If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
THE UNFINISHED TASK
By
Jerry Falwell
I. THE GREAT COMMISSION IS A GREAT TASK
• 12,000 ethnic people groups (we call them minorities in the world
• 350 world class cities
• Mexico City has 22 million people
• 5 billion plus
• "Go ye therefore and teach (make disciples) of all nations (people groups), baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19,20).
• How close are we to finishing the task?
II. THE TASK IS NOT FINISHED
A hundred years ago A. T. Pierson (son-in-law to George Mueller) faced the year 1900 and said of the Great Commission, "We despaired of hope." He thought the job was too big and couldn’t be done. How do we respond as we look at the year 2,000 and the Great Commission? Is the task too difficult . . . too compelling . . . too demanding . . . and can it be fulfilled?
A hundred years ago Dwight L. Moody said concerning world evangelization in response to Pierson, "It can be done, it ought to be done, it must be done." I believe in these three words . . . CAN
. . . OUGHT . . . MUST.
While many in the church despaired, Coca-Cola has a vision. "A Coke in the hand of every person on earth by the year 2000." If Coca-Cola can have such a massive goal, where is the visionary people in the church. Can we do less for love than Coca-Cola does for money.
The world-mission organization called A.D. 2000 and Beyond Movement has the goal, "A church for every people and the gospel for every person by the year 2,000."
We have 4 years to reach the entire earth.
What do you intend to do in the next four years? Do you intend to buy a house, get a new car, or be at same place you are now to watch the next century come in?
• What can the body of Christ do?
• What can Thomas Road Baptist Church and the Old Time Gospel Hour do?
• What can you do?
III. THE JESUS FILM
One great light in a world of darkness is the Jesus Film. Dr. Bill Bright led the Campus Crusade for Christ to produce a film by Warner Brothers of Hollywood on the life of Jesus Christ using their technology, but not their stars. This film used only the words of the Bible, i.e. the Gospel of Luke, and was filmed on site in the Holy Land. It cost 4 million dollars. Notice the following results:
a. 701,210,374 people have viewed the film in 220 countries of the world.
b. 41, 442,787 people have made a decision for Christ after seeing the film.
c. The film is translated into 324 languages. At the present time they are translating it into an additional 170 languages. (Gone With The Wind is only in 35 languages and it is the most translated Hollywood film.)
d. Whole villages in India, China, and jungle natives have come to know Jesus Christ.
e. A new translation of the Jesus film into another language is completed every 10 days. The film is so massive, that Campus Crusade reports that approximately 10,000 people per day make a decision for Jesus Christ because of the Jesus film.
f. Dr. Bright’s goal is to have the Jesus film available in the language of the people to 99 percent of the world by the year 2,000 A.D.
g. Dr. Bright has a goal to put that video in every home in America by the year 2000.
• People won’t read a book, but will view a video.
• People won’t come to a public place, but will view privately.
• The film asks people to pray to receive Christ at the end.
IV. FIVE PERCENT TO GO
Ninety-five percent of the world’s population has access to a Bible or scripture portion in their language.
Eight out of ten people have the entire Bible translated into their language.
Nine out of ten people have the New Testament translated into their language.
V. CHURCH PLANTING
There are 12,000 known ethno-linguistic peoples in the world. 10,000 Have a church planting movement in their midst. There are 2,000 "people groups" that do not have a church available to them.
• Our goal must be "a church for every people group."
• We have not carried out the Great Commission until we plant a church in every culture, in every ethno-linguistic people group.
• Then a church of the people, in the language of the people, supported by the gifts of the people, employing the soul winners of that people; can then evangelize that people group. We call this indigenous church planting.
VI. PRAYING FOR THE WORLD
J. Edwin Orr said, "When God is about to do something new He sets his people a-praying."
John Wesley said, "God does nothing but by prayer."
1. Praying Through the 10-40 Window, October, 1995.
C. Peter Wagner called for 10,000 people to journey to the 100 gateway cities in the 10-40 window. They spent their own money to fly to world-class cities, (a city of a million or more) to pray for revival and spiritual breakthrough. They didn’t go there to preach, hand out tracts or witness. His call was for intercessors. He set a goal of a 100 intercessors to go to a 100 cities. According to my mathematics that is 10,000 people to pray for revival in the most heathen nations of the world, i.e. North Africa, Turkey, the Muslim world including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran; the Hindu nation of India; the Buddha dominated nations of Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, and Indonesia are located in the 10-40 window.
2. Over a million support.
However, ten thousand people journeying to the 10-40 cities is not the whole picture. Each one of these persons mobilized prayer intercessors to pray for them back in America while they went to a heathen city to pray. According to C. Peter Wagner there were millions of Christians in their churches back home who prayed for this endeavor.
3. National Days of Prayer.
In Washington, DC, state capitols, city halls, all coordinated by a National Day of Prayer Task Force.
4. 30 Denomination-wide Prayer Initiatives.
All coordinated by denominational prayer leaders network.
5. Youth Prayer Initiative.
Largest prayer meeting in America took place by students. "See You At the Pole," over 2.5 million came without coffee or donuts or an incentive.
6. Prayer Summits.
Clergy are going away to pray for 2 or 3 days. No speaking or seminars, just prayer. Begun by Joe Aldridge, President of Multnoma Bible College.
7. City-wide Prayer Events.
March for Jesus, "Concerts of Prayer" rallies, etc.
8. National Prayer Gathering.
Bill Bright and others called for a conference on prayer and fasting. Four thousand people came to "not eat" and pray. Eight major events went on at one time in the Los Angeles Civic Center with 90 nations represented.
9. U.S. Prayer Directory.
Ten years ago there was no directory of prayer movements. Now it has 70 pages listing organizations committed to prayer, all groups from Pentecostals to Presbyterians. From Episcopalians to Baptists.
10. New Christian Magazines devoted to just prayer.
11. A simultaneous nation-wide prayer meeting when 1,000 radio stations dedicated 3 hours to prayer last May 4 and October 21.
12. Coming Revival.
After it rains and the streams fill up, there is coming a flood. The prayer streams are filling up, can revival be far behind.
• From the grass roots of believers, not the top.
• Its focus is revival.
• Its a message of hope.
13. At the National Consultation on Evangelism, December 7th, it was discovered 5 people are publishing books with the phrase in the title, "The Coming Revival." Of course Bill Bright was the first.
VII. BILLY GRAHAM
Since 1949 Billy Graham has preached to a 180 million people face to face in live audiences in more than a 180 countries around the world. Yet, in one day last march, he preached from the Hiram Thorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico, live to 165 nations of the world. This one event exposed the gospel to more people than he did in his entire life time. His office estimated that he preached the gospel to approximately 1 billion souls in that one day.
If this is true, he preached the gospel to 20 percent of the world in one day.
VIII. THE GOSPEL TO EVERY HOME
Dick Eastman, coordinator of the A. D. 2,000 God’s Word and Literature Network has a goal of placing a copy of Christian literature in every home in the world. With the population of India approaching 1 billion by the year 2000, this is an awesome goal. India alone has 600,000 villages. Evangelist M. A. Thomas and his son, Samuel, who is a graduate of Liberty, has a goal of planting a New Testament church in everyone of the 600,000 villages in India.
IX. WORLD ILLITERACY
The United Nations called the 1980’s "The Lost Decade" because of the dramatic rise in illiteracy, less people are reading today than they did fifteen years ago. United Nations estimated that close to 2 billion individuals cannot read. But we can overcome this problem because the growth of audio communications, radio, video recordings and television has emerged as the obvious and vital mass media for reaching the billions.
X. CHRISTIAN RADIO
Since 1985, there has been an explosion in the number of languages in which the gospel is preached by radio. That number has grown from 170 different language programs to 249 language programs in the past ten years. It is said that 97 percent of the world’s population can be reached by radio.
XI. GOSPEL RECORDINGS
Gospel Recordings, an evangelical mission organization, began their work in 1940. They have 70 recording teams, recording the gospel with the view of spreading the goods news by audio recording. They say by the year 2,000, 96 percent of the human race will have access to the gospel recorded in their language.
XII. THE GOSPEL FOR EVERY PERSON: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
• Everyone has access to the gospel message.
• Everyone can hear the gospel in their own tongue, i.e. the language they think in, or the language of their heart.
• Everyone has the scriptures in their own language.
• Everyone has a church among their own people group where they pray together, fellowship, sing hymns, study God’s Word, and use the spiritual gifts God has given them.
XIII. THE FINISHED TASK.
I want to give you a picture of what the finished task will be. The Bible states that in Heaven there will be a representative from every ethno-linguistic people group in the world. "After this I looked and there were before me a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands" (Rev. 7:9 NIV).
• If saved people will be in heaven from every people group, we still have work to do.
• If saved people will be in heaven from every people group, we must overcome our prejudice, racism and barriers to get the job done.
XIV. MORE DANGER THAN EVER.
As we get closer to finishing the task, there is more opposition than ever before. We’re like farmers who have almost finished reaping the grain field, but there is a rainstorm coming that will ruin the grain we’ve already cut and destroy the remaining grain in the field.
• Time is urgent.
• The enemy is attacking more than ever.
• There is more danger to the church than ever before.
• Many in the church are asleep, or ignorant or have compromised with the world.
XV. MORE OPPOSITION FROM MORE SOURCES WITH MORE INGENUITY THAN EVER BEFORE.
Church problems:
1. Money and prosperity has put Christians at ease rather providing more money for soul winning.
2. Entertainment has divested Christians’ focus.
3. Declining church attendance.
4. Shrinking pool of people willing to serve Jesus Christ in the church or in evangelism.
5. The church’s obsession with buildings, programs and things and ignoring soul winning.
Media problems:
6. Media is no longer objective news reporting, but media carries a bias of secularism, humanism, anti-church, anti-family and pro-homosexuality.
7. Diversion of attention away from our historic Protestant-Puritan ethics of cleanliness, correct speech, hard work, honesty, etc. to unlimited access to alcohol, gambling, sexual freedom, filthy speech movement, the rights of criminals more than the rights of victims.
False Religions:
8. Islam is getting more powerful and they hate Christianity. Their enemy is us. False cults are growing with their hatred of truth, i.e. the Trinity, the deity of Christ, His blood atonement, etc.
Drifts of Secularism:
9. Rewriting history (reconstructionism) to eliminate Christianity and its influence on Thanksgiving, Christmas, the founding of this nation, development of civilization around the world because of the role of missions in spreading Christianity.
10. Eliminating Christian effectiveness by zoning laws, privacy laws, regulations reducing the freedom of speech, laws that limit the traditional family and permit divorce, permissiveness, and irresponsibility to family.
The Growth of Satanism:
11. As society throws a blanket over the light of Christianity, darkness is spreading in the form of witchcraft, demonism and Satanism are evident in the abuses of rock music and the explicit Satanic symbols on rock videos and rock concerts.
12. More demon possession in the world and more reported in America than ever before.
13. Why growth of Satanism and demonism?
• Since God loves each person.
• Since Christ died for each person.
• Since the gospel must be carried to each person.
• Then Satan is jealous of what God loves.
• Then Satan hates what God loves.
• Then Satan wants to imprison and enslave the people God wants to free.
• Satan will spiritually blind every person.
"The god of this world hath blinded the minds of those that believe not . . . (II Cor. 4:4).
• Satan will enslave every person. Some in alcohol, drugs, sex, money addiction, pleasure seekers, homosexuality, etc.
• Satan will allow some to be demon possessed to carry out his purpose.
XVI. THREE VERSES TO REFOCUS
We must not be pessimistic . . . but optimistic.
"Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (I John 4:4).
When Elisha’s servants cried out in fear at the enemy’s multitude.
"Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (II Kings 6:16).
"The hour has come for you to wake up from your sleep, because our salvation (completion of the task) is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, the day is almost here" (Rom. 13:11-12 NIV).
XVII. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP.
1. I want to set up one of the greatest prayer team movements in the world. We must pray for world evangelization before the year 2,000 A.D. Many of you cannot preach, cannot go, and are not trained to answer the arguments of the world. We here at Liberty want to help you. Here’s what you can do:
a. Join the prayer power team. Write me today and tell me you will be a member of my prayer power team. You will carry out the Great Commission and you want to do it through intercession. We will send you a prayer list of places to pray for, people to pray for, projects to pray for, and a list of unreached people groups and how to pray for
a) Jesus film, b) unreached people, c) great movements of revival and outreach.
b. Next I want you to be a Faith Partner. We have many people who give monthly, but I want to challenge our Faith Partners to step up to a new level of commitment. I want to challenge my Faith Partners to new faith goals. Goals that are bigger than we have every had before.
1) Prayer for my special faith goals for Liberty University.
Students from Liberty will phone our partners and talk with you and explain to you our goals, and that student will pray with you over the telephone. Notice, we’re not calling you, but you will call us and we will pray with you.
Dear Lord,
I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God and rejoice with you.
For more information on the TRBC Pastor’s Bible Class, log on to the Internet for TRBC Home page at www.trbc.org/pbc.
