What does the Bible say about world missions?

Look at the map of the world. “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” Look at priest-ridden, infidel Europe. Look at America with its teeming multitudes. Look at South America with its dark superstitions and wicked lives. Look at the far-off islands of the sea. Look at China and Africa with their millions who have never heard the name of Christ. We may not be free to follow the tactics and organisations of the missionary world, but it has a very good motto divided into three parts— (1) Go. (2) Let go. (3) Help go.

It is true that the Gospel is to be preached in the regions beyond and that by this preaching a people is called out from the Gentiles, a people for His name, the church; but it would be incorrect to say that in order that the Lord may come for His Church, all the individuals of all the nations must hear the Gospel. Believers in the blessed Hope of the Coming of the Lord have a deep interest in foreign missions, unless they are given to extreme, fanciful or unscriptural notions. This is clearly established by a number of foreign missionary enterprises of the last twenty-five years, which have been inaugurated by men who believe in the premillennial Coming of the Lord and also by the large number of missionaries in all lands, who are out and out premillennialists. The accusation that believing in the imminent Coming of the Lord paralyzes missionary efforts is unjust and unfair. It stimulates missionary activity. The believer in the Coming of the Lord desires the Gospel to be preached in the great, wide field of the nations, that the church may be completed as to numbers. How soon this may be none can tell.

Yet, while all this is so, there has been a great activity in the foreign mission-field, for which we can thank God. True, in spite of the many good and earnest men and women at work, we cannot close our eyes to the comparatively small results obtained; but we can rejoice that Christ is preached.

We must not make the mistake of dividing the work of the Lord into sections, or of thinking of what is done abroad and among the heathen as another work or a different kind of work from what is being done at home. The work of the Lord is one work, wherever it is being done, and there is no difference in the sight of our God between the proud white man who boasts in his liberty and progress, and the dark-skinned heathen in his degradation and superstition. One gospel only can meet the need of each and both. There is one Lord in the glory, the Master of all His servants, who directs them according to His sovereign will and wisdom, and one Holy Spirit on earth who is using the one gospel of our salvation with one great end in view. All who believe that gospel are brought into the one body of Christ—His assembly on earth which, when completed, will be presented to Him who gave Himself for it—His all-glorious bride, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph. 5:2). What an end that is to have in view! and every bit of the work of the Lord that is being done on earth by His faithful servants is contributing to that great end. Who would not rejoice to have a part in it, or be willing to be sent abroad or to abide at home as the Lord may direct, in order to gather some out of the world for the Lord for the fulfilment of this great purpose of God! It has been said that “there are vacancies in the heart of Christ and He has sent His evangelists into the world to find souls that will fill those vacancies.” The thought is a sweet and true one; may it stir us up to diligently seek these souls out of every nation, kindred, people and tongue, for the joy of our Master and Lord.

We must not make the mistake of dividing the work of the Lord into sections, or of thinking of what is done abroad and among the heathen as another work or a different kind of work from what is being done at home. The work of the Lord is one work, wherever it is being done, and there is no difference in the sight of our God between the proud white man who boasts in his liberty and progress, and the dark-skinned heathen in his degradation and superstition. One gospel only can meet the need of each and both. There is one Lord in the glory, the Master of all His servants, who directs them according to His sovereign will and wisdom, and one Holy Spirit on earth who is using the one gospel of our salvation with one great end in view. All who believe that gospel are brought into the one body of Christ — His assembly on earth which, when completed, will be presented to Him who gave Himself for it — His all-glorious bride, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph. 5:2). What an end that is to have in view! and every bit of the work of the Lord that is being done on earth by His faithful servants is contributing to that great end. Who would not rejoice to have a part in it, or be willing to be sent abroad or to abide at home as the Lord may direct, in order to gather some out of the world for the Lord for the fulfilment of this great purpose of God! It has been said that "there are vacancies in the heart of Christ and He has sent His evangelists into the world to find souls that will fill those vacancies." The thought is a sweet and true one; may it stir us up to diligently seek these souls out of every nation, kindred, people and tongue, for the joy of our Master and Lord.

The Lord had been speaking of the kingdom of God; their minds however still ran on the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. In this they were like the two going to Emmaus, though now they knew that He was risen. Their question gave to the Lord the opportunity of indicating what was to be the programme for the opening dispensation, and we see again just what we saw in Luke 24; the Centre of the programme is not Israel but Christ. The coming of the Spirit would mean power, not that the apostles should be restorers of Israel, but "witnesses to Me" — witnesses to Christ to the utmost bounds of the earth. The four circles of witness, mentioned at the end of verse 8, supply us with one way of dividing up the book. We begin with the witness in Jerusalem, and until the end of Acts 7 we are occupied with that city and Judaea. Then in chapter 8 comes Samaria. In Acts 9 the man to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles is called; and in Acts 13 the mission to the uttermost parts begins.

But they would receive power ("dunamis"), not authority, as the word "power" means in v.7, but vital energy, through the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them. This would enable them as witnesses to Him, beginning at Jerusalem, but spreading out to Judea and Samaria, then the far reaches of the earth, -- a wonderful contrast indeed to a kingdom confined to Israel.

These words explain the situation with divine precision and unspeakable grace. It is not yet to be the displayed kingdom which belongs to the age and world to come. Now it is a question of testimony in the power of the Holy Ghost, with Whose mission and presence it is bound up. They were to be witnesses of Christ, not yet reigning with Him, but His witnesses, as rejected yet risen, despised of men, especially of the Jews and Jerusalem, but on the point of being exalted of God in heaven, and witnesses of Him — for all is of grace — both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Compare with this beginning of the Acts the end of Luke's Gospel, where the risen Saviour commands that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem: 'And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.' It is not baptism here, but vital blessing, repentance to life and remission of sins sealed with the Holy Ghost. All has its place and propriety, but the better thing it was the lot of the beloved physician to indite under the inspiring energy of God, Who was (in honour of His Son's person and work) giving life and liberty with the Spirit's seal to all that believe the gospel: its source the grace of God, its righteous foundation the cross of Christ, its character of life His resurrection; its formative object His heavenly glory; and its power the Holy Ghost sent from above.

Further, when He was giving forth, from mount Sinai, the stern requirements of the covenant of works, He addressed Himself exclusively to one people. His voice was only heard within the narrow enclosures of the Jewish nation; but when, on the plains of Bethlehem, "the angel of the Lord" declared "good tidings of great joy," he added those characteristic words, "which shall be to all people." And, again, when the risen Christ was sending forth His heralds of salvation, His commission ran thus, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15; Luke 2:10) The mighty tide of grace which had its source in the bosom of God, and its channel in the blood of the Lamb, was designed to rise, in the resistless energy of the Holy Ghost, far above the narrow enclosures of Israel, and roll through the length and breadth of a sin-stained world. "Every creature" must hear, "in his own tongue," the message of peace, the word of the gospel, the record of salvation, through the blood of the cross.

But in Luke 24 all is changed. The dispensational barriers are no longer to interfere with the messengers of grace. Israel is not to be forgotten, but the Gentiles are to hear the glad tidings. The sun of God's salvation must now pour its living beams over the whole world. Not a soul is to be excluded from the blessed light. Every city, every town, every village, every hamlet, every street, lane and alley, hedge and highway, must be diligently and lovingly searched out and visited, so that "every creature under heaven" might hear the good news of a full and free salvation.