Skip to main content

The Great Commission and the Complacency of the Church, by Pastor Charlie Handren

By Anonymous
     On May 12, 1792 William Carey published a little pamphlet entitled, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. By God’s grace, his words inspired the modern missionary movement, and by God’s grace, I’m praying that they will inspire a fresh passion for global missions at Glory of Christ.

     Carey begins with the words of Jesus: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). While Jesus’ words are clear, the church in Carey’s day had by-and-large come to believe that they had done enough to create a gospel-momentum in the world that would cause the gospel to spread throughout the rest of the world. Therefore, many key leaders believed that their focus ought to be on reaching their own people, and that they ought to leave global evangelism to the Lord alone.
     But this logic did not satisfy Carey and thus he argued, “As our blessed Lord has required us to pray that His kingdom may come, and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it becomes us not only to express our desires of that event by the word, but to use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of his name.” Accordingly, Carey argued that the church should strive to be acquainted with the state of the nations of the world so that we’ll be moved to action by the words of Jesus, and by the very heart of Jesus for the nations. The presence of this compassion in our hearts, he urged, is a proof that the character and heart of God are at work in the lives of his people.
     With this, Carey rehearsed the gospel, beginning with Adam and Eve, then moving to the flood, Abraham, and the formation of Israel. He argued that from the beginning, God’s intention has been to undo the power and persuasiveness of the devil by sending Jesus Christ into the world to live a righteous life, die a heinous death, raise from the dead, and send his church into the world with the gospel on their lips.
     But while the Lord had been sending his people into the world for many centuries by all possible and legal means, “a considerable part of mankind [were] still involved in all the darkness of heathenism” and the church of Carey’s day was not entering heartily into the command of the Lord so that this situation might change. “Some think little about it, others are unacquainted with the state of the world, and others love their wealth better than they should of their fellow creatures.”
     In light of the Lord’s command and the church’s complacency, Carey went on to argue that the Great Commission still applied to the modern church and that they should indeed go into all the world. But before we consider his plea, we would do well to pause and ponder the state of our own hearts before the Lord regarding his Great Commission. Do we understand his commission? Do we have more passion for our lives in the world or for the nations of the world?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Children Say "I'm Bored" By Julie Lowe

By
This Article is written by Julie Lowe and was originally posted on the CCEF blog.  I highlighted the areas of particular interest. I had already prepared a blogpost on dealing with boredom from a Christian worldview and then came across this. There is much overlap between the two, perhaps this one is more concise while my work attempts to explain the connection between the ability to think and the ability to be happy. You can visit the original blogpost in the link provided below.  https://www.ccef.org/resources/blog/children-say-im-bored   We have a common crisis in our home; it is the calamity of boredom. Our children might even consider it a catastrophe. “I’m bored” is repeated so often it would not be an overstatement to say that these words echo continuously throughout our home especially during any break from school. These are children with limited media time but still children with a Wii and Xbox system, a pool outside our door, multiple games, toy...
Post a Comment
Read more