December 28, 2024 • 27 mins
Today's episode of Sunday Service by Pray.com features Christian Aid.
Approximately 7,000 ethnic groups are still unreached by the gospel. Why are they still unreached? What can be done to reach them with the message of Christ? You won’t want to miss this episode of Missions Insider Podcast!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let us pray. And when they were come into the house,
they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and
fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened
their treasures, they presented unto him gifts gold and frankincense
and myrrh. Matthew two eleven, dearest Father, What a powerful
(00:23):
moment when those wise men who followed the star finally
saw it resting over the humble stable. They brought treasure
to offer the newly born King of the Jews. But
I doubt they ever imagined they would find him lying
in a stable on a bed of straw, and not
in some fine gold embroidered bedding. I wondered what they
(00:46):
thought when they entered into the stable among the animals
and saw the delicate Virgin with her newly born son.
They must have been hit with the power of the
Holy Spirit as they fell down their knees to worship
him and gave him all their treasures. Lord, in your presence,
(01:08):
I am humbled and kneel down before you in adoration.
I open my heart to give you all my treasures
and withhold nothing from you. You are worthy of all
I have, all I am, and all I ever hope
to be. I am nothing without you, my precious Lord,
(01:30):
without your love, without your birth, without your suffering, I
would have nothing. You are my Lord and Savior, the
one true King of all the earth. I humbly offer you,
my heart, Lord Jesus, in devotion and gratitude for all
(01:52):
you have done to bring peace to this earth and
good will toward me in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you
for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and
an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to
pray dot COM's Sunday service.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Jesus gave an assignment two thousand years ago go make
disciples of all nations, not just all the countries in
the world that we're supposed to reach. We've actually already
done that, but there are still seven thousand groups in
the countries of the world that need to be reached
with the Gospel, and those are the groups that Jesus
is talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Welcome to Missions Insider Podcast and inside look at the
world's most difficult mission fields. Welcome back to another episode
of the Mission's Insider Podcast, and today we have Dave
it but Goes in with us and we will be
talking about reaching the last frontiers with the Gospel.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It's good to be here with you guys, and I.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Have a question right off, and that is, but what
do you consider a frontier area if we're talking about
reaching the last frontiers with the gospel.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
It's a great question.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
And obviously, you know, you can define frontiers many different ways,
and specifically, you know, what we're talking about here are
frontiers of the Gospel, and so these are places and
these are language groups and people groups that have least
access to the Gospel, at least access to believers and
the churches, and very specifically, you know, for us at
(03:41):
Christian AID, we're thinking about unreached people groups, and there
are still seven thousand unreached people groups in the world
and over three billion people that live in those people groups.
So frontier areas are places where people have the least
opportunity to hear about Jesus, the least opportunity to meet
a believer. They are not going to have a believer
(04:02):
as their neighbor or maybe even a believer living in
their community or their town. They may live their whole
life and never meet a Christian. There are still over
probably a billion people who don't even have access physical
access to a Christian presence, and so these are places
where it's difficult to go to. These are places that
are isolated. So when you think about frontiers, think about
(04:24):
access and think about just the opportunity that a person
has to hear about Jesus and respond to the gospel.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
All right, Well, you mentioned there being about seven thousand
ethnic groups that still are not reached with gospel, and
that's what we refer to as an unreached people group.
And is that the criteria just that they haven't been reached.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, So that's another great question. A lot of terminology
to define here when we talk about unreached people groups
and frontiers. So what is an unreached people group? And
quite simply, a people group is, like you said, an
ethnic group or a language group where there's not an
established indigenous church. There may even be churches nearby, but
there's not a church in their culture, in their language.
(05:09):
When Missiologists were first thinking about what to call these
groups of people, they first called them hidden people groups
because they said, look, these people groups could be living
right in your own town, in your own community. We
don't see them. And so even for example, here in
the United States, we have this, you know, right here
in Charlottesville, Virginia, we have many people that are in
(05:30):
placed here from Afghanistan and many other countries, and they's
somewhat hidden to us. We don't see them coming to
our churches on Sunday, right, So we have to go
to them. And that's what's significant about an unreached people group.
These are people that are very unlikely to come into
our churches. But these are people that we need to
go to them. And in order to go to them,
(05:52):
we might have to give up some of the things
that we like, right, because they're different than us, and
they think different and their cultures are different. That's where
you have to put on your mission hat and you
have to start thinking like a missionary if you want
to reach people like Afghan refugees. I remember a friend
of mine here in town. He wanted to introduce himself
to the Afghan refugees that were coming here to Charlottesville.
(06:15):
He's a great guy, he's a pastor, and so without
even thinking, he went and got some flowers, He went
and bought some roses, and he went and knocked on
the door of a refugee family and they're the person
who opened that door was the wife, you know, the mother,
and he hands this person some flowers. Okay, that doesn't
go over very well in Afghan culture, right. So there's
(06:35):
just things that we have to learn. We want to
reach places in people groups that are very different from
us and that don't know about Jesus.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
How many people would you say haven't been reached with
the gospel? Do you have that number?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's a great question, and obviously you know, the only
thing we can do is estimate. But our best estimate
that we have is that they're probably around three billion
people that are in this category of least rich with
the Gospel, that are without acts Us. And what that
means is that these people, unless we take the initiative,
they will live and die without ever hearing the name
of Jesus Christ, without ever hearing the gospel. And that's
(07:09):
the important thing to understand about mission. Mission is something
that requires us to cross over barriers to get to
people that are without access, and those barriers can be multiple.
Most people that are without access to the gospel live
in places that we call restricted access countries. That means
you can't openly share about Jesus. In those places, you
(07:31):
can't go as a missionary to those places. The cool
thing is in all of those places, God has his people.
And that's the important thing about the strategy of Christian
aity is that we partner with people living in these
countries where you and I can't go. Where you and
I if we were to go there and start sharing
about Jesus, we'd be sent out of the country very quickly.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
We would be expelled.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But these people, they are willing to go to prison,
and when they get caught, they don't get expelled from
their country.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
They go to jail.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But they keep sharing Jesus even in those contexts, Which
is why we pair up what we do in equipping
indigenous ministries with persecution assistance, because in most places where
there's least access to the Gospel, there's intense persecution, and
so we bring those two things together in our ministry.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Would you share some examples of some of these restricted areas.
Are there concentrations of these unreached people groups in particular regions?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Absolutely? So.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You may have heard of a region called the ten
forty window. If you haven't, you can go to a
map and you can look at ten degrees and forty
degrees latitude and it's basically capturing the area of North Africa,
Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, which includes
China and North Korea, and also Southeast Asia. You have
over four billion people that live in the ten forty window,
(08:48):
and these are places that are predominantly non Christians. So
most of the countries in the ten forty window are Muslim, Hindu,
and Buddhist, and some of them, like in China and
Vietnam and Laos, these are communist countries that highly restrict
access to the Gospel. Vietnam is a great example of this.
Vietnam is a place where the government has decided that
they want to put a freeze on where Christians were
(09:10):
when they took over. Similar thing happened in China and Laos.
They just tried to eradicate Christianity. But in Vietnam they
have said, okay, certain areas, certain provinces, certain sections of
the country where there was never any gospel presence, you
cannot proclaim the Gospel there. So in the South, most
of the Christians were in the south because that's where
Christianity really took root. There's a large number of Christians
(09:34):
in the North. You can find thousands and thousands of
villages without a church, So how are we going to
reach those people? Well, the good news is that the
church in Vietnam has a commitment to doing that, even
though it's dangerous, even though it's difficult. It's difficult for
them to get resources, to get Bibles, it's difficult for
them to train leaders, it's difficult for them to get around.
And so we help them do all those things. And
(09:55):
this is what we do in over eighty countries. We
work in places and in countries where it's the most
difficult for the Gospel to be proclaimed. That's what we
specialize in is equipping our brothers and sisters who are
doing the work that you and I can't do. But
they're doing the kingdom work. And we're all on the
same team. And the Bible calls us the body of Christ,
and it says each of us has a special role
(10:17):
to play. And God has given the persecuted Church a
very special role to play in these last moments, if
you will, in the history of the Great Commission, the
final frontiers of the Great Commission, the places that have
yet to hear are in these places that are restricted access,
where only the persecuted Church can go. There and so
it's up to us living in the free world to
(10:39):
link arms together with them.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Well, how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Not easy to do, right, And that's why God raised
up a ministry like Christian Aid over fifty years ago.
Our founder Bob Finley saw this coming. He saw the
iron curtain, you know, he grew up and he saw
these things happening all over the world, and he said,
there's going to need to be a ministry that works
with the church these behind these places, behind these closed doors,
(11:04):
that works with them and equips them to take the
Gospel to these last places that I never heard.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
So I have a question that may sound kind of obvious,
but what is the importance of reaching these unreached people groups.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's a great question. One of the things that I
love to talk about is we are approaching the two
thousand year anniversary of when Jesus gave the Great commission.
Jesus gave it an assignment two thousand years ago to
take the Gospel to all ethnic groups. If you look
at the Greek terminology, there when Jesus gave the great commission,
go make disciples of all nations, the word nation there
(11:38):
is the word ethnos in the Greek, which means ethnic groups.
So it's not just all the countries in the world
that we're supposed to reach. We've actually already done that.
We've taken the Gospel to every country. But there are
still seven thousand groups within the countries of the world
that need to be reached with the Gospel, and those
are the groups that Jesus is talking about. Countries come
and go throughout history, butnic groups, these groups have been
(12:01):
around for thousands of years. My last name Bogosian, that's Armenian,
and Armenians have been around for thousands of years, and
they're proud to be Armenians, and they make sure their
kids learn Armenian or wherever they are, they love. They're
very proud to be Armenian. These are the kinds of
people that Jesus has been talking about. Armenians didn't have
a country for thousands of years, but they retained their language,
(12:21):
retain their culture, and they're very proud of who they are.
So there are thousands of groups like this in the world,
and many of them are still unreached with the Gospel.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
So Jesus wants us to reach all of them.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And in the Book of Revelation when we see everything
coming together, when we see the ultimate fulfillment of all things,
and Revelation five nine and seven nine it talks about
representatives of every nation, tried, people, and language, standing before
the throne, worshiping the lamb. And this is ultimately where
we're headed. God wants to bring everybody in, all these
(12:52):
peoples that he created. In the Book of Acts, it
tells us that God created all the peoples of the world,
and he designated the place is where they should live.
And so these people groups are very precious in God's sight.
When Jesus came, when he died on the cross, the
Bible talks about the joy set before him. This is
what he was thinking about. All the nations of the
world gathered back before his throne.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
So what happens when they're all reached. It sounds like
we'll probably just be out of business.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's a great question. And you know what, we do
want to go out of business. So that is ultimately
our goal is to hear the final trumpet sound. And
Jesus told us he said in Matthew twenty four fourteen,
when the Gospel has been proclaimed to all nations, the
end will come and the end that he's talking about
is his second coming. It's not the end of the
world per se, but it's the end of Satan's reign
(13:40):
in this world. And there's only one verse in the
Bible where it says Satan gets angry. Revelation twelve, verse twelve.
It says he's filled with fury when he sees his
time getting shorts. And the Bible says something very interesting,
and two Peter three twelve it says that we are
to look forward to the day of Christ coming and
speed it is coming. Think about that that is found
on many different levels. I mean, just wrap your mind
(14:02):
around that theologically that God has entrusted to us an
assignment that when we finish it, this thing called the
end is going to come. So we can literally accelerate
the day of Christ coming through our obedience to the
Great commission.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
I know you've mentioned before that the Gospel is spreading
more rapidly now than say, in the past five ten years.
Why is this the case in what's making the difference?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, it's amazing what's happening today. We're seeing an acceleration
of the Gospel like we've never seen before. I mean,
we look at the Book of Acts, we look at
the first century, how the Gospel spread during that time.
It was incredible. In just you know that one hundred
years the Gospel moved from Spain all the way to
the China Sea. We believe in just one hundred years.
And now today, you know, in the twenty first century,
(14:54):
we're witnessing something similar. And part of the reason for
that is technology. So technology has changed everything. Right, if
you think about what was it that allowed the Gospel
to spread so quickly in the first century, it was
an innovation called the Roman Roads and the Silk Road,
and part of that still exists today, the old silk rope. Well,
(15:14):
that enabled that highway system enabled the Gospel to move
just because there was the physical access to those places.
Probably at that time in the first century, seventy five
percent of the world population was accessible along the Silk
Road and the Roman roads.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Well, look at.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
What's happening today. The whole world is becoming connected. We
can get to any place in the world from the
United States, let's say, probably within forty eight hours. There
might be a few exceptions to that, but ninety nine
percent of the world's population is accessible to us, probably
within twenty four hours. And then there's communication technology. We're
able to broadcast the gospel by satellite, We're able to
(15:55):
send the gospel out through the Internet, and so we're
able to find people that previously we didn't even know
they had interest in the gospel. So all of these
things and many many more are causing the gospel to
move in a way that's unprecedented.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
So you mentioned that in a lot of these restricted
access countries there are indigenous missionaries on the ground who
are are there reaching people with the gospel. Would you
be able to provide like an example of a ministry
that's currently reaching unreached people groups and bringing people to Christ.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I can give you three hundred examples. Actually, we work
with three hundred indigenous ministries all over the world, and
you know, these are ministries that we've walked with for many,
many years. Some of them just began from a very
small beginning. I think of my sister Marissa, who I
knew when I was a missionary in the Philippines and
she was just getting started. She was reaching one particular
people group in the southern part of Mendo. Now very
(16:49):
dangerous work. It was a completely unrestroped no one had
ever gone there before, and she started work there and
then God gave her a vision to move beyond that,
and we begin to grow with her, We begin to
empower her and to invest in a ministry. And today
they're reaching all thirteen of the Muslim people groups in
Mendo now. And here's the also amazing thing. We walked
(17:10):
with them. We helped to be a catalyst to get
them started. But now the majority of their funding is
coming from within the Philippines, and we love to see
that happen. In fact, we love to see the day
happen when everybody that we're supporting can become self sufficient.
And we believe that day will come, and we've seen
that happen in many cases. So we're very excited to
come alongside to build capacity with indigenous ministries that are
(17:33):
kind of like startups. You can think of Christian Aid
as kind of like venture capital for the Kingdom, all right,
So we invest in these Kingdom startups that are getting
going in places like Sudan, in places like Afghanistan. We
just got introduced to a new ministry in Afghanistan, and
so all over the world, in places where you wouldn't
even expect Iraq. Think about Iraq. We're able to partner
(17:53):
with people in Iraq who are proclaiming the Gospel all
over the country. So these are exciting times where we
can do things is that we never were able to
do before, in part because of the technology, in part
because of the way God's position in the United States.
And I really want to say this to every American
that's listening. God's given our country a very special privilege,
a very special place in history where He has given
(18:15):
this one country that's five percent of the world's population
access to over twenty percent of the world's resources. That
has never happened before in history, and it gives us
an incredible responsibility do to something big with the Gospel.
So here we have a country that's the most evangelical
country in the world and trusted with most with the
most wealth that any country's ever been given. Put those
(18:36):
two things together, and it doesn't take a lot to
come to the conclusion that God has raised us up
for a very strategic purpose in the fulfillment of the
Great Commission.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
I would love to hear a little bit more about,
maybe like some of the strategies and such that indigenous
ministries are using to reach people that have never heard
the gospel, they've never heard the name of Christ. Can
you give an example of of a way that they're
able to do that?
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So, you know, we mentioned we were talking about Vietnam earlier,
and one of the things that I love that happened
in just you know, the last five years was they
were able to take the gospel to the last people
groups that had never received their first missionary in Vietnam.
And the way they did that is something that we
call near cultural missions. And this is the way that
(19:24):
most people groups are being reached today with the gospel.
The gospel has gone so far and so wide, now
the most strategic way to reach the final frontiers is
to do so as a partner with those that are
nearest to those places that need the gospel. And so
what we did is we partnered with some believers from
the Moong tribe and they have access to places that
(19:46):
even other believers in Vietnam don't have because they're from
a tribe themselves, and they can go places and not
be too suspicious. And so they were able to take
the gospel to these last people groups who.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Had never heard.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And this is what we do all over the world.
We look for those places where God is moving, that
are nearest to the places that need to be reached,
and we come alongside and we ask one question, how
can we help. We don't tell them what to do,
We don't tell them how to do it. We come
in there to serve, and we look for what God
is already doing all over the world. We find this
God is implanted a vision in the hearts of believers
(20:18):
who are near us to these frontiers with a passion
to go there with the gospel. They don't have a
lot to work with, they might not have a motorcycle
to get there, they might not have everything that they
need to live there. But we come alongside, we help
them so that they can maintain presence in those places.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
And I think oftentimes, you know, they can't. These missionaries
can't just walk up to someone and start talking about Jesus.
Maybe in some contexts, but it sounds like in areas
where you know it's restrictive and maybe the dominant religion
is not favorable toward Christianity, it sounds like, you know,
(20:55):
are there ways that they can begin to build relationships
with people, things that they can do. I'm just curious
of the methodology there.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And almost all of these places you can't just begin
by holding open ear air crusades for the gospel, right,
you have to go in and start loving people and
let them see the love of Christ before you can
proclaim the truth of Christ to them. So in almost
every area where we partner, we find that this is
the case. They need to establish presents in these places.
(21:27):
And oftentimes those places where they're trying to go are
even hostile to the gospel, they're hostile to Christian presence.
So we help them do things like start a school
in Chad. For example, we just heard a great report
today about how God is using schools that our donors
help to fund in northern Chad and as a result
of that, many many people are hearing the gospel. These
(21:49):
are predominantly Muslim areas. But here's the amazing thing. They
want to send their kids to Christian schools. So when
we learn this, we said, hey, we'll help you start schools,
and so we help them start forcing schools in northern
Chad that are doing really well. And this is another
great example of how missionaries can become sustainable because the
Muslims will actually pay for their kids to go to
these schools. So once you build the school and you
(22:11):
get it up and running, it can actually support a
missionary worker. And you might ask, okay, well why do
they want that? Well, think about this, all throughout the
Muslim world, kids only have access to Madrasas. This is
Muslim education where all they do is memorize the Koran
all day long in a language that they don't know.
They have no idea what they're memorizing. Think about that,
(22:31):
and so parents look at that and they're like, we
need better for our kids. And so they actually are
welcoming and asking for Christians to come in and start
schools in their community. Well guess what these buildings now
can serve as places for Bible study for worship, and
that's exactly what's happening.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Amazing.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Wow, that's very cool. So, as there clearly are very
many obstacles and restrictions and challenges for these indigenous missionaries,
what would you say is like the top challenger obstacle
that they face.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I mean, I suppose if we were to ask them,
you know, they might give us different answers about what
their top thing is. Because it might vary from place
to place. You know, in some places, like just to
talk about northern Chad for example, one of their challenges
just getting around. It's a very inhospitable desert, right, and
so we've helped them with transportation. I went there, I
(23:25):
visited some of these places, and it is intense, I
mean just to live and survive in these places. And
so missionaries that are working in these places they first
have to figure that out, how do I live and
survive in this place? Because it is dangerous and it's difficult.
So they face challenges that you and I can't even
begin to imagine, things like disease. Just staying alive in
(23:48):
these places is not easy for missionaries. So that's a
big thing. I think the physical part of it. Someone
did a study and they said, why are they unreached?
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Unreached?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Why are their frontiers of the gospel? And the conclusion
that they came to is that these places are unreached
because nobody wants to go there, and nobody wants to
go there because it's just difficult to survive and to
live in these places. So these are places where there's
war zones, these are places where the terrain is difficult.
Think of Tibet high mountains. These are the Amazon Rainforest.
(24:16):
So just the physical part of it is a big
challenge for missionaris. The good thing is they're willing to
do that. You and I would die within a week
in some of these places, right in a day, but
they're willing to do it. And it's not easy even
for them, all right, it's impossible for us, but it's
not easy for anybody. And so just that very human
physical part is a big challenge. Second part of it
(24:37):
is the aspect of persecution. So they face restrictions in China,
they face constant surveillance. In the southern part of China,
where you find most of the unreached people groups, they
have the most intense surveillance of the activity of Christians
and minority people groups, and so this is a challenge.
So there are multiple things that they face, but I
(24:58):
think those two are big ones, just the physical challenge
and also the persecution.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
So for our listeners in the West, who who might
feel very far removed from an unreached people group in
a remote desert or jungle, what can they do to help?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
The first thing is learn how to pray, And I
say learn how to pray because you and I really
don't know how to pray for people in these context
as we've never been in that context. And that's one
of the reasons God raised up Christian Aid. Get on
our prayer Line mailing list. This is a daily education tool.
And someone said, you know, whatever you want to impact
(25:39):
your life, do it daily. And so this is what
I tell people. If you want to learn and you
want to become engaged with the persecuted church and indigenous ministries,
get on our prayer line mailing list. You're going to
learn every day. And then we have something called Mission Insider.
This is fantastic for educating your people your church. Get
on our mission Mission Insider mailings. It is fantastic. You're
going to learn about what happening on the frontlines regularly.
(26:02):
And here's the other thing that I would say is
start investing in something simple and something small. Go to
our website, look at opportunities for giving and say, you
know what, I want to get some Bibles to China
this year. Take on a project, do it with your church,
do it with your family. Take on something small and
take ownership of a part of the world and say
(26:23):
I'm going to start praying into this. I'm going to
start learning about China. I'm going to start learning about
the Middle East, bring your whole family into it, bring
your Sunday school group into it, and just own that
part of the world and start investing through prayer and giving.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
All right, well, thank you for our listeners. If you
want to sign up for Prayer Line or Missions Insider,
you can do that on our website. And if you
want to give, I can't think of a better thing
to invest in, just as a Christian, in getting the
Gospel to these last people groups. So thank you David,
and thank you to our listeners. And again you can
(26:59):
learn more at our web site, christian Aid dot org
and we will see you next time.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Thanks guys, you will be like.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
God human unity. God was severed and through it all,
God's promise remain true.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Follow me.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And I will make you great.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
This is the Chosen People.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Listen to the Chosen People at the Chosen People dot com.
That's the Chosen People dot com.
Let us pray. And when they were come into the house,
they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and
fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened
their treasures, they presented unto him gifts gold and frankincense
and myrrh. Matthew two eleven, dearest Father, What a powerful
(00:23):
moment when those wise men who followed the star finally
saw it resting over the humble stable. They brought treasure
to offer the newly born King of the Jews. But
I doubt they ever imagined they would find him lying
in a stable on a bed of straw, and not
in some fine gold embroidered bedding. I wondered what they
(00:46):
thought when they entered into the stable among the animals
and saw the delicate Virgin with her newly born son.
They must have been hit with the power of the
Holy Spirit as they fell down their knees to worship
him and gave him all their treasures. Lord, in your presence,
(01:08):
I am humbled and kneel down before you in adoration.
I open my heart to give you all my treasures
and withhold nothing from you. You are worthy of all
I have, all I am, and all I ever hope
to be. I am nothing without you, my precious Lord,
(01:30):
without your love, without your birth, without your suffering, I
would have nothing. You are my Lord and Savior, the
one true King of all the earth. I humbly offer you,
my heart, Lord Jesus, in devotion and gratitude for all
(01:52):
you have done to bring peace to this earth and
good will toward me in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you
for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and
an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to
pray dot COM's Sunday service.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Jesus gave an assignment two thousand years ago go make
disciples of all nations, not just all the countries in
the world that we're supposed to reach. We've actually already
done that, but there are still seven thousand groups in
the countries of the world that need to be reached
with the Gospel, and those are the groups that Jesus
is talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Welcome to Missions Insider Podcast and inside look at the
world's most difficult mission fields. Welcome back to another episode
of the Mission's Insider Podcast, and today we have Dave
it but Goes in with us and we will be
talking about reaching the last frontiers with the Gospel.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It's good to be here with you guys, and I.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Have a question right off, and that is, but what
do you consider a frontier area if we're talking about
reaching the last frontiers with the gospel.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
It's a great question.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
And obviously, you know, you can define frontiers many different ways,
and specifically, you know, what we're talking about here are
frontiers of the Gospel, and so these are places and
these are language groups and people groups that have least
access to the Gospel, at least access to believers and
the churches, and very specifically, you know, for us at
(03:41):
Christian AID, we're thinking about unreached people groups, and there
are still seven thousand unreached people groups in the world
and over three billion people that live in those people groups.
So frontier areas are places where people have the least
opportunity to hear about Jesus, the least opportunity to meet
a believer. They are not going to have a believer
(04:02):
as their neighbor or maybe even a believer living in
their community or their town. They may live their whole
life and never meet a Christian. There are still over
probably a billion people who don't even have access physical
access to a Christian presence, and so these are places
where it's difficult to go to. These are places that
are isolated. So when you think about frontiers, think about
(04:24):
access and think about just the opportunity that a person
has to hear about Jesus and respond to the gospel.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
All right, Well, you mentioned there being about seven thousand
ethnic groups that still are not reached with gospel, and
that's what we refer to as an unreached people group.
And is that the criteria just that they haven't been reached.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, So that's another great question. A lot of terminology
to define here when we talk about unreached people groups
and frontiers. So what is an unreached people group? And
quite simply, a people group is, like you said, an
ethnic group or a language group where there's not an
established indigenous church. There may even be churches nearby, but
there's not a church in their culture, in their language.
(05:09):
When Missiologists were first thinking about what to call these
groups of people, they first called them hidden people groups
because they said, look, these people groups could be living
right in your own town, in your own community. We
don't see them. And so even for example, here in
the United States, we have this, you know, right here
in Charlottesville, Virginia, we have many people that are in
(05:30):
placed here from Afghanistan and many other countries, and they's
somewhat hidden to us. We don't see them coming to
our churches on Sunday, right, So we have to go
to them. And that's what's significant about an unreached people group.
These are people that are very unlikely to come into
our churches. But these are people that we need to
go to them. And in order to go to them,
(05:52):
we might have to give up some of the things
that we like, right, because they're different than us, and
they think different and their cultures are different. That's where
you have to put on your mission hat and you
have to start thinking like a missionary if you want
to reach people like Afghan refugees. I remember a friend
of mine here in town. He wanted to introduce himself
to the Afghan refugees that were coming here to Charlottesville.
(06:15):
He's a great guy, he's a pastor, and so without
even thinking, he went and got some flowers, He went
and bought some roses, and he went and knocked on
the door of a refugee family and they're the person
who opened that door was the wife, you know, the mother,
and he hands this person some flowers. Okay, that doesn't
go over very well in Afghan culture, right. So there's
(06:35):
just things that we have to learn. We want to
reach places in people groups that are very different from
us and that don't know about Jesus.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
How many people would you say haven't been reached with
the gospel? Do you have that number?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's a great question, and obviously you know, the only
thing we can do is estimate. But our best estimate
that we have is that they're probably around three billion
people that are in this category of least rich with
the Gospel, that are without acts Us. And what that
means is that these people, unless we take the initiative,
they will live and die without ever hearing the name
of Jesus Christ, without ever hearing the gospel. And that's
(07:09):
the important thing to understand about mission. Mission is something
that requires us to cross over barriers to get to
people that are without access, and those barriers can be multiple.
Most people that are without access to the gospel live
in places that we call restricted access countries. That means
you can't openly share about Jesus. In those places, you
(07:31):
can't go as a missionary to those places. The cool
thing is in all of those places, God has his people.
And that's the important thing about the strategy of Christian
aity is that we partner with people living in these
countries where you and I can't go. Where you and
I if we were to go there and start sharing
about Jesus, we'd be sent out of the country very quickly.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
We would be expelled.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But these people, they are willing to go to prison,
and when they get caught, they don't get expelled from
their country.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
They go to jail.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But they keep sharing Jesus even in those contexts, Which
is why we pair up what we do in equipping
indigenous ministries with persecution assistance, because in most places where
there's least access to the Gospel, there's intense persecution, and
so we bring those two things together in our ministry.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Would you share some examples of some of these restricted areas.
Are there concentrations of these unreached people groups in particular regions?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Absolutely? So.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You may have heard of a region called the ten
forty window. If you haven't, you can go to a
map and you can look at ten degrees and forty
degrees latitude and it's basically capturing the area of North Africa,
Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, which includes
China and North Korea, and also Southeast Asia. You have
over four billion people that live in the ten forty window,
(08:48):
and these are places that are predominantly non Christians. So
most of the countries in the ten forty window are Muslim, Hindu,
and Buddhist, and some of them, like in China and
Vietnam and Laos, these are communist countries that highly restrict
access to the Gospel. Vietnam is a great example of this.
Vietnam is a place where the government has decided that
they want to put a freeze on where Christians were
(09:10):
when they took over. Similar thing happened in China and Laos.
They just tried to eradicate Christianity. But in Vietnam they
have said, okay, certain areas, certain provinces, certain sections of
the country where there was never any gospel presence, you
cannot proclaim the Gospel there. So in the South, most
of the Christians were in the south because that's where
Christianity really took root. There's a large number of Christians
(09:34):
in the North. You can find thousands and thousands of
villages without a church, So how are we going to
reach those people? Well, the good news is that the
church in Vietnam has a commitment to doing that, even
though it's dangerous, even though it's difficult. It's difficult for
them to get resources, to get Bibles, it's difficult for
them to train leaders, it's difficult for them to get around.
And so we help them do all those things. And
(09:55):
this is what we do in over eighty countries. We
work in places and in countries where it's the most
difficult for the Gospel to be proclaimed. That's what we
specialize in is equipping our brothers and sisters who are
doing the work that you and I can't do. But
they're doing the kingdom work. And we're all on the
same team. And the Bible calls us the body of Christ,
and it says each of us has a special role
(10:17):
to play. And God has given the persecuted Church a
very special role to play in these last moments, if
you will, in the history of the Great Commission, the
final frontiers of the Great Commission, the places that have
yet to hear are in these places that are restricted access,
where only the persecuted Church can go. There and so
it's up to us living in the free world to
(10:39):
link arms together with them.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Well, how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Not easy to do, right, And that's why God raised
up a ministry like Christian Aid over fifty years ago.
Our founder Bob Finley saw this coming. He saw the
iron curtain, you know, he grew up and he saw
these things happening all over the world, and he said,
there's going to need to be a ministry that works
with the church these behind these places, behind these closed doors,
(11:04):
that works with them and equips them to take the
Gospel to these last places that I never heard.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
So I have a question that may sound kind of obvious,
but what is the importance of reaching these unreached people groups.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's a great question. One of the things that I
love to talk about is we are approaching the two
thousand year anniversary of when Jesus gave the Great commission.
Jesus gave it an assignment two thousand years ago to
take the Gospel to all ethnic groups. If you look
at the Greek terminology, there when Jesus gave the great commission,
go make disciples of all nations, the word nation there
(11:38):
is the word ethnos in the Greek, which means ethnic groups.
So it's not just all the countries in the world
that we're supposed to reach. We've actually already done that.
We've taken the Gospel to every country. But there are
still seven thousand groups within the countries of the world
that need to be reached with the Gospel, and those
are the groups that Jesus is talking about. Countries come
and go throughout history, butnic groups, these groups have been
(12:01):
around for thousands of years. My last name Bogosian, that's Armenian,
and Armenians have been around for thousands of years, and
they're proud to be Armenians, and they make sure their
kids learn Armenian or wherever they are, they love. They're
very proud to be Armenian. These are the kinds of
people that Jesus has been talking about. Armenians didn't have
a country for thousands of years, but they retained their language,
(12:21):
retain their culture, and they're very proud of who they are.
So there are thousands of groups like this in the world,
and many of them are still unreached with the Gospel.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
So Jesus wants us to reach all of them.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And in the Book of Revelation when we see everything
coming together, when we see the ultimate fulfillment of all things,
and Revelation five nine and seven nine it talks about
representatives of every nation, tried, people, and language, standing before
the throne, worshiping the lamb. And this is ultimately where
we're headed. God wants to bring everybody in, all these
(12:52):
peoples that he created. In the Book of Acts, it
tells us that God created all the peoples of the world,
and he designated the place is where they should live.
And so these people groups are very precious in God's sight.
When Jesus came, when he died on the cross, the
Bible talks about the joy set before him. This is
what he was thinking about. All the nations of the
world gathered back before his throne.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
So what happens when they're all reached. It sounds like
we'll probably just be out of business.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's a great question. And you know what, we do
want to go out of business. So that is ultimately
our goal is to hear the final trumpet sound. And
Jesus told us he said in Matthew twenty four fourteen,
when the Gospel has been proclaimed to all nations, the
end will come and the end that he's talking about
is his second coming. It's not the end of the
world per se, but it's the end of Satan's reign
(13:40):
in this world. And there's only one verse in the
Bible where it says Satan gets angry. Revelation twelve, verse twelve.
It says he's filled with fury when he sees his
time getting shorts. And the Bible says something very interesting,
and two Peter three twelve it says that we are
to look forward to the day of Christ coming and
speed it is coming. Think about that that is found
on many different levels. I mean, just wrap your mind
(14:02):
around that theologically that God has entrusted to us an
assignment that when we finish it, this thing called the
end is going to come. So we can literally accelerate
the day of Christ coming through our obedience to the
Great commission.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
I know you've mentioned before that the Gospel is spreading
more rapidly now than say, in the past five ten years.
Why is this the case in what's making the difference?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, it's amazing what's happening today. We're seeing an acceleration
of the Gospel like we've never seen before. I mean,
we look at the Book of Acts, we look at
the first century, how the Gospel spread during that time.
It was incredible. In just you know that one hundred
years the Gospel moved from Spain all the way to
the China Sea. We believe in just one hundred years.
And now today, you know, in the twenty first century,
(14:54):
we're witnessing something similar. And part of the reason for
that is technology. So technology has changed everything. Right, if
you think about what was it that allowed the Gospel
to spread so quickly in the first century, it was
an innovation called the Roman Roads and the Silk Road,
and part of that still exists today, the old silk rope. Well,
(15:14):
that enabled that highway system enabled the Gospel to move
just because there was the physical access to those places.
Probably at that time in the first century, seventy five
percent of the world population was accessible along the Silk
Road and the Roman roads.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Well, look at.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
What's happening today. The whole world is becoming connected. We
can get to any place in the world from the
United States, let's say, probably within forty eight hours. There
might be a few exceptions to that, but ninety nine
percent of the world's population is accessible to us, probably
within twenty four hours. And then there's communication technology. We're
able to broadcast the gospel by satellite, We're able to
(15:55):
send the gospel out through the Internet, and so we're
able to find people that previously we didn't even know
they had interest in the gospel. So all of these
things and many many more are causing the gospel to
move in a way that's unprecedented.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
So you mentioned that in a lot of these restricted
access countries there are indigenous missionaries on the ground who
are are there reaching people with the gospel. Would you
be able to provide like an example of a ministry
that's currently reaching unreached people groups and bringing people to Christ.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I can give you three hundred examples. Actually, we work
with three hundred indigenous ministries all over the world, and
you know, these are ministries that we've walked with for many,
many years. Some of them just began from a very
small beginning. I think of my sister Marissa, who I
knew when I was a missionary in the Philippines and
she was just getting started. She was reaching one particular
people group in the southern part of Mendo. Now very
(16:49):
dangerous work. It was a completely unrestroped no one had
ever gone there before, and she started work there and
then God gave her a vision to move beyond that,
and we begin to grow with her, We begin to
empower her and to invest in a ministry. And today
they're reaching all thirteen of the Muslim people groups in
Mendo now. And here's the also amazing thing. We walked
(17:10):
with them. We helped to be a catalyst to get
them started. But now the majority of their funding is
coming from within the Philippines, and we love to see
that happen. In fact, we love to see the day
happen when everybody that we're supporting can become self sufficient.
And we believe that day will come, and we've seen
that happen in many cases. So we're very excited to
come alongside to build capacity with indigenous ministries that are
(17:33):
kind of like startups. You can think of Christian Aid
as kind of like venture capital for the Kingdom, all right,
So we invest in these Kingdom startups that are getting
going in places like Sudan, in places like Afghanistan. We
just got introduced to a new ministry in Afghanistan, and
so all over the world, in places where you wouldn't
even expect Iraq. Think about Iraq. We're able to partner
(17:53):
with people in Iraq who are proclaiming the Gospel all
over the country. So these are exciting times where we
can do things is that we never were able to
do before, in part because of the technology, in part
because of the way God's position in the United States.
And I really want to say this to every American
that's listening. God's given our country a very special privilege,
a very special place in history where He has given
(18:15):
this one country that's five percent of the world's population
access to over twenty percent of the world's resources. That
has never happened before in history, and it gives us
an incredible responsibility do to something big with the Gospel.
So here we have a country that's the most evangelical
country in the world and trusted with most with the
most wealth that any country's ever been given. Put those
(18:36):
two things together, and it doesn't take a lot to
come to the conclusion that God has raised us up
for a very strategic purpose in the fulfillment of the
Great Commission.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
I would love to hear a little bit more about,
maybe like some of the strategies and such that indigenous
ministries are using to reach people that have never heard
the gospel, they've never heard the name of Christ. Can
you give an example of of a way that they're
able to do that?
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So, you know, we mentioned we were talking about Vietnam earlier,
and one of the things that I love that happened
in just you know, the last five years was they
were able to take the gospel to the last people
groups that had never received their first missionary in Vietnam.
And the way they did that is something that we
call near cultural missions. And this is the way that
(19:24):
most people groups are being reached today with the gospel.
The gospel has gone so far and so wide, now
the most strategic way to reach the final frontiers is
to do so as a partner with those that are
nearest to those places that need the gospel. And so
what we did is we partnered with some believers from
the Moong tribe and they have access to places that
(19:46):
even other believers in Vietnam don't have because they're from
a tribe themselves, and they can go places and not
be too suspicious. And so they were able to take
the gospel to these last people groups who.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Had never heard.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And this is what we do all over the world.
We look for those places where God is moving, that
are nearest to the places that need to be reached,
and we come alongside and we ask one question, how
can we help. We don't tell them what to do,
We don't tell them how to do it. We come
in there to serve, and we look for what God
is already doing all over the world. We find this
God is implanted a vision in the hearts of believers
(20:18):
who are near us to these frontiers with a passion
to go there with the gospel. They don't have a
lot to work with, they might not have a motorcycle
to get there, they might not have everything that they
need to live there. But we come alongside, we help
them so that they can maintain presence in those places.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
And I think oftentimes, you know, they can't. These missionaries
can't just walk up to someone and start talking about Jesus.
Maybe in some contexts, but it sounds like in areas
where you know it's restrictive and maybe the dominant religion
is not favorable toward Christianity, it sounds like, you know,
(20:55):
are there ways that they can begin to build relationships
with people, things that they can do. I'm just curious
of the methodology there.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And almost all of these places you can't just begin
by holding open ear air crusades for the gospel, right,
you have to go in and start loving people and
let them see the love of Christ before you can
proclaim the truth of Christ to them. So in almost
every area where we partner, we find that this is
the case. They need to establish presents in these places.
(21:27):
And oftentimes those places where they're trying to go are
even hostile to the gospel, they're hostile to Christian presence.
So we help them do things like start a school
in Chad. For example, we just heard a great report
today about how God is using schools that our donors
help to fund in northern Chad and as a result
of that, many many people are hearing the gospel. These
(21:49):
are predominantly Muslim areas. But here's the amazing thing. They
want to send their kids to Christian schools. So when
we learn this, we said, hey, we'll help you start schools,
and so we help them start forcing schools in northern
Chad that are doing really well. And this is another
great example of how missionaries can become sustainable because the
Muslims will actually pay for their kids to go to
these schools. So once you build the school and you
(22:11):
get it up and running, it can actually support a
missionary worker. And you might ask, okay, well why do
they want that? Well, think about this, all throughout the
Muslim world, kids only have access to Madrasas. This is
Muslim education where all they do is memorize the Koran
all day long in a language that they don't know.
They have no idea what they're memorizing. Think about that,
(22:31):
and so parents look at that and they're like, we
need better for our kids. And so they actually are
welcoming and asking for Christians to come in and start
schools in their community. Well guess what these buildings now
can serve as places for Bible study for worship, and
that's exactly what's happening.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Amazing.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Wow, that's very cool. So, as there clearly are very
many obstacles and restrictions and challenges for these indigenous missionaries,
what would you say is like the top challenger obstacle
that they face.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
That's a great question.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I mean, I suppose if we were to ask them,
you know, they might give us different answers about what
their top thing is. Because it might vary from place
to place. You know, in some places, like just to
talk about northern Chad for example, one of their challenges
just getting around. It's a very inhospitable desert, right, and
so we've helped them with transportation. I went there, I
(23:25):
visited some of these places, and it is intense, I
mean just to live and survive in these places. And
so missionaries that are working in these places they first
have to figure that out, how do I live and
survive in this place? Because it is dangerous and it's difficult.
So they face challenges that you and I can't even
begin to imagine, things like disease. Just staying alive in
(23:48):
these places is not easy for missionaries. So that's a
big thing. I think the physical part of it. Someone
did a study and they said, why are they unreached?
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Unreached?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Why are their frontiers of the gospel? And the conclusion
that they came to is that these places are unreached
because nobody wants to go there, and nobody wants to
go there because it's just difficult to survive and to
live in these places. So these are places where there's
war zones, these are places where the terrain is difficult.
Think of Tibet high mountains. These are the Amazon Rainforest.
(24:16):
So just the physical part of it is a big
challenge for missionaris. The good thing is they're willing to
do that. You and I would die within a week
in some of these places, right in a day, but
they're willing to do it. And it's not easy even
for them, all right, it's impossible for us, but it's
not easy for anybody. And so just that very human
physical part is a big challenge. Second part of it
(24:37):
is the aspect of persecution. So they face restrictions in China,
they face constant surveillance. In the southern part of China,
where you find most of the unreached people groups, they
have the most intense surveillance of the activity of Christians
and minority people groups, and so this is a challenge.
So there are multiple things that they face, but I
(24:58):
think those two are big ones, just the physical challenge
and also the persecution.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
So for our listeners in the West, who who might
feel very far removed from an unreached people group in
a remote desert or jungle, what can they do to help?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
The first thing is learn how to pray, And I
say learn how to pray because you and I really
don't know how to pray for people in these context
as we've never been in that context. And that's one
of the reasons God raised up Christian Aid. Get on
our prayer Line mailing list. This is a daily education tool.
And someone said, you know, whatever you want to impact
(25:39):
your life, do it daily. And so this is what
I tell people. If you want to learn and you
want to become engaged with the persecuted church and indigenous ministries,
get on our prayer line mailing list. You're going to
learn every day. And then we have something called Mission Insider.
This is fantastic for educating your people your church. Get
on our mission Mission Insider mailings. It is fantastic. You're
going to learn about what happening on the frontlines regularly.
(26:02):
And here's the other thing that I would say is
start investing in something simple and something small. Go to
our website, look at opportunities for giving and say, you
know what, I want to get some Bibles to China
this year. Take on a project, do it with your church,
do it with your family. Take on something small and
take ownership of a part of the world and say
(26:23):
I'm going to start praying into this. I'm going to
start learning about China. I'm going to start learning about
the Middle East, bring your whole family into it, bring
your Sunday school group into it, and just own that
part of the world and start investing through prayer and giving.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
All right, well, thank you for our listeners. If you
want to sign up for Prayer Line or Missions Insider,
you can do that on our website. And if you
want to give, I can't think of a better thing
to invest in, just as a Christian, in getting the
Gospel to these last people groups. So thank you David,
and thank you to our listeners. And again you can
(26:59):
learn more at our web site, christian Aid dot org
and we will see you next time.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Thanks guys, you will be like.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
God human unity. God was severed and through it all,
God's promise remain true.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Follow me.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And I will make you great.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
This is the Chosen People.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Listen to the Chosen People at the Chosen People dot com.
That's the Chosen People dot com.
Host
Matthew Potter
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