The Unreached

    In the previous blog post, I shared some of my testimony. Our testimonies simply put are personal stories of how God has ransomed us to himself through the cross of Christ. From how we went from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive in Christ. It’s the most powerful weapon that we possess. In my testimony, I mentioned that even before my salvation, most of the people I knew identified as Christians and I even went to a church. Many Christians from the United States can relate to having easy access to the gospel virtually anywhere we go. We are very privileged to be considered a reached people group. What if I told you that there were many places in the world today that are considered unreached? You may not even know what unreached means, but you will know the meaning by the end of this and much more.
    

    People who are considered to be unreached are people who do not have access to a bible, a church, or someone who identifies themselves as a Christian. This is a topic that has been heavy on my heart for a very long time. Why don’t these people have access to these things? It could be because the bible hasn’t been translated into their language, it may be because they live in a country where following our God is a crime, or it could also be because there aren’t enough Christians obeying Matthew 28:16-20, “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” I believe that the main reason happens to fall upon the latter of these.

Jesus Christ gave His followers this command nearly two thousand years ago. The human race has come a very long way since then. We have so many useful tools to communicate with people. We can send a message from our phones and somebody on the other side of the world could receive it almost instantaneously. We can jump on a plane and physically be on the other side of the world in less than a day and a half. You may be thinking with all of this advanced technology we can only have a couple of people who are considered to be unreached. Well, that’s what I thought. However, I was very wrong. Data from JoshuaProject.net estimates that out of the 7.84 billion people in the world today at least 3.28 billion of them are unreached. 3.28 billion people have never believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, not because they have refused it, but simply because they have never even had the chance to hear it. After the initial impact of hearing that truth for the first time, I can remember myself thinking, “How can 41.8% of the world’s population be considered unreached.” That is very difficult for my mind to fathom even today.

    I know that some people who read this may not know why these statistics matter, but this is a huge deal. The reason is that every single person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Since God is holy and we are sinful, we are unable to be in His presence. Therefore, that sin separates us from the Lord, not only here on earth, but for eternity in a real place called hell. This is what we deserve, we chose this for ourselves when we sinned against the Almighty. We were hopeless, we needed a Savior and we needed Him to come quickly. However, our God is so loving, merciful, and gracious to His people that He provided that Savior in His Son. Jesus Christ came to the world born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for all of our sins, was buried for three days, and was resurrected to life again. All of which we could not do for ourselves. Through Christ, God provided a way for His people, and only through Him. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6. The only way to be ransomed back to the Father is in red, through the blood of Jesus Christ. He is the only way.

    We must ask ourselves what the most loving and obedient thing to do in this situation is. We have 3.28 billion people who are destined for an eternity separated from the God of the universe in hell because they have never even heard of the gospel. Charles Spurgeon a very well recognized and highly respected preacher and theologian from Europe in the 1800’s once said, “I remember one who spoke on the missionary question one day saying, "The great question is not, 'Will not the heathen be saved if we do not send them the gospel?' but 'Are we saved ourselves if we do not send them the gospel?'” I believe this is an incredibly convicting question that I find myself to be guilty of as well. Those are weighty words. Everyone is not called to pack up their bags and travel across the world. However, we are called to engage with the great commission to some extent. Whether we are going, sending, or giving we have to live with not only our eternity in mind, but also with the eternity of people who are not saved, and I especially believe the people who have never heard. We have to remember these people and that they may be unreached, but they shall never be forgotten. 

    I have heard some people say things like, “It’s nearly impossible for us to speak in these people's languages and communicate the gospel to them, why don’t you just focus on people around here who are unbelievers? Doesn’t God care about the people here as well?” There are two major things that I want to address in this statement. The first is that it’s impossible or too hard to accomplish. However, there have been missionaries who go into these different tribes and villages and learn the tribe's language from scratch so this is something that has been done before. Also, we can not let the fear of impossibilities steer us away from what God calls us to do. We serve a God who does the impossible all of the time. The bible is filled to the brim with God accomplishing impossible feats for the sake of His glory. What would stop Him today? The second issue I have is with the question, “Doesn’t God love the people here?” To that, I would answer with a resounding yes! Yes, He loves us so much that we actually are considered reached, we have bibles, Christian teachers, churches, and so much more. However, he also loves the people on the other side of the world. He wants to see all people come to know Him through His Son, not only us. God’s heart is for all people and all nations. Therefore, we should love what God loves and hate what God hates. If our hearts don’t have love and compassion for the nations, I believe we must go back and ask the question that Charles Spurgeon asked previously.

    If we put ourselves in the shoes of the unreached, what would we want ourselves to do? What if we were in heaven millions of years from now and we had been rejoicing in the presence of the Lord the whole time and then God just suddenly stopped everything, and allowed us to meet the people that had never been reached with the gospel who were alive while we were? The 3.28 billion people that had been in hell for millions of years because they had never heard. Imagine what would be said in those conversations. Imagine the despair, heartbreak, and regret. This is purely theoretical, but I do believe that it is a worthy question to ask ourselves. What would we say to these people, how much remorse and compassion would we feel for them? Especially, after seeing them post a million years of enduring torment, still with the understanding that they have eternity to go? This is the urgency that we must live within our everyday life. This day will come. There will be a day in eternity after billions of years that we are rejoicing and there will be people suffering in hell. We must love the nations and the lost, desiring all people to know the name of Jesus Christ our King, it is urgent.

    We also must praise the name of our God that He had a plan to ransom us back to Himself and we don’t have to suffer through what so many will unfortunately endure. However, that doesn’t give us a pass to just go along with our lives, living for the gratification of our families, and our needs. No, but we must live for our God, and preach the good news of Jesus Christ to all peoples out of our joy, for the glory of God, and out of our desire to see all people be Ransomed in Red.