The biblical mandate for world evangelism, presenting the 'harvest' as great, white, and urgent. It traces this global perspective from creation through the prophets, the birth and ministry of Christ, and the Great Commission, highlighting that God's plan has always been for all nations to be blessed. The message challenges the church to move beyond a 'worldly outlook' to a 'worldwide outlook,' urging believers to recognize the immense and growing global population and the diminishing percentage of Christians. It calls for a renewed commitment to missions, despite perceived obstacles, by showcasing numerous examples of God's work and open doors around the world, concluding that life's purpose is to make and support missionaries.
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The Lord is willing to come back to him. I'll keep him in front of his word as well. It's mostly frank and defined missionary interest in our country. One of the things, if we're kind of a little bit disappointed on this, on a third hurdle, South Africa, or at the end of the year, this is that many places where there used to be a great deal of missionary interest, they're no longer and people are more anxious to talk about the political situation in South Africa. You know, they've heard that terrible word apartheid, or they want to talk about something else. But they're not really interested in what is told or being saved now. Whether there are opportunities for the gospel, whether there are areas of prayer and places where God's work may be burdened.
And it's this that is very encouraging, a church like this, where we set aside a few days and consider again the need of the world and the responsibilities that we'll have in it. I'd like to read three short passages, the first one from Luke chapter ten. verse one after these things the lord appointed others done he also and sent them through and through before his faith and into every city and place where he himself would come and therefore sent ye unto them the harvest through his great but the labors are few pray ye therefore that the lord of the harvest that he would send forth labors into his harvest and from john chapter four fourth calendar, and his uncle John.
Twenty-fifth verse. Thirty-fifth verse. Say not ye there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the field, for they are white, already the harvest. And he that reapeth, receive his wages, gathereth fruit, and delight eternal, that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth may rejoice, together. One further verse from Mark chapter four. Fourth chapter of Mark. Mark four verse twenty-nine.
But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately put it in the pickle because the harvest is caught. Now here are three phrases that I have chosen from these three little passages. The harvest is great. The harvest is white. And the harvest is hot. But we might just consider them a little bit this afternoon in the right of world evangelism. The great concept of getting the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ out into all the world. I heard a message at a place called Regent College in Vancouver. It's a sort of intellectual place, and I won't give you my impressions of being there, but I heard a very well-known man in theological and missionary circles in an interdenominational sense speak on the subject a world view.
He spoke for an hour and twenty minutes, and I didn't know what he was going to talk about before he started, and I didn't know what he said when he said it. But I want to talk a little bit this afternoon about a worldview, and I think I have a little bit in the concept of what I want to talk about, and I certainly hope you do when I'm sitting. Now, the concept of world evangelism, which is one that keeps all the way through the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible has a worldwide outlook. God's eyes have been not on the select you, but It's quite true that he chose a certain family and a certain nation, and through them he brought his Messiah, in order that the world might be blessed.
Now consider for a few minutes, if you will with me, some of the ideas of world evangelism or world outlook that are in the Bible. At creation, the Lord told the first two people in the world, multiply and fill the earth long before the fall. multiply and fill the earth. Later after the flood, almost the same command was given to Noah, his son, multiply and replant the earth when it had come out from the ark and appended on the world that was new for them. and over and over again to the patriarch. The Lord reiterated his command, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
From Genesis twelve, right through the end of that book. The prophets and the promise and psalms of the Bible sing of this. David said there are lines, speaking of the line of God's witness, has gone out through all the earth. and their words to the end of the world. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Truly, God has a worldwide album. So prophets speak of this, too. Isaiah speaks of the inhabitants of the world who learn righteousness in chapter twenty-six. And in the birth of Christ, what was the name of the angel that they sang on that glorious Christmas morning?
What was it? Good hiding? A great joy which shall be to all people. It was worldwide in its outlook. At the designation of Christ, the old prophet said, My name is King thy salvation, which thou shalt bear it before the face of all people. In the ministry of the Lord, you will see this over and over again. The first public designation of the Lord. In further people was this, behold, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. And again the world comes into it. In his very first sermon, the Lord Jesus preached along this line. He quoted, for God so loved the world.
That sermon didn't get even, it was John chapter three. In the first parable he told, he spoke of the field as being the world in Matthew thirteen. And yet so you would go through the life of the Lord Jesus. Why, the message of Christ, did I by being lifted up, so draw all men unto me. The first day after he was from the dead, he gave one of the occasions on which the so-called Great Commission was given. And he told them to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. In Galilee, some days later, go ye and keep all nations, or disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
On that day would be ascended up into heaven itself. He said, you shall be witnesses unto me, unto me, on your most part of the earth. All through our Bible there is this heartbeat of world evangelism. The very heartbeat of the whole word of God is this note. We need to have an outlaw practice that will get out of the narrow environment where we live and reach out to the ends of the earth. It has a worldwide outlook instead of a worldly outlook. So often for us, so often, easy for us even to know the Lord, even to give ourselves the Bible study and so on.
It has a rather worldly outlook. For a world that is an attitude. It isn't things like so many things. A world wide and out of it. You know, it's easy sometimes, and you have much more interest in the interest of what the world can give us than what God wants us to give the world. We want to get, get, get. And God says, go, give, go, give so that the world can know. The concept of world evangelism is clear and sharp and vivid all the way through the Bible. And let's just start with this concept of world evangelism and the challenge of world evangelism.
The harvest is great. That's the concept of world evangelism. The harvest is white. This is the challenge of world evangelism. Thor asked his disciples to look, to lift up their eyes, look on the fields. They're white already at the harvest. If we were to look at the population figures of the world, they're sparkling. I'm sure you've seen them in dozens of magazines. If you've been at all aware of God's work around the world, You know that from the time of Christ of the Renaissance there were perhaps a hundred million people in the world. And from that time, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, the world's population slightly more than doubled to about fifteen hundred million.
And then from the last sixty years or nineteen hundred to about nineteen sixty, it doubled again to three thousand million. And in just another year, that is, by the year after next, there will be four thousand million people in the world in which there is. A hundred and fifty thousand people increase. How many of those who have died? A hundred and fifty thousand people increase every day. Two babies more in the world every second in a word. saying before, coming more in just a few minutes that we speak here this afternoon.
Now, the Lord wants us to look, to be aware, to realize what's going on in the world around us, for only one of twelve days we've born every second. Well, there are about that many born every second, but so many die too. Only one of the twelve babies born every second will be Christian in this background. That is any kind of so-called nominal Christianity, born in one of these so-called Christian nations. Six of them will be born in communist nations. Three will be born to each Eastern religion. The three in all the other categories we might care to find.
You know, in the year nineteen hundred, about seven percent of the world was positive. But by nineteen sixties, only six and a half of the percent in the world was positive. Some people say that relatively we're losing ground, that among the population of the world, nine percent of the world are English speaking, and ninety percent of all Christians are English speaking. I don't think this is any longer true. But it is true that the harvest is white, not golden, but white. It's overright. And we need young people. Older ones as well. We're big, you know, but we're down to the world in which we live.
To what extent our mission is caught in our assemblies? To what extent are missions encouraged in our homes, among our own children, and so on? We have a tremendous challenge before us. The harvest is great. That's the concept of world evangelism. The harvest is quaint. That's the challenge of world evangelism. And we need to answer that challenge. Oh, you may say, we've got twenty-five or more Christian radio stations like the Far East Broadcasting Company. It's one of the largest. Trading is not full of our own world, and we have, and thank God for everyone. Aren't we producing large quantities of literature and thank God we are?
So this is the sale right here and it's the sale and practically every country in the world. Don't we have thirty thousand or more missionaries gathered throughout the world as we do. We're thankful for these. Anyway, you say, among ours comes that perhaps we're not able to afford much more than we're doing right now. We're hardly able to support what we've got. How do we think of much more? How does it last? And yet God said, we are to go to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And until this is done, we have not fulfilled this command. Until this is done, we have not done what the Lord wants us to do at all.
We have this commandment before us to go to all the world. But when we come down to this, the harvest is come. It urges. It's the pollen taken from that paddle over there, the unconscious world. The harvest is come. This is something that was upon me for quite a number of years for the last thing, the last word I ever got from my brother before he was killed by Alta India in Ecuador in nineteen fifty six. We used to discuss things like this by letter, quite a bit, I in Africa, I see in Ecuador. And the last sentence of the last letter is, is I'm continually challenged by this phrase, the harvest is come, and how urgent it is.
get the gospel out to every teacher. I didn't know then that he and four other men were going to speak to. Bring that message to how it is. He didn't know that this would be his last sentence. But the message is there. That the harvest is what you want. It only needs to be done. It can be done. Well, God will never have said that to do it. May I say today in seeking excuses from themselves that all the sociological conditions in today are bad for evangelism. You know, tax-alism is on the part. And it's very hard to get into some country now, yes, it may be true. Other people say, well, political conditions are not rising in the world in which we live.
There are many nations, they're only just born, they're immature, and it's very indecal to work there. Communism is on the increase, and it's true too. That range could tell you stories about what's happening right now in Zambia, Tanzania, and some of the other countries in, at least in Africa, let alone other parts of the world. Communism is on the increase. Other people say, well, economic conditions are terrible these days, and it's not advantageous that we extend our areas of evangelism anymore. Perhaps we need to put in the horns and consolidate the word they use. It means pull back. or don't go forward anymore.
Are we not done, buddy? Are we more concerned with the social or the political or the economic situation than we are with the spiritual darkness in the world? Are we more concerned with our little niche in just how comfortable we may be than we are with the eternal destiny of people throughout the world in which we live? There are doors that are closed in. It's quite true. There are other doors that are opening. And this is a marvelous thing. I find in the age of which we're living in almost exciting age. And that this is no time to get discouraged. This is no time to sit back.
Because it's been complained to things in the world when we live it. Some of us hardly realize. I'm afraid that some of us may wait up too late to find out what terrific things are going on. for the days in which we live, I believe, are almost apostolic in these wonderful things that are happening throughout the world, and I believe that never before in the history of Christianity from apostolic times right till today have there been such tremendous things happening. For instance, never in the world, in the history of Islam, for instance, have There have been fifty or sixty or seventy thousand Muslims turning to Christ as they're having the last five years.
You need to make one. Muslims turning to Christ in great numbers. All sorts of wonderful miracles being performed among them. You may fool through them, but they're happening. And they're there. And this isn't just one diverge corner of the world. In Korea, for instance, in a few years ago, there have been more evangelical Churches started in the last ten years than there were in the previous sixty years, and yet Korea was known as one of the places where there was an evangelical revival, largely under the Presbyterian movement before the war. The great things are happening in Korea today, tremendous things are happening among students' populations in universities and colleges across our country and across the world, with Bible studies being set up by the scores of thousands.
Fifteen, twenty people, could you multiply that by thousands upon thousands and add it up to it for millions of things? It's going on right among us. Even in Latin America, I was reading statistics. Statistics. Almost said that. Reading the statistics last week that show the growth in Brazil, for instance, should be something like three thousand new congregations a month. Sorry, I mean the country is Brazil. Right now, has he said it? Great things are happening in the world today. We could go on like this. In Africa, for instance, below the Sahara Desert, there are great numbers turning back.
The Protestant or Christian population there has gone from about thirty million to ninety-seven million in the last twenty years. That's tremendous. Africa continues to respond to the gospel like this. The article I read or the book I read about this and its commentaries go to authority. Africa, if it goes on like it is today, by the year two thousand, will be forty-six percent. Christian. Jesus Africa. God is doing so in the United States. I wonder if we're on the boat. I wonder if we're getting in. Lord, these things aren't going on. Right now, needs are urgent.
Right now, times are significant. Right now, there are means that are abundant. We don't have to cry poverty. The Lord has never been poor. The poor were his own work. And he never moved. The commission that the Lord gave, he gave, he knew. And to me, go ye, you go. And we're to get involved in this. The world for you may not be across these. See, it may be across the office desk. You're the person that works just over there. Or just on the right side of you. It may be your neighbor across the fence or across the street. It may be that person across the state, but what's good is giving you a burden. But this business of evangelism is the most important business in the world.
It comes before your marriage. It comes before your whole, or your choice of an occupation, or any other major decision in your life. The Lord said, other chiefs, other chiefs, other chiefs have I, which are numbered in full, them also I must bring. Oh, you may not be a telegram or somebody that's a famous teacher. You may not have gifts along that line. But you can talk about the weather. You can talk about Christ. You have no excuse about saying, well, I'm not gifted along this line. If your tongue is born in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can pretend to be your neighbor.
And there's no excuse that can hold you back and say, oh, did they have any figures inside? Is there a Christ praying about it? Have you ever just tried obeying the commandments of the Lord Jesus? Or that we might have a heart who would love to forgive us in everything in our lives. Some parts used to tell the story of an oil company representative in China who found a missionary there. And this very appealed to him in a very real people, or in a very real way, for he knew people and he knew the Mandarin language very well. And he had drive and enthusiasm and he had talent.
And the oil company man recognized this as the kind of man that his company could use for the extension of their work in China. And so he offered him a certain salary, a very good salary, in order that he might get into his making work and join the oil company. Of course, it would be free to do his making work on the side, so the offer went. And he refused. And the offer went up. And he refused again, and the offer doubled. And he refused the third time, and the offer doubled again, four times the original offer. Finally, the oil company representative said to him, they said, Man, he said, what's wrong?
He said, isn't there enough money? Aren't you getting enough? All of the demand. The salary is fine. The job's too small. The salary is fine. The job's too small. My job is to present quick to the Chinese. I knew that, man. He lived for many years as a retired man. I knew that. And he lived till the end of his day. died about six or seven years ago. He in that same attitude of mind with nothing before his eyes but the dreams of Lord Jesus Christ was presented to men and women when he came in contact. What are your ambitions for the young person?
Or as a growing person, an adult? What do you want? A home and a bookstopper? Comfortably situated? Does I need a friend? can give. You know that just last week a man drove three hundred miles walking our front door. He said, I understand your command with that. He said, I'm a neurosurgeon. His name was Hobart Justice or a strange name. Great big, good-looking man. And he said, four years ago, I found Christ in my Savior. I was a woman. And he said, I decided three months ago that I was going to serve God.
He said, I sold my house. He said it was at five thousand square feet. I mean, I wonder about building that's a pretty big house. He said, he sold at thirty-six, of course, cabin cruiser. And there again, this is about seventy-five or eight thousand dollars. And that hasn't proved it. He said, I got rid of my practice. He said, it's all in the hands now of another man. And he said, I'm completely free. He said, I want you to go to the mission for you to serve God with the rest of my life. There are very many people at that moment, willing to give God everything, but to just shut up. So briefly, with nothing in prospect, nothing at all, except the promise of a child is going to be with you and who's driven him to bring the gospel to every group.
If he mentions it's going to touch every area of our lives, dad, mother, what do you want for your children? Do you want them to settle down nicely with a nice education? The good, the fewer jobs. Many of the things, oh, I know you don't want us to get out of the world or anything like that, but just a lot of things. Would we be just as happy if there were serving God on some significant corner of Southeast Asia, or down in Patagonia, the bottom of South America, or someplace like that? Oh, we don't need to do much less than we do. If you mission, just go and touch you. It's going to touch our heart. It's going to touch what we do.
I heard a story once of a man standing on the dock in San Francisco. The boat was pouring out. And he turned to the man next to him and said, you see that ship? He said, that ship got a million dollars on it. He said, I have been able to give to the Lord. And he said, he's going to New Orleans to bring the good news of salvation to others. He didn't know who the man next to him or standing next to him was. And if he looked at him a little closer, he saw the man standing next to it. It appeared in his eyes. He said, well, we did all that stuff. It's my daughter. She's trying to bring the good news. You see what I mean? The man has given a million dollars. He wrote down. He said, I'm sorry, sir.
He said, I haven't given anything yet. Krishna is going to tapya. This commission to world evangelism gets at our very heart. It gets at the things that we... put a value on what they are in the light of eternity of very little value. Like, hey, the living thing, we want to look at those things which are only of eternal value. Children will type our bank balance, our pocketbook. There was a missionary that asked the Indian how much a certain Hindu temple had cost, all with ornate plasterwork and carvings and powers and so on on. And the Indian looked back and said, we know the how much we cost.
And if we don't have the cost, we give unto a thing. Or if we could look at the job of world evangelism like that, wouldn't it change our abilities? Wouldn't it change our plans and our lives in every ten nations? World evangelism is going to tacha. Oh, there are needs. So many of them. I could tell you about needs and clutter after that. I could tell you about work in the Mission Hospital. So those have seven doctors, and there's one there. He's cold now. He tests after tests after tests to try and discover what's at the bottom of that nagging asthma infection. And he doesn't practically know the state at all. Nobody else.
The only reason that the hospital is holding together at all is a young Irish doctor by the name of Terry Gilpin. He gave six months to help the Lord in the Lord's work in Malongo, in the Congo, and then was going to come to the merchant in one month just to look around. That would be a year and a half ago. He hasn't been able to leave yet. That was the Royal College of Surgeons in Belfast, Ireland. But he's holding the floor until somebody comes in. Nobody's come yet. There are many thoughts about the world. I was talking not too long ago to Prophet Alex when I stopped next night, living in Seoul, Greece, and most of his life in Angola. Telling me, didn't...
That part of the continent of Africa, over there in Malawi, where there are two houses, a little wind station set up, and nobody to go there. There's an open visa with nobody's name on the line yet, waiting for somebody who's going to go there and learn the Chona language and get involved with the little wheat assembly work there. And there's not a snow in that land representing our own fellow. I could take you across the other side of your heat into Botswana, that's mentioned this morning. And there are challenges there, not only on the eastern side of Botswana, where most of the people live, but I was on the Kala High Desert, far, five hundred miles or so to the west of there, among the Englishmen and Hottentot people.
They speak a language that we even challenge a man like Paul Madagascar, and I think you know seven or eight different African languages, whether or not the translation material is. And he says, even this language is far beyond his. Young men who are willing to forego Mary for a fast path out there and go out and reach these people if possible. And don't marry people, for they follow the herds of shingle and other ancillos out there for their food. But to reach there with a message of the gospel, no longer or nobody's got it. There are needs down in South Africa, less to tell you of needs in Zambia, and in the Catania, in Southern Congo, in Angola, and I suppose practically every other country in the world.
The other brother is to tell you about the Philippines or South America. Needs, yes, there are tremendous, tremendous needs. Mission will touch you. While it was the story of the old Scott pastor, who was asked to resign because there hadn't been any conversion for a whole year. He answered this board that was talking to him and he said, yes, there's been one. It's a lean year, but there was one. Oh, they said, who was that? Well, he's just a boy. He said it was Reeve Bobby. Reeve Bobby had seen the collection plate coming around one day and he had an old penny to put it in. But he understood the idea and so he put it on the floor in the aisle and stood it.
He said, I have no penance that I was in myself. And we, well, he turned out to be Robert Muppet, Muppet, who opened up the southern part of Africa to meet him back in the last century, who was a father-in-law of David Newton, who opened up large parts of Central Africa to meet him. Meet him, he was going to tell you, it's all right. We're involved in assembly. We're involved in Christian work. We're involved in... Christian education and in commerce and so on. But what are we using these things for? What are our assemblies for? In the final event, but to make and to train witnesses for the Lord Jesus and reach the United States of America and Canada and Europe and Africa and South America, is it?
What are assemblies for but to make missionaries? What are education for? To train missionaries. What's commerce for? What's transport missionaries? Thank the Lord for get airplanes in me and get guns serving there faster. What's money for? For to support them. What's life for? To make missionaries and in favor of the Lord's good of Christ in the hearts of men. Those that we might be involved in it and that his name may be magnified throughout the years.