[See part 1, What is the Glory of the Impossible? ]
Samuel Zwemer writes of Dr. Susie Rijnhart, who lost her son and her husband very early on during her 4 year ministry in Tibet. When she returned to England, many people criticized her, saying it was foolish to go to Tibet in the first place. The following quote is her response to these critics, and the closing of her book, With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple:
“Kind Christian friends have questioned our wisdom in entering Tibet. Why not have waited, they ask, until Tibet was opened by ‘the powers’ so that missionaries could go under government protection? There is much heart in the question but little logic. Christ does not tell his disciples to wait, but to go. We are not to choose the conditions, but to meet them. The early apostles did not wait until the Roman Empire was ‘opened’… Persecutions came upon them from every side, but nothing, save death, could hinder their progress or silence their message… So it has ever been in the history of Christianity. Had the missionaries waited ’til all the countries were ready and willing to receive them, so that they could go forth without death or sacrifice, England might still have been the home of barbarians. Livingstone’s footsteps would never have consecrated the African wilderness, there would have been no Carey in India, the South Sea Islanders would still be sunk in their cannibalism, and the thousand of Christians found in pagan lands would still be in the darkness and shadow of death… The work is great. So great that, beside its greatness, any sacrifice involved in its accomplishment is small.”
At Global Serve International, we are committed to the work of the Great Commission in the most challenging regions, no matter the cost, through cross-cultural church planting, making disciples, and the translation of God’s Word among people groups who currently have no access to the Gospel. The task to bring unreached people the Gospel is urgent, and it is worth the sacrifice. One of our founding members has stated, “We don’t want missionaries to pick up Samuel Zwemer’s book in another hundred years and ask the question, ‘Why haven’t these people been reached?’”. Our workers are making the long-term commitment to see churches planted and Bibles translated in communities where no missionaries have ever gone.
In the Great Commission, Jesus tells us, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me… And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Charles Spurgeon, when he preached on this passage said, “You have a factor here that is absolutely infinite and what does it matter as to what other factors may be. ‘I will do as much as I can,’ says one. Any fool can do that. He that believes in Christ does what he can not do, attempts the impossible and performs it.” We have been give a great command by God, and He has enabled us by His Son and His Spirit to go and carry it out- to proclaim His name and the message of His love and salvation to all nations. One day, we will see people from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue standing before the throne and praising Him, as promised in Revelation 7:9.