Eternity in their Hearts

 

Who were the Magi who brought gifts to the baby Jesus, and how did they know that a Messiah was coming?

Who was Melchizedek, the contemporary of Abraham, who was a priest of the one high God?

How did a fifteenth century Peruvian king named Pachacuti, recognize that there was only one true God, before the coming of the Europeans? In his own words, Pachacuti described the one true God, they called Viracocha: "He is ancient, remote, supreme, and uncreated...He manifests himself as a trinity when he wishes...otherwise only heavenly warriors and archangels surround his loneliness. He created all peoples by his 'word.'"

God has "made every nation of men...so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27) Think about that for a moment...every nation of men...not just the Jews or the Americans or the Europeans or the Chinese, but every nation. Paul tells us that God has made them in such a way that men from every nation would seek Him.
But do they? Is there any proof that when missionaries enter a new culture/nation with the Gospel of Jesus, that they may find a people who are already prepared to hear and receive the Gospel? The answer is an astounding YES!!!

I read a book called Eternity in their Hearts by Don Richardson. Don Richardson and his late wife, Carol, spent 15 years among the Sawi, a Stone Age tribe of Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea. Don designed an alphabet suited to the Sawi language, authored 19 primers, taught the tribesmen to read in their native tongue and translated the entire New Testament. More than half of the Sawi accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!

The premise of his book is that in every culture God has preserved for Himself a testimony. In His mercy, He has permitted every culture in the world to retain a portion of the truth. If a missionary goes into a region, searching the culture for its grains of truth, and then affirms that these ideas ARE true, and then presents the Gospel as the REST of the truth, he and the Gospel will quite often be received. The book is heavily documented with specific examples of missionaries finding and utilizing these culture keys, and seeing large numbers of people become Christian.

I'd like to share some of the many examples of this. I pray they will encourage any of you, including me, who agonize over the question of God's justice in regard to people who have never heard the Gospel.

In 1867, a Norwegian missionary named Lars Skrefsrud found 2.5 million people called the Santal living in a region north of Calcutta, India. Once Lars learned the language and began proclaiming the Gospel to the Santal, he wondered how many years it would be before he saw converts. "To Skrefsurd's utter amazement, the Santal were electrified almost at once by the Gospel message. At length he heard Santal sages, including one named Kolean, exclaim, 'What this stranger is saying must mean that Thakur Jiu has not forgotten us after all this time!'" Kolean then went on to explain that their forefathers had taught them that "Thakur is distinct. He is not to be seen with fleshy eyes, but he sees all. He has created all things. He has set everything in its place, and he nourishes all, great and small." These were people who had never met a Christian or Jew nor had seen any part of the Bible, yet their understanding of God was Biblical! Once Lars explained the Gospel to them, they began to experience "eighty baptisms per day (which) signified that young Santal churches in 'Hindu India' were growing more than 500 times as fast as churches in 'Christian Europe.'"

Before I share a couple more examples, I must admit that reading this book shattered a belief that I held. I believed that the folk religions (the native religions of a people group, distinct from the major world religions - Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, etc.) of the world were almost entirely pagan and held very little hint or understanding of God. But according to Richardson, "We have been wrong. In actual fact, more than 90 percent of this world's folk religions acknowledge at least the existence of God. Some even anticipate His redeeming concern for mankind."

"The Chinese call him Shang Ti - the Lord of Heaven...In Korea he is known as Hananim, The Great One. Belief in Shang Ti/Hananim predates Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism by an unknown number of centuries." When missionaries entered China and Korea, they discovered this ancient belief in Shang Ti/Hananim and used it to explain a further revelation of God. Just as Paul pointed to the altar to the "unknown god" in Athens (Acts 17:22), the missionaries pointed to Shang Ti/Hananim. Today, "more than 3 million Koreans belong to Protestant churches...and Seoul contains the world's two largest Protestant churches." I can attest to this fact after living in Seoul for two years...there are crosses on the tops of churches everywhere! And in China, more than 23,000 people come to Christ a day!

The Karen of Burma were another group of people magnificently poised to receive the Gospel with open arms when it was presented to them. They had been searching for centuries for a "white brother who was supposed to bring them a book...(whose) author is Y'wa-the Supreme God...that the white brother, having given them the lost book, will thereby set them free from all who oppress them." Their folk religion's hymns bear striking resemblances to God's character and "the Karen story of man's falling away from God contains stunning parallels to Genesis chapter 1: Y'wa formed the world originally. He appointed food and drink. He appointed the 'fruit of trial.' He gave detailed orders. Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons. He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of the trial. They obeyed not...they believed not Y'wa...when they ate the fruit of trial they became subject to sickness, aging and death." Wow! This was a remote group of people who had never come in contact with Jews or Christians before, yet their own religion, thousands of years old, had an incredible witness of the Lord! The Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000 member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of deliverance from God." When missionaries finally brought the Gospel to the Karen in the early 1800s, thousands accepted Christ almost immediately and "almost as quickly as Karen were converted and baptized, they became missionaries to spread the good news still further among their own people" and neighboring tribes!

There are so many more examples of people groups with prior knowledge of God, being prepared and ready to accept Jesus as Savior, once He was presented to them. It is truly amazing and so very comforting. It is our job to do all we can to bring them the Good News.

Malachi 1:11  says, says "'My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,'the LORD Almighty." May this be our prayer:

Lord, You are the true and living God, You rule over all things visible and invisible. The nations belong to You, and you have woven into the fabric of every culture a testimony to Your name.

I bring the unreached people groups of the world before you now, and I ask Lord that You would reveal those things in their culture, that reflect who you are and Your son Jesus. Cause the hidden treasures of Your truth to be brought up and displayed for all to see. Lord use these keys of insight to ignite a curiosity and hunger among them to know more about who You are. Give Your servants wisdom and strategy to use these keys to promote the Gospel among this people group. In Your name we pray, Amen.

Who are the Nations?

Praise the LORD, all nations!

Extol him, all peoples!

For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD!
Psalm 117

Who Are the "Peoples," the Nations?

"Nations" and "peoples" in the Bible don't refer to political states like America, Spain, Brazil, China, but to ethnic or language or cultural groupings in these political states. For example, if you do a bit of research about Chine you will find the country is made up of at least sixty Chinese "peoples" (Hui, Dulong, Li, Lisu, Shui, Salar, Yao, etc.). And in the Bible you read about, "the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites" (Genesis 10:16-18).

So when Psalm 17:1 says, "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!" it means, "Praise the Lord, Hui of China! Praise the Lord Bahing of Nepal! Praise the Lord, Baluch of Pakistan! Praise the Lord, Maninka of Guinea! Praise the Lord, Bugis of Indonesia! Praise the Lord, Somali and Dakota of Minneapolis!" These are the kinds of groups Jesus was referring to when He said after his resurrection, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (panta ta ethne, same phrase in Psalm 117:1). These are the groups that Jesus meant when he said, "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).

So a huge question for followers of Jesus today is - or should be - how many peoples are there and how many of them are still unreached with the gospel of the kingdom? How many still have no church who obey Psalm 117 and praise the Lord?

Joshuaproject.net is an organization that has done extensive research on unreached people groups in the world. This is their summary:

An overview of the people groups of the world

People Groups:	17,070
Unreached Groups:	7,098
% Unreached Groups:	41.6%
Population:	7.60 Billion
Popl in Unreached:	3.15 Billion
% Popl in Unreached:	41.5%

A great place to go to pray daily for an unreached people group is Unreached of the Day

The greatest obstacle to reaching the unreached is the obedience of the church. May we be obedient in prayer, giving and going!!!

Why Do We Share Christ?

I wanted to share parts of a blog, written by Justin Long who attended a Lausanne (worldwide missions) conference. It addresses the question..."Why should we be engaged in missions? 

"When Jesus looked on the fields “white unto harvest,” he neither set out to preach to them nor did he pray for God to divinely show them the truth. Instead, he instructed his disciples to pray for workers. (And then, shortly later, he sent the disciples out as workers).

With God all things are possible—as the many dreams of Jesus in the Middle East presently being seen attest—but at the same time we must also remember that God requires human interaction too. God could instantaneously present himself to all unreached peoples worldwide: but this would immediately relieve his Church, his lovely bride, of the responsibility that he gave us. If we are to obey the Great Commandment (to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, mind and to love our neighbor as our self) then we must obey the Great Commission (to proclaim the good news to all the earth). But there’s a catch: obedience to the Great Commission isn’t a one time event.

Not too long back I was telling one of our kids that he needed to go and clean his room. “But dad,” he said, “I cleaned it already.” When pressed for when he cleaned it, he said, “I cleaned it on Monday!” I then had to explain to him that a room needed to be cleaned more than once. Picking up needed to be done on a daily basis.

It could have gone differently. I could have told him to clean his room—and then, when he failed to get it done in an appropriate time, I could have gone and done it for him. It would have gotten the job done yet taught him nothing. The job, in effect, wasn’t about cleaning the room so much as it was about teaching the skills and habits of cleaning which he will use the rest of his life.

And how are we doing on our own task? The number of people who have no access to Christ, Christianity or the Gospel is presently increasing by an estimated 19 million per year. The reason is simple: not enough people are working among these groups to make a sustainable difference in the long run.

It is the long run that is important. It is not enough to engage a group with a few missionaries. We must engage them with sufficient missionaries—but even that is not enough, because that’s like cleaning our room once. We need to to pioneer a church planting movement which will plant churches capable of evangelizing the group to its cultural borders and sustaining that evangelism through future generations. That’s cleaning a room and keeping it clean. That’s learning the habits that are necessary—the habit of passing on to future generations what has been passed on to us, as Paul instructed Timothy to do.

In other words “completion” of the Great Commission is a task that is not done once and then forgotten. We must have sufficient resources to complete it every day. It’s possible for rooms to become messy, and possible for a group to become unevangelized. For a live fire demonstration of this, look at Europe. It’s very simple, really: if all a group has are missionaries, then when the missionaries go home – and they will – then future generations will not be evangelized. A non-christian home will not evangelize its children. If a growing church is not planted then in 20 or 25 years the seeds of the Gospel will be scorched, die and wither away.

To reach a group sustainably over time requires people willing to be long-term servants, humble older brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in the faith. Otherwise it’s all for naught. Short-term workers can be useful, but they’re less like parents and more like doctors, dropping in when they’re desperately needed but not there for the day-in and day-out growth that keep them from being needed in the first place. Short term is useful but not the answer to the long-term inculturation of the gospel, translation of the Word, and discipling of first believers necessary for a church to be pioneered.

You can point to a place like China where the Gospel grew without outside missionaries, but don’t forget that missionaries like Hudson Taylor and many others pioneered it there first. They endured long enough to plant a church which could withstand persecution.

I don’t think we’ll ever have sufficient missionary workers to evangelize the whole world at one point, and at that point Christ will return (as many Christians interpret Matthew 24:14). So we need to build up a church capable of sustaining that effort over time so that at some future point the task is accomplished and will continue to be accomplished. It is “after” the task is accomplished (and sustainably so, I think) that Jesus will return.

I wish we could abandon “end times” thinking. I think it’s a bit of a oxymoron. For Christians there are no “end times” or “last days” in the long view. This age may end, but we will continue on. For people who will live eternally, “last days” is a bit of tunnel thinking.

What will happen after Jesus’ returns? We will worship him forever, enjoy him forever, and rule and reign with him. Thus, worship continues. Learning about him and his nature continues. Caring for his creation continues. Love never fails. Obedience to Christ never stops. A million years from now, I’ll still be alive, still loving my wife and children, still worshipping my king, and—I hope!—exploring this wonderful universe He has created. I’ll be laughing over this 70 years and the trials I endure. A billion years from now, I may not even remember this period.

What does not continue? Fame. Fortune. Power. Hunger. Sickness. Sin. Death. (and possibly many more things.)

So, let’s not consider the church to be the waiting room for eternity, but rather be about the business of the Kingdom now. Let’s do the things that will last for eternity." 

A Witness in Every Culture

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 

Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

"There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard." What exactly does this mean? I believe it means that God has left a witness for Himself in every culture. God has "made every nation of men...so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27) Think about that for a moment...every nation of men...not just the Jews or the Americans or the Europeans or the Chinese, but every nation. 

Paul tells us that God has made them in such a way that men from every nation would seek Him. He has left a witness for Himself in every culture, every nation. There is some bit of truth in their worldview, their belief system, that has prepared them to hear and receive the Gospel. This is what Jesus meant when He told His disciples, "Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." (John 4:35). 

How are the fields (referring to people who do not know Christ as Savior) "ripe for harvest?" The disciples did not prepare those fields...those people's hearts, to receive Christ. No...God did! God left a witness for Himself so that when the disciples made it to that group of people and shared the love and truth of Jesus with them, they would be ready to receive it. 

I believe that this idea challenges some of our core beliefs. We tend to look at a culture like the Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, or any number of other "pagan" cultures and believe they are unreachable without some miraculous intervention from God. Yes...God does intervene miraculously as I pointed out in my earlier blog Dreams of the Muslims , but more often, He asks us to harvest the fields that He has already ripened. 

So how does a Christian harvest the fields? How can the Gospel be explained to a group of people so that it seems culturally right to them? 

The answer is through something called "redemptive analogy," a phrase coined by missionary and author Don Richardson (author of Peace Child and Eternity in Their Hearts...two books I have previously blogged about at The Incredible Power of God and Eternity in their Hearts). 

The Jewish people practiced lamb sacrifice. John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus as the perfect, personal fulfillment of that sacrifice by saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" This is redemptive analogy. 

When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, a Jewish teacher, both knew that Moses had lifted up a serpent of brass upon a pole so that Jews, dying of snakebite, could look at it and be healed. Jesus told Nicodemus that "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This too is redemptive analogy. 

The Karen of Burma (seen in above picture) had been searching for centuries for a "white brother who was supposed to bring them a book...(whose) author is Y'wa-the Supreme God...that the white brother, having given them the lost book, will thereby set them free from all who oppress them." Their folk religion's hymns bear striking resemblances to God's character and "the Karen story of man's falling away from God contains stunning parallels to Genesis chapter 1: Y'wa formed the world originally. He appointed food and drink. He appointed the 'fruit of trial.' He gave detailed orders. Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons. He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of the trial. They obeyed not...they believed not Y'wa...when they ate the fruit of trial they became subject to sickness, aging and death." Wow! This was a remote group of people who had never come in contact with Jews or Christians before, yet their own religion, thousands of years old, had an incredible witness of the Lord! The Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000 member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of deliverance from God." When missionaries finally brought the Gospel to the Karen in the early 1800s, thousands accepted Christ almost immediately and "almost as quickly as Karen were converted and baptized, they became missionaries to spread the good news still further among their own people" and neighboring tribes! This is redemptive analogy. 

There are many more stories like this, of missionaries bringing the Gospel to groups of people who have never heard of Jesus Christ. When the missionary looks for and finds that redemptive analogy, that culture key, the people become very open to hearing about and believing in the Gospel. They "are made aware of spiritual meaning dormant within their own culture. In this way, conversion does not deny their cultural background. Instead, they experience heightened insight into both the Scriptures and their own cultural heritage, and thus they are better prepared to share Christ meaningfully with other members of their society." 

2.2 Billon People Have Never Heard of Jesus

Psalm 117

Praise the LORD, all nations!

Extol him, all peoples!

For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD!

Who Are the "Peoples," the "Nations"?

"Nations" and "peoples" in the Bible don't refer to political states like America, Spain, Brazil, China, but to ethnic or language or cultural groupings in these political states. For example, if you consider the country of China there are at sixty "peoples" in China (Han, Hui, Dulong, Li, Lisu, Shui, Salar, Yao, etc.). And in the Bible you read about, "the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites" (Genesis 10:16-18).

So when Psalm 17:1 says, "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!" it means, "Praise the Lord, Hui of China! Praise the Lord Bahing of Nepal! Praise the Lord, Baluch of Pakistan! Praise the Lord, Maninka of Guinea! Praise the Lord, Bugis of Indonesia! Praise the Lord, Somali and Dakota of Minneapolis!" These are the kinds of groups Jesus was referring to when he said after his resurrection, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (panta ta ethne, same phrase in Psalm 117:1). These are the groups that Jesus meant when he said, "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).

So a huge question for followers of Jesus today is - or should be - how many peoples are there and how many of them are still unreached with the gospel of the kingdom? How many still have no church who obey Psalm 117 and praise the Lord?

Let's just take one reliable research effort, the Joshua Project which has undertaken to catalog and keep current the unreached people groups in the world. According to their most recent findings Status of World Evangelization  they calculate 6,900 ethnic people groups in the world. Of these, 7,000 have less than 2% who are following Christ. By population numbers, that is 42% of the world population (3,140,000,000).

If you hear someone say that the day of missions outreach is over; that everyone has heard about Jesus, they are very mistaken. According to World Christian Encyclopedia, "81% of all Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus do not personally know a Christ-follower." One reason for that is while there are many people who serve on the mission field, "almost 90% of all cross-cultural missionaries labor among nominally Christian people groups, only about 10% among unreached people groups."

29% of the world, 2.16 billion people, have never heard the name of Jesus. If we truly believe what the Bible says, then we must believe that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus is to be praised by all peoples. This 2.16 billion people will perish for eternity without the gospel. God means for us to engage with him to bring about Psalm 117: "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!"

If you have children who don't know about the "nations," I suggest that you subscribe to the Global Prayer Digest or visit the website Unreached of the Day . Read a story to them and pray for a different people group each day. Oh, may we be a Church and families where children consider short-term missions as normal as vacations and who consider the dangers and burdens and joys of vocational missions a gift everyone should consider receiving.

May children and teenagers and adults in Christ's Church break free from our tiny little worlds of family and friends and church and Western culture! Jesus Christ is building his church around the world. We are meant to think and feel and work with Him in this cause. Who knows how many of our personal problems are owing to narrowness of thinking and smallness of affections in relation to God's global purposes. May God give us a mind and heart to know and love and reach the peoples of the world for the glory of our Savior!

Let's not be among the number who do not see that the world and the church have changed dramatically in the last 100 years - the greatest missionary century in history. Listen to Andrew Walls from his book, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History:

[The twentieth century] has seen this great recession from the Christian faith in the West, there has been an equally massive accession to that faith in the non-Western world. [At the beginning of the century] well over 80 percent of those who professed Christianity lived in Europe or North America. Now, approaching 60 percent live in the southern continents of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, and that proportion grows annually. Christianity began the twentieth century as a Western religion, and indeed, the Western religion; it ended the century as a non-Western religion, on track to become progressively more so. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002, pp. 63-64)

We are not at the center. God may or may not be done with us in our self-absorbed prosperity in America. But he certainly is putting others on the Christian map to humble us and call us to confess and rejoice that others may be far more effective in finishing the Great Commission than we are. The dynamics of church and missions will never be the same.

This is the new world we live in. It is the world that God is guiding and shaping for his glory. So let's join him in his great global purpose and not be limited in our thinking and feeling and acting to our local concerns. Let's give ourselves to missions, either as a goer or a sender.

This was taken from a sermon, by John Piper, entitled Everlasting Truth for the Joy of All Peoples. You can access it at this website Everlasting Truth

Do Not Fear the Muslims

"Then I said to you, 'Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them." (Deuteronomy 1:29)

The Bible tells us more than 365 times not to be afraid, do not fear. But do we hear Him? Do we believe God when He says He will be with us and that we should not be afraid? 

The Muslim world terrifies many Christians. Images of hooded terrorists chopping heads off, of towers burning, of mobs chanting and lifting high their weapons seems to have immobilized the progress of the Christian Church into the Muslim world. Statistics speak this truth plainly. The greatest concentration of Muslims is in a place labeled the 10/40 Window which includes North Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia. Many of these countries are predominantly Muslim. The Western Church sends only 1 out of every 40 missionaries to this region according to Jason Mandryk in State of the Gospel  This means that in many Muslim countries there are less than three missionaries per one million people. 

Why the imbalance...part of it is that many in the Western Christian Church fear the Muslims. 

Yet “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind,” 2 Timothy 1:7. The Church needs to believe in the power of God to overcome the obstacles Satan has placed in the 10/40 Window. The gates of Hades will not prevail against the Lord. We need to believe this and move out in trust, wisdom and power. 

We also, as Christians, need to learn about the Muslims. What do they believe? What is their family life like? What makes them happy, sad, concerned? As we learn about them, God can begin to break our hearts for them. They need to hear of the love of Jesus. They need someone who is willing to cast aside fear, which so easily entangles, and follow the call of Christ into the Muslim world. Jesus is waiting, but He needs obedient servants.

There are many stories of how God uses the willing servant to reach the Muslim people who He loves. One is set in a nomadic Muslim group in Sub-Saharan Africa, where a single woman is effectively training Imams (Islamic teachers) in the gospel. They perceive her to be non-threatening, 'just a woman.' Building upon a foundation of interpersonal relationship and Biblical knowledge, she does not give them answers herself, but directs them to the Word. The Lord has confirmed her teaching giving dreams and visions to these leaders. As they have been converted, they are now training many others. She is accepted as a loving, caring elder sister, who gives high priority to their welfare," (from Women in Mission by Marguerite Kraft and Meg Crossman)

We can begin today by praying for them specifically, learning about them and then asking God how He would have us reach out to the Muslim world, be it our neighbor, a university student in our city or to an unreached people group half way around the world. 

Eternity in Their Hearts

Who were the Magi who brought gifts to the baby Jesus, and how did they know that a Messiah was coming?

Who was Melchizedek, the contemporary of Abraham, who was a priest of the one high God?

How did a fifteenth century Peruvian king named Pachacuti, recognize that there was only one true God, before the coming of the Europeans? In his own words, Pachacuti described the one true God, they called Viracocha: "He is ancient, remote, supreme, and uncreated...He manifests himself as a trinity when he wishes...otherwise only heavenly warriors and archangels surround his loneliness. He created all peoples by his 'word.'"

God has "made every nation of men...so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27) Think about that for a moment...every nation of men...not just the Jews or the Americans or the Europeans or the Chinese, but every nation. Paul tells us that God has made them in such a way that men from every nation would seek Him.
But do they? Is there any proof that when missionaries enter a new culture/nation with the Gospel of Jesus, that they may find a people who are already prepared to hear and receive the Gospel? The answer is an astounding YES!!!

I read a book called Eternity in their Hearts by Don Richardson. Don Richardson and his late wife, Carol, spent 15 years among the Sawi, a Stone Age tribe of Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea. Don designed an alphabet suited to the Sawi language, authored 19 primers, taught the tribesmen to read in their native tongue and translated the entire New Testament. More than half of the Sawi accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!

The premise of his book is that in every culture God has preserved for Himself a testimony. In His mercy, He has permitted every culture in the world to retain a portion of the truth. If a missionary goes into a region, searching the culture for its grains of truth, and then affirms that these ideas ARE true, and then presents the Gospel as the REST of the truth, he and the Gospel will quite often be received. The book is heavily documented with specific examples of missionaries finding and utilizing these culture keys, and seeing large numbers of people become Christian.

I'd like to share some of the many examples of this. I pray they will hearten any of you, including me, who agonize over the question of God's justice in regard to people who have never heard the Gospel.

In 1867, a Norwegian missionary named Lars Skrefsrud found 2.5 million people called the Santal living in a region north of Calcutta, India. Once Lars learned the language and began proclaiming the Gospel to the Santal, he wondered how many years it would be before he saw converts. "To Skrefsurd's utter amazement, the Santal were electrified almost at once by the Gospel message. At length he heard Santal sages, including one named Kolean, exclaim, 'What this stranger is saying must mean that Thakur Jiu has not forgotten us after all this time!'" Kolean then went on to explain that their forefathers had taught them that "Thakur is distinct. He is not to be seen with fleshy eyes, but he sees all. He has created all things. He has set everything in its place, and he nourishes all, great and small." These were people who had never met a Christian or Jew nor had seen any part of the Bible, yet their understanding of God was Biblical! Once Lars explained the Gospel to them, they began to experience "eighty baptisms per day (which) signified that young Santal churches in 'Hindu India' were growing more than 500 times as fast as churches in 'Christian Europe.'"

Before I share a couple more examples, I must admit that reading this book shattered a belief that I held. I believed that the folk religions (the native religions of a people group, distinct from the major world religions - Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, etc.) of the world were almost entirely pagan and held very little hint or understanding of God. But according to Richardson, "We have been wrong. In actual fact, more than 90 percent of this world's folk religions acknowledge at least the existence of God. Some even anticipate His redeeming concern for mankind."

"The Chinese call him Shang Ti - the Lord of Heaven...In Korea he is known as Hananim, The Great One. Belief in Shang Ti/Hananim predates Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism by an unknown number of centuries." When missionaries entered China and Korea, they discovered this ancient belief in Shang Ti/Hananim and used it to explain a further revelation of God. Just as Paul pointed to the altar to the "unknown god" in Athens (Acts 17:22), the missionaries pointed to Shang Ti/Hananim. Today, "more than 3 million Koreans belong to Protestant churches...and Seoul contains the world's two largest Protestant churches." I can attest to this fact after living in Seoul for two years...there are crosses on the tops of churches everywhere! And in China, more than 23,000 people come to Christ a day!

The Karen of Burma were another group of people magnificently poised to receive the Gospel with open arms when it was presented to them. They had been searching for centuries for a "white brother who was supposed to bring them a book...(whose) author is Y'wa-the Supreme God...that the white brother, having given them the lost book, will thereby set them free from all who oppress them." Their folk religion's hymns bear striking resemblances to God's character and "the Karen story of man's falling away from God contains stunning parallels to Genesis chapter 1: Y'wa formed the world originally. He appointed food and drink. He appointed the 'fruit of trial.' He gave detailed orders. Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons. He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of the trial. They obeyed not...they believed not Y'wa...when they ate the fruit of trial they became subject to sickness, aging and death." Wow! This was a remote group of people who had never come in contact with Jews or Christians before, yet their own religion, thousands of years old, had an incredible witness of the Lord! The Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000 member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of deliverance from God." When missionaries finally brought the Gospel to the Karen in the early 1800s, thousands accepted Christ almost immediately and "almost as quickly as Karen were converted and baptized, they became missionaries to spread the good news still further among their own people" and neighboring tribes!

There are so many more examples of people groups with prior knowledge of God, being prepared and ready to accept Jesus as Savior, once He was presented to them. It is truly amazing and so very comforting. It is our job to do all we can to bring them the Good News.

Malachi 1:11  says, says "'My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,'the LORD Almighty." May this be our prayer:

Lord, You are the true and living God, You rule over all things visible and invisible. The nations belong to You, and you have woven into the fabric of every culture a testimony to Your name.

I bring the unreached people groups of the world before you now, and I ask Lord that You would reveal those things in their culture, that reflect who you are and Your son Jesus. Cause the hidden treasures of Your truth to be brought up and displayed for all to see. Lord use these keys of insight to ignite a curiosity and hunger among them to know more about who You are. Give Your servants wisdom and strategy to use these keys to promote the Gospel among this people group. In Your name we pray, Amen.

What's On the Other Side?

There are a lot of touching emails out there these days. But this one really made me think and it reminded me of one of the main reasons I write this blog:

A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to leave the examination room and said,

"Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side."

Very quietly, the doctor said, "I don't know."

"You don't know?  You're, a Christian man, and don't know what's on the other side?"

The doctor was holding the handle of the door. On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.

Turning to the patient, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death,  but I do know one thing... I know my Master is there and that is enough."

That is enough! We are so incredibly privileged and blessed to have heard the name of Jesus and to have been given the grace to believe in His name. We don't know what lies beyond the grave (the details, what our bodies will be like, what we will do all the time, what it will look like, etc.) but we know who lies beyond the grave...Jesus Christ!

But there are billions who do not know what lies beyond...billions who fear death with every ounce of their being...who live in a very dark world and who will go to an even darker world when they die. Friends, this should not be!

I spend my early morning hours reading the Bible, praying and just getting to know Jesus more. I can't WAIT to see Him face to face and be with Him forever! I want the unreached people of the world to get a chance to be with Him as well. I can't imagine life without Jesus!!!

I encourage you to pick one unreached people group and start praying for them daily. Find out more about them... https://www.unreachedoftheday.org has a list of just about all of them with links to lots of information. I have been praying for the Hui of China and the Bahing of Nepal for awhile now.

They need our prayers! They are people just like us. There, but for the grace of God, could be each of us. They are God's children too and He is asking us to pray!

Praying for the Caucasus People

Chechen children in Caucasus mountain region

This email is from a good friend of mine who is a missionary to the Caucasus people (formerly Russia) who are mainly Muslim. A good lesson for today can be derived from this Bible story!

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. 
So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” 
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” 
And her daughter was healed at that moment.   Matthew 15:21-28

"We pray more women will be like the Matthew 15:21-28 Canaanite woman.  Though from a nationality outside the house of Israel, though an enemy of Israel, she wanted healing for her demon-possessed daughter. She knew just enough of Jesus to go find him.

She pestered the disciples to get through to see him. She rebutted with clever wit Jesus's test where he used a usual, expected ethnic slight against the Canaanites [We just learned they make these ethnic jokes/slights all the time in Dagestan]. Like one from any powerless ethnic group or nationality, she endured the deep humiliation hearing such publicly accepted denigration of her people; but her canny wit blasted through Jesus' word play and she demonstrated her faith.

Imagine the features on her face, looking towards Jesus, perhaps directly in his eyes (which would break culture code too). "You can say what you want to me to test my resolve, but I know I need YOU and I'm not moving until YOU do what I KNOW you can do."

Doubtful that the disciples caught the whole message here, but wasn't Jesus showing just how much shame; humiliation some must endure to come to Him (and soon Jesus would be the one enduring deep shame and humiliation for ALL). Her faith was great indeed! The disciples were privileged that Jesus chose them. Here, the Canaanite woman, against strong social barriers, is Choosing Jesus.
       
So we ask God to move these Caucasus women, men and families in great faith to GO FIND Jesus; to step past the mental, social, historical walls developed from 1000 years of reasons not to seek Jesus and to pester Christ's church for mere "crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

We pray Christ's Russian speaking churches and Global Church will awaken and begin sincerely INVITING Caucasus Peoples to authentically meet Jesus. He's the only one who will complete their customs and cultures towards a Biblical tapestry of faith and worship. We pray the "bread of Jesus" will be offered, not as crumbs and leftovers, but from the meal table itself [through fellowship groups they can call home]!"

What and who are Unreached Peoples?

Psalm 117

Praise the LORD, all nations!

Extol him, all peoples!

For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD!

Who Are the "Peoples," the Nations?

"Nations" and "peoples" in the Bible don't refer to political states like America, Spain, Brazil, China, but to ethnic or language or cultural groupings in these political states. For example, if you go to the website China Source you will see, for starters, a list of sixty Chinese "peoples" (Hui, Dulong, Li, Lisu, Shui, Salar, Yao, etc.). And in the Bible you read about, "the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites" (Genesis 10:16-18).

So when Psalm 17:1 says, "Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!" it means, "Praise the Lord, Hui of China! Praise the Lord Bahing of Nepal! Praise the Lord, Baluch of Pakistan! Praise the Lord, Maninka of Guinea! Praise the Lord, Bugis of Indonesia! Praise the Lord, Somali and Dakota of Minneapolis!" These are the kinds of groups Jesus was referring to when He said after his resurrection, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (panta ta ethne, same phrase in Psalm 117:1). These are the groups that Jesus meant when he said, "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).

So a huge question for followers of Jesus today is - or should be - how many peoples are there and how many of them are still unreached with the gospel of the kingdom? How many still have no church who obey Psalm 117 and praise the Lord?

Let's just take one reliable research effort, the huge Southern Baptist International Missions Board. For their missionary purposes they calculate 11,227 people groups in the world. Of these, 6,614 have less than 2% evangelical Christians. Of these, 68 peoples have populations over 10 million; 433 populations between 1 and 10 million; 1,452 between 100 thousand and 1 million.

The following video does a good job of explaining the unreached people groups and why we should pray for them. The video can be found at Did You Know? A great place to go to pray daily for an unreached people group is Unreached of the Day

The greatest obstacle to reaching the unreached is the obedience of the church. May we be obedient in prayer, giving and going!!!

North Koreans needs our prayers

He changes times and seasons; 
he sets up kings and deposes them. 
He gives wisdom to the wise 
and knowledge to the discerning.
Daniel 2:21




I continue to be burdened for the people of North Korea. Their life is one of starvation, fear, intimidation and loss. They are the most persecuted nation on earth, where cannibalism is common.

Yet even in this modern-day hell on earth, God's Spirit is moving and bringing people to Jesus against incredible odds.

We need to pray, daily, for North Korea! Allow God to burden your heart for them.

Emergency Prayer Alert - NORTH KOREA PRAY for North Korean Transfer of Power WIN PRAYER ALERT North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il recently announced that his son, Kim Jong-un will succeed him. As the transfer of power approaches, the North Korean regime is working to build a new personality cult around Jong-un.

At the age of 69, with reportedly failing health (including rumors of a stroke), North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il has chosen a successor to carry on his regime - his son, Kim Jong-un.  Jong-Il is revered by some in North Korea as a god and is referred to as Supreme Leader, Dear Leader, Father, and the General. He took power from his father, Kim Il-sung, who also had a personality cult centered around him and was worshiped and feared. Jong-Il currently commands the fourth largest standing army in the world. Jong-Il's third son, Kim Jong-un is a four-star general in the Korean People's Army. He is believed to be 27 years old (his date of birth is unknown) and speaks four languages. He will become the leader of North Korea when his father steps down from power.  As one of Kim Jong-Il's personal staff noted, "If power is to be handed over then Jong-un is the best for it. He has superb gifts, is a big drinker and never admits defeat." Kim Jong-Il's oldest son has a different opinion. He stated in October 2010 that when power is transferred to his younger brother, the regime will crumble. "North Korea will collapse soon. How long can this regime last?" Some analysts are also concerned about the transfer of power. They foresee a struggle and a possible leadership crisis. If Kim Jong-un does manage to take control, they say, he will need to make serious reforms in order to maintain control. North Korea is number 1 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2010 of the world's worst persecutors of Christians. WIN partners pray for North Korea on Day 27 of the Window International Network Praying Through The Window 9: Global Terrorism and World Religions prayer calendar. PRAY FOR: the Lord to raise up the leader of His choice to guide North Korea out from Communism. (The Bible, Daniel 2:21) the man or woman who takes power to be compassionate and sensitive to the needs of the people. Pray for an end to the vicious tyranny and abuse that has characterized the regime since 1948. (The Bible, Psalm 103:2-5) the Lord to relieve the people of North Korea from hunger, poverty, and political and spiritual oppression. (The Bible, Psalm 18:2) the hearts of all leaders in this dark nation to be softened by the work of the Holy Spirit and open to the Gospel. Pray for the salvation of Kim Jong-Il and his entire family. (The Bible, I Timothy 2:4) the Lord to protect, strengthen and encourage Christian Believers as they face intense persecution for their decision to follow Jesus Christ. (The Bible, I Peter 4:13) peace throughout East Asia - especially between North and South Korea. Ask the Lord to station His mighty, warring angels around North Korea and keep the government from acting on threats of war. (The Bible, Psalm 4:8) the Kingdom of God to come to North Korea in power and for multitudes to put their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. (The Bible, I Corinthians 4:20) Sources: BBC News, Korea Times

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India - 7 to 10 churches planted a day!

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
Isaiah 49:22

India...it will soon have more people than any other country on earth. It is hurtling rapidly forward in its globalization, yet much of it is trapped in a centuries-old caste system. Hindu is the predominant religion, and its worship of millions of gods holds captive millions of people.

But, praise the Lord that the Gospel is shedding its light to the farthest corners of India. The Church is growing by leaps and bounds in this nation. One example...Gospel for Asia, a wonderful organization which I am privileged to be a speaker for, plants between 7 and 10 churches A DAY, in India! That is incredible!

At the Lausanne Congress 2010, which was held this past week in Cape Town, South Africa, there were many delegates from India. Two of them gave a wonderful glimpse into what is happening in this nation.
I encourage you to watch this short video.

Truth - Global Issues - India 

Bibleless People's Prayer Project

What if you could connect with a people group still waiting for God’s Word—and follow the progress of translation for their language? Thousands of people are already doing this through the Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project (BPPP).

When you join the BPPP, you receive information about your language group and its speakers, a how-to-pray bookmark, and an annual project update. From time to time, you’ll also receive news about your people group.

BPPP partners have the unique privilege of seeing God answer their faithful prayers. A five-year-old boy prayed each Sunday for the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island. One day, he heard that Wycliffe had assigned missionaries to work among the Rapa Nui. His parents later discovered that the missionaries had become interested in Easter Island around the time their son started praying.

Simple enough for a child and rewarding for those of any age, the Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project draws you into God’s love for the people of the world. Will you join us in prayer for those who are still waiting to hear of this great love?

Join the BPPP

I recently did this and am now praying for the Bahing people group in Nepal. You may never be able to visit a foreign nation to tell them about Jesus, but each of us can be involved in the Great Commission through our prayers!