The Vision of Missions

This is part three of this article. Please click here to read part one or two.

In my last two articles, I pointed out how important it is to have godliness and integrity in our lives. As important as these things are, however, something else is needed. Do we really believe that men and women, boys and girls, without Christ are headed to a devil’s Hell? If we do, we must lift up our eyes and get a vision of the world in need of Christ.

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” During the years I was pastor of Grace Baptist Church, I also taught missions in a Bible College. My youngest son asked one day why I had two jobs. My reply was that I did not have a job. I have a vision. I must do all that I can to impact the lives of people around me for Christ. That is why we support missionaries, preach the Gospel, and witness to people.

We Need a Vision of a Dying Saviour

In the New Testament, there are 290 references to God’s love and 1,300 to the cross. Most of the Bible is about that cross. All of the sacrifices and many of the prophecies in the Old Testament point to the cross. The Gospels and the Epistles give us the account of it. Revelation is about “him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” We must not be too busy to look to Calvary. If there were any other way for man to get to Heaven, there would never have been a Golgotha.

Every pain that He bore, every harsh word spoken against Him, every drop of blood that He shed, brings our vision to Calvary. When we get a vision of the cross, it will give us a vision of a dying world.

We Need a Vision of Dying Servants

In China there are graveyards reserved for missionaries. The testimonies of John and Betty Stam, Jim Elliot and his companions, Joe and Tanna Collins, and so many others who have given their lives to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth should compel us to have a vision. The great number of older missionaries on the fields of the world, who will soon retire or go to Heaven, draw our attention to the need. Everywhere I go, the pressing need that missionaries express to me is that they need help. In 1933, there were two billion people on this earth. Today, the number is headed toward seven billion. The exploding population and shrinking missionary force should touch our hearts.

How can I sit in peace, knowing the crying needs of the world? Leading people to Christ and planting churches must become the work of the church, not merely a small branch of its work.

We must see the ignorance and darkness of these billions of souls before we realize the need for thousands of missionaries who will go to them with the Gospel.

We Need a Vision of a Dying Sunset

The great missionary statesman, A.B. Simpson wrote:

A hundred thousand souls a day,
Are passing one by one away,
In Christless guilt and gloom,

Without one ray of hope or light,
With future dark as endless night,
They’re passing to their doom.

They’re passing, passing fast away,
A hundred thousand souls a day,
In Christless guilt and gloom,
O Church of Christ, what wilt thou say,
When in the awful judgment day,
They charge thee with their doom?

The numbers have passed a hundred thousand souls a day. It is actually closer to a hundred fifty thousand souls. Over fifty three million people a year, six thousand one hundred an hour, one hundred a minute, two a second, die. How many of them know Christ and have a home in Heaven? We need to lift up our eyes, and get busy.

Romans 13:14 says, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” Christ is coming back! Men and women are dying! Look on the fields! Have a vision to shake the world with the Gospel of Christ!

This is part three of this article. Please click here to read part four.