The Passion of Missions

Since Jesus says that “(we) are not of this world” (John 17:16), what is to be our involvement with those outside the church? I want to begin my attempt to answer that question by making two statements,

- Every Christian, without exception, is to have a missionary heart. This means that he/she will either be a missionary or will pray for and support those who are missionaries.

- Missions was the primary vocational 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.

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 statements I made in the beginning. Let’s start with a few observations on the New Testament related to missions by L. E. Maxwell;

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.

The only one who did not become a missionary, became a traitor.

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 the image of Christ in His people? If it is true that the more we are conformed to Christ the deeper will be our heart for missions, then this passion for missions would have to be true of God Himself.

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? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 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.” God left heaven and came to earth in Christ for the express purpose of securing our redemption. 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 Romans 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 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 18-20).

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 known world. So, why does the 21st century church not reflect this same passion? I believe there are two primary reasons:

1. 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 (James 2:18). If we truly believe anything, will that belief not manifest itself in action?

2. The second reason that modern Christianity lacks in regard to missionary passion is our unwillingness to suffer. We are bothered by the cross.

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 offscouring 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 Jesus would exact too great a price from our lifestyle, our comfort zone. The Bible does not play down the personal sacrifice and suffering involved in the work of missions. In 2 Timothy 2:3 Paul tells Timothy, “You must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

Some years ago, my wife and I attended a mission’s conference. We heard many stories of missions but one particularly touched me. A missionary had taken some Bibles into a Soviet republic and had given one to an elderly 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 young Christians on foreign fields. They hungered for the Word and for the Lord, and had almost no one to help them.

God is moving in these last days. I personally believe this is the last generation, the church will soon be taken from this planet and the night will fall, Antichrist will rise and reign. “Darkness, like a funeral pall, will settle down on the empires of the earth” (Walter Scott). 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 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)

One final comment on this subject: T.A. Sparks warns concerning the tendency of the flesh (personal agendas) to enter spiritual service,

Now He (Jesus) has shaken off all His chains. Time and space no longer have any power over Him. Geography, the material things, Satan, demons, men, nations, thrones, all have been fully stripped off by Him. Now, by an inward dynamic, in spite of every threat and peril, men and women are moving out in every direction with a passion for the glory of His Name. Now, not as an historic figure, known “after the flesh,” but, by an inward revelation of transcendent magnitude, He is known after the Spirit. Now, the once dreaded, unacceptable, offending Cross is all their glory. Now, suffering reproach has supplanted pride; selfless, disinterested sacrifice takes the place of ambition; a mighty energizing faith—not their own—has destroyed doubt; they lay down their own lives gladly and suffer the loss of all things for that Name.

In one strategic stroke He begins with a multitude representing “every nation under heaven.” See how this fire spreads without artificial and forced agencies.

In the year 33 A.D., a few Galilean fishermen were seeking liberty of speech in Jerusalem, and were severely handled as men poor and ignorant. In the year that Paul died, how did the matter stand? There were churches in Jerusalem, in Caesarea, in Antioch and all Syria, in Galatia, in Ephesus, Sardis, Laodecia and throughout the west coast of lesser Asia, in Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Rome, Alexandria, in the chief cities of the islands and the mainland of Greece, and the western Roman colonies.

There are some significant omissions from this record of conquests. We never read of the organizing of a missionary campaign. Such things as deputations, lecturers and lectures, exhibitions, appeals, advertisements, and so on, with all their cost and expenditure of time, money, energy, all to try to get Christians interested in the souls of the unsaved, are never hinted at. Any reporting of what God had done in the regions beyond was never by way of propaganda or advocacy. Statistics as mental stimulants; tragic, sensational stories as emotional stimulants; urge and drive as volitional stimulants had no place here, so far as we can discern. The thing was firstly of the Spirit, not of the soul. The endeavor to reverse this order is undoubtedly the reason for a tremendous amount of the weakness and breakdown of today.

Speaking generally, this whole matter of the world-mission of the Church is on pre-resurrection ground today. The Lord is not straitened in Himself, but He is straitened in His people. On the one hand, there is a need of workers, for almost half the human race is without the knowledge of Christ; and on the other hand workers are often ready to go forth, yet there are no means to send them. A third condition, almost more tragic, abounds, that of the spiritual breakdown of many who do go, so that ‘converts’ are not really and genuinely born from above with the Spirit of sonship becoming truly resident within. Demon powers persist in dominion and challenge. A policy of slow absorption of ‘Christianity,’ through education, familiarization, and so on, as a compromise between failure to work upon the basis of genuine regeneration and an honest acknowledgment of the same with its practical implications, has been adopted. Finally there are the many who return home with lost assurance.

Surely all this stands in direct contrast to the spirit and experience of the New Testament. It is not difficult to go on at great length making distinctions between the two standards, that of the New Testament and that which has largely been since, but the more important thing is to display the secrets of that former glory.