) against them.” That is, when the Gospel is rejected, the dust shaking off the shoes is a witness against those who close their hearts to it. The Gospel testimony is a reason to rejoice because it means that all peoples will have the opportunity to come to know Christ. But it will also be a further indictment against all the nations and will add to the reasons why Paul says they are without excuse in Romans 1:20.

Unreached Peoples

Fourth, reaching the unreached by definition means evangelizing to unreached peoples. I’m going to use the USCWM and the Joshua Project definition of unreached, which is, “A people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group without requiring outside (cross-cultural) assistance.” I am not using this definition simply because it’s represented by these two organizations, but because of texts like Matthew 24:14. When Jesus says: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations,” He uses the Greek word ethnesin (‘nations’) which does not refer to geopolitical boundaries, but rather distinct ethnic people groups with their own language and culture. And by unreached people groups, usually this refers to a people group who have not heard the Gospel, who have not responded to the Gospel, who do not have a church to attend, who do not have the Bible translated in their language, and who do not have access to the Bible readily. (USCWM and the Joshua Project (Missions Frontiers July/August 1992)

So with this in mind, the question that is often is asked is, “Why should we consider reaching such people? Isn’t local missions or missions to reached countries just as loving?” John Piper has a great illustration that I believe answers this question. He writes: “Suppose there were two luxury liners on the sea and both began to sink at the same time, with huge numbers of people on board who did not know how to swim. And suppose you were in charge of a team of ten rescuers in two large boats. You arrive on the scene of the first sinking ship and find yourself surrounded by hundreds of screaming people, some going down before your eyes, some fighting over scraps of debris, others ready to jump into the water from the sinking ship. Several hundred yards farther away the very same thing is happening to the people on the other ship.

Your heart breaks for the dying people. You long to save as many as you can, so you cry out to your two crews to give every ounce of energy to pull as many as possible from the water. Spare no pain! Spare no effort! There are five rescuers in both boats and they are working with all their might. They are saving many. Then someone cries out from the other ship, “Come help us!” What would love do?

I cannot think of any reason that love would leave its labor and go, if, in fact, it is fully engaged in saving people right where it is. Love puts no higher value on distant souls than on nearer souls. In fact, love might well reason that in the time it would take to row across the several hundred yards, a net loss of total souls saved would result. It might also reason that the energy of the rescuers would be depleted, which would possibly result in a smaller number of individuals being saved. Not only that, it may be that from experience you know that the people on that other boat were probably all drunk at this time in the evening and would be less likely to respond to your saving efforts. So love, by itself, may very well refuse to leave its present rescue operation. It may stay right at its present work in order to save as many individuals as possible.
The point of the illustration (as artificial and imperfect as it is, since the manpower of the church is NOT fully engaged!) is simply to suggest that love alone, compassion for lost individuals (from our limited human perspective), may not conceive the missionary task the way God does. God may have in mind that the goal of the rescue operation should be a gathering of saved sinners from every people in the world (from both luxury liners), even if some of the successful rescuers must leave a successful reached (or semi-reached) people in order to labor in a possibly less fruitful unreached people.”

In other words, the goal of world evangelization is not that we strive to get the most possible people saved, but rather that we preach the Gospel to all people groups in ALL places of the earth. We see this in Revelation 5:9-10 where John records: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” The Gospel will be represented in the people who come to worship around the throne, and this includes peoples from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Let me refer to John Piper one more time on this subject, simply because I can think of no other person who has biblically and exegetically dealt with the mission to unreached people groups more than him.

He quotes Romans 15:18-20, where Paul says: “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, 19 by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; 20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation.” The reality was that the area that Paul was speaking of, Jerusalem to Illyricum was a wide swath of land where the Gospel had only been preached for 25 years. Most of the churches that were established in this area were much younger than that. So there was obviously much more Gospel preaching that needed to be done in that area. And yet Paul writes in verse 23-24: “But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions… I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain.” How can Paul say he has no more room to work in these regions when there is so much more work to do that he leaves Timothy and Titus in these churches to bring the Gospel to these regions? This can only make sense if we understand Paul’s missionary task not only to win many people to Christ, but to reach people groups that have yet to have an opportunity to hear the Gospel proclaimed (like Spain). So I fully agree with John Piper when he concludes:

The unique missionary task of the church is not:
1. to win as many individuals to Christ as possible before the end comes, but;
2. to win some individuals (i.e., plant a church) among all the peoples of the earth before the end comes.

The fact is, many will go to hell without ever hearing the Gospel of Christ. And with such an urgency, a church that does all things for the sake of the Gospel cannot simply ignore this urgency. Rather, from an overflow of the Gospel, we long to see the Great Commission fulfilled and the Gospel to go to all peoples of the earth.

HOWEVER, we also know that the end goal for Paul and for the church is never the task of missions itself, but instead it is what our vision states which we believes flows from the pages of Scripture, “All things for the sake of the Gospel TO GOD’s GLORY for our joy.”

Ultimate Worship

Thus, reaching the unreached has as its end goal the glory of God and the ultimate worship that is due His Name. By ultimate worship, I mean a worship of God that will far exceed anything we have ever experienced in this world. Let’s go back to verse 14 one more time: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” There is a condition that Jesus places on the end coming, and that is that all nations (people groups) would have had the Gospel proclaimed to them. In commenting on this verse, NT scholar George Ladd makes this all-important observation:

God alone, who has told us that this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations, will know when that objective has been accomplished. But I do not need to know. I know only one thing; Christ has not yet returned; therefore, the task is not yet done. When it is done, Christ will come…Do you love the Lord’s appearing? Then you will bend every effort to take the gospel into all the world. It troubles me in the light of the clear teaching of God’s Word, in the light of our Lord’s explicit definition of our task in the Great Commission that we take it so lightly.(Quoted in John Piper, Hunger for God, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1997), 94)

Jesus Himself has said the end will come and He will return but it requires every people group to hear the Good News. And so missions is a means to this glorious end, that Christ will be eternally, perfectly, and ultimately worshipped and we as His brothers and sisters will receive a greater joy and satisfaction than any other source of joy this world has to offer us. Psalm 67:4-5 gives us a hint of what this time will be like: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. 5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!” This is why if our church truly believes that we are to do all things for the sake of the Gospel to God’s glory for our joy. Missions, and especially missions to the unreached, must be a part of our life together. Because this task of bringing the Gospel to the unreached is what will be the ultimate of worship, where God will be most glorified and we will perfectly and forever joyous in Him, we must make this a priority of our church. I like the way scholars Andreas Koestenberger and P. T. O’Brien describe this reality:

Jesus Christ is the ‘missionary’ par excellence. He has been sent by the Father to effect forgiveness and salvation, especially through His death and resurrection (cf. Luke 4:18-19; 24:46-47)…This mission of God’s people within the world is to be understood within an eschatological perspective, that is, it is grounded in the saving events of the gospel and keeps an eye on the final goal—the gathering of men and women from every tribe, people and language before the throne of God as the Lamb. (Andreas Kostenberger and P. T. O’Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, 269)

And it is this day that every Christian longs for, and what our vision looks forward to, the Day when Jesus as the slain Lamb will be worshipped by representatives of every people group of the world.