Who will not admit that the Gospel in America is not making the headway it has seen in the past? Tim Keller describes this problem well in his message "The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World" at the 2006 Desiring God National Conference. It seems that in America, Jesus words are coming true already: "the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24: ).
But should we expect any different? We are a nearly Gospel-saturated society. I do not mean that nearly everyone in America is saved. For among a given society or people, the sole guarantee is that "only a remnant of them will be saved," just as with Israel (Romans 9:27), and as Jesus says, those who are saved will be few (Luke 13:23-24; cf. vs. 25-30; Mt. 7:14; 22:14). But for the very reason that only a remnant is saved, we can say that America is a nearly Gospel-saturated society, since its remnant is rather large (and its "remnant" is even larger: 45% of US adults consider themselves born again and/or evangelical, according to Barna).
But who's to say what specific percentage of a society will be saved? And even if you could, how could you know what percentage of the society is true believers, not just so-called Christians?
Granted, nobody really knows those percentages. But if the Gospel were still to make significant progress in America, would we not see people coming to faith in at least semi-significant numbers? Yet, most are agreed that Americans coming to faith today are few in number.
But what about the Adoniram Judsons of the world? Didn't Judson labor all his life to see only 6 converts before he died? Yet today there are millions of believers in Burma because of God's work through him. Wouldn't that have appeared to him like the Gospel were making no headway?
Yes, but there is a key difference between today's America and Judson's Burma. In Judson's day, there remained yet to be fulfilled the promises of Scripture: there will be a remnant of Burmese people ransomed by Jesus' blood, one day standing before the throne and before the Lamb in worship, just as there will be from every nation, tribe, people, and language (Rev. 5:9; 7:9). But in America, a remnant numbering millions has already satisfied these promises. There are no more guarantees from Scripture about more Americans being saved.*
How precious, though, the promises concerning the unreached! They reveal to us God's good pleasure that He will certainly accomplish among them. As for us, in trying "to discern what is pleasing to the Lord" (Eph. 5:10) and understanding "what the will of the Lord is" (5:17), let us also act accordingly. For Jesus has commanded that we go and that we make disciples of all nations (Mt. 28:19). He has testeified that all authority is His, that He will be with us, and, through His Word, that there will be converted disciples among the yet unreached.
"Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15).
*I do not include in this description of Americans those unevangelized and even unreached peoples living among us (e.g. Tibetans, Somalians, Saudi Arabians, etc.). Whoever evangelizes them has become a missionary right here in America. But those are not generally the people many American Christians speak of when they mention evangelism here.
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1 comments:
Oh, that is so awesome about Judson, He must have felt so insignificant with only 6 converts in all his life, but yes, look how God used him - look how many people have come to Christ now!! That's so awesome!! And it's so encouraging, too, that even if we only see a few people come to Christ in our lifetimes, those will lead others, and God will continue to multiply that work even beyond our lifetimes!! (that is if Christ doesn't come back first!) More people need to see your posts, Phil, this is so, so good.
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