Matthew 24:14: Proclaiming the Gospel and the Call for Martyrs

“this gospel…will be proclaimed [to] the whole world…and then the end will come.”  Jesus, Matthew 24:14

“The blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the church.”  (Second century Church father Tertullian)

“There are no closed nations when men and women freely choose to lay down their lives for the sake of the gospel.”  (Adoniriam Judson, 1788-1850, America’s first international missionary) 

Today the missionary fervor of the church appears to be high.   Africans, Asians, Europeans and Americans (North and South) are obeying His call to the take the gospel to the remotest ends of the earth (see Acts 1:8).   Modern technology and political changes are allowing for new penetrations of the gospel.  The “bamboo curtain” surrounding China is proving to be porous and unprecedented revival is happening there.

  

Today the gospel is being heard for the first time in hundreds of years in places like Bosnia and Albania.   More Muslims are coming to Christ now than ever in history.    I have heard accounts of great awakenings currently happening in places most of the Christian world considers to be totally shut-off to the gospel.  

Yet there is still a long ways to go.   The Joshua Project (joshuaproject.net) estimates that 2.83 billion people today live in an “unreached people group,” meaning they have no active gospel witness within their culture.

David Robinson is a friend and a pioneering missionary of our generation.   He uses an illustration to show how much work must still be done to proclaim Christ throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, “ethnos”:  Line up 2 billion people (still shy of the 2.83 billion unreached peoples); put each person one meter apart.  If you started at one end of the line and drove a car at 50 mph, 10 hours a day, 365 days a year, how long will it take to drive the length of that line?  7 ½ years.  Friend, there is still much work to be done.    

Also there is a connection between suffering and reaching the world with the gospel.  That is why I believe this passage here in Matthew 24 about proclaiming the gospel is in the midst of many promises of suffering.   All of the easy places to preach Christ have already been reached; the places that remain unreached today are hostile to the gospel.   We must be willing to suffer and die if we are to push the gospel into new frontiers. 

One must wonder if we are willing to suffer and die for the gospel.  Never has so much abundance been given to the church as it has today.   Yet instead of using that wealth to proclaim Christ, Who is the greatest treasure, we are using that wealth to pad our comforts.  World Magazine (February 23, 2002) reports on “the rule of 3s”.  American Christians give approximately 3% of their income to Christian causes and a scant 3% of American Christians tithe.  Of the money that is given, 3% makes it to Christian causes beyond the borders of America.    I sometimes wonder if the Lord is preparing to remove our lampstand (see Revelation 2:5).

Meanwhile the Chinese church, hardened by persecution, is taking the gospel “back to Jerusalem.”   Jerusalem is where the gospel began 2000 years ago, then it moved to Europe, then America and now East Asia is becoming the epicenter of our faith.   The Chinese want to proclaim Christ across the Muslim Asian Republics, fully aware of the hardships required, and thus complete the process of taking the gospel “back to Jerusalem.”

One hundred years from now, what will you wish you did with your life today?   Will we dream big dreams of proclaiming the gospel throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations?    Or will we pursue small dreams that stop at the grave?  Oh Christian, dream big dreams!  As John Piper says, “Don’t Waste Your Life!”