Confidence Kindles Commitment to the Cause!
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By John Piper
About Missions
Part of the series Taste & See
Nothing spurs passionate commitment to the cause of world missions more than the rock-solid confidence that Christ will be triumphant. This confidence comes mainly from the unshakable promises of God. But it comes partly from the historical evidence of the progress of the gospel.
Consider, for example, that the population of the world is twice as large today as in 1950, but the number of true Christians is six times as large. Consider further that the finishing of the Great Commission means making disciples from all the peoples of the world, not winning all the individuals of the world. The number of peoples in the world is not increasing significantly, so even though the world population is growing, the numbers of peoples is not. Therefore as the number of Christians and churches increase, the proportion of unreached peoples to churches gets smaller and smaller. And the task of finishing the Great Commission becomes more and more feasible. You can see this in the following table taken from Mission Frontiers:
A Table for Hope
Year A.D. Non-Christians Per Believer Unreached People Group Congregations per Unreached People Group
100 360 to 1 60,000 1 to 12
1000 220 to 1 50,000 1 to 5
1500 69 to 1 44,000 1 to 1
1900 27 to 1 40,000 10 to 1
1950 21 to 1 24,000 33 to 1
1980 11 to 1 17,000 162 to 1
1989 7 to 1 12,000 416 to 1
2000 ? ? ?
Add to this the promises of God!
Matthew 24:14 - “The gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come.”
Matthew 16:18 - “I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”
Genesis 12:3 - “All the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Psalm 22:27 - “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before thee.”
Psalm 86:9 - “All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name.”
Growing in confidence and commitment with you,
Pastor John
