That All May Know

The task seems overwhelming — world evangelization — that all may know that Jesus Christ is Lord. Six billion people are in the world, and the population is growing by about 165,000 people every day. Already about two-thirds of that number is non-Christian. Almost 1.7 billion people in that group have little or no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Experts say 31 percent of the world’s population is under 15 years of age. Can all of these be reached with the good news of Jesus?

Consider that Christianity is the largest religion in the world. One out of every three people on planet Earth claims to be a Christian. One would have to combine the next two largest religions to get a similar group. Islam claims 20 percent of Earth’s 6 billion people; Hinduism, 14 percent.

Also, consider what happened in the 19th century. The United States entered the 1800s with less than 10 percent of the population adherents to any church. At the close of the century, about 75 percent of Americans claimed church identity. The religious transformation of the United States during the 1800s caused many church leaders to confidently predict that the 1900s would usher in the “Christian century” for this nation.

But in the 1900s the mighty movements of God’s Holy Spirit moved to Africa and South America. In the 1950s and 1960s, Christianity began to spread like wildfire in those parts of the world. Philip Jenkins in his book “The Next Christendom,” points out that Africa was about 9 percent Christian at the beginning of the 20th century. At the end, it was about 50 percent Christian.

The growth of Christianity in Brazil, Chile and other South American countries also has been nothing short of phenomenal.

At the same time, God was doing a miracle in China. With Christian missionaries forced out in the late 1940s, concern grew about the fate of the gospel in the world’s most populous country. Instead of dying as some feared, the gospel prospered. When contact was re-established near the close of the century, western Christians found a vibrant and growing church, much of it underground.

As the 21st century dawns, the response to the gospel in parts of Asia is of miracle proportion. Southern Baptist representatives tell of church planting movements in East Asia where home churches have grown from three to more than 900 members in seven years. They report a South Asia movement from 26 home churches to 4,300 in eight years. The first reported almost 100,000 baptized believers. The other, almost 250,000.

One would not be surprised to look at color-coded maps from the International Mission Board and see that North America is the most evangelized area of the world. What might surprise one is to see the same color of North America painted across much of Africa, across parts of Latin America and South America, on several European countries, splotches across Russia, the world’s largest nation, and even on areas of Asia.

That is not to imply that the evangelizing task is completed in these areas. It is not — even in our nation’s  Bible Belt, where one-third of Alabama residents report no affiliation with a church. And that is using the term “Christian” in its broadest cultural definitions. It is not referring to those who have a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Using a more evangelical definition, the North American Mission Board calculates that almost two out of three people in the United States are lost.

Obviously, there is work to do in Alabama, in the United States and in all of the most evangelized nations and areas of the world.

The IMB has another color-coded map showing the concentrations of lostness in the world. Again, one notices the same color spread across the United States, Brazil, Chile and several south and central African nations. What is a little surprising is to see Australia, Canada and China all have the same percentage of population considered “lost” by IMB definitions.

Perhaps the most overwhelming impression from this map is a swatch of land across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, which is the least evangelized area of the world. The area is sometimes called “the last frontier.” It is a difficult part of the world. The last frontier is home to 80 percent of the world’s poorest people. Nine of the 10 worst countries in terms of religious persecution are found there.

Can these people be evangelized? Baptists are trying. Representatives are establishing contact with people groups, responding to spiritual and human needs, sharing their faith in Jesus Christ and providing resources such as Bibles.

It is God’s Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin and brings one to saving faith. It is the Christian’s task to share the good news of what God has done through Jesus Christ. God gives the increase.

We have witnessed this truth in this nation and in other parts of the world. What will happen? Only God knows. One thing is sure: God desires all to come to Him in saving faith through Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

World evangelization. Sometimes it is a special focus of our attention like it was May 30 when Southern Baptists observed the Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelization. But world evangelization is our goal as we pray, give, go and share so all may know that Jesus Christ is Lord.