This is from the international Mission board, which is the proselytize the evangelizing arms of the certain Baptist. So, court there is, declare his God’s glory among the Heathen, his wonders among all people. God wants certain Baptist as a people to mobilize vast resources for reaching all people groups for Jesus Christ. So, this is their mission statement.
So, what they’re saying is that it is necessary for us to spread this among the heathens to save the heathens. So, the other people their religious, their traditions are not valid. In fact, their satanic Satan has captured their minds and we need freedom from Satan and the way is freedom from Satan is to spread the gospel. This is their point of view. We must realize that this is not our mission. It is God’s Mission. It is a vision that will be fulfilled that Jesus said in Matthew 24:14. The Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a witness to every nation and then the end will come.
So, a lot of times you don’t understand why the missionaries doing this why the evangelist doing it. They are doing it because they considered their religious duty that there are scriptures telling them, their Doctrine is telling them that, they have to do this and not only is it necessary for them to do it. It is apocalyptic meaning all of the Christians are waiting in their graves for Judgment Day. On Judgment Day, they will be bodily lifted from the grave and they will ascend to heaven. This is the belief. So, when will judgment day come… now, this is always been a question right from the beginning of Christianity and they were thinking, it is going to happen very soon. And in fact, there’s a lot of apocalyptic even movies that the West produces apocalypse.. now this is there waiting for judgment day. They are constantly waiting for the end of the world, so that they will be lifted up to heaven. And so, that is so. There was a big thing around here 82,000, also there was this idea that is the time but from the century somebody or the other has been predicting that the judgment day is about to come now and we finally get liberated because they are all rotting in grave; they have to get liberated from there and go to heaven.
So, then there is belief system. It says that, okay, maybe the once we reach the gospel to the whole world, then the end will come. Therefore, judgment day will come and then we will get to heaven. So, this is again one of the driving forces for the gospel mission. The other aspect which is more personal in a way is that, fear is very key aspect of the spread and belief in Christianity. I remember, I was in Buddhist temple in Seattle one time and I was talking to an American woman who had become Buddhist. So, I was speaking to her about her experience. I asked her what was the biggest difference for her? She said, the biggest difference was freedom from the terror of hell. What is the terror of hell? And this all happens in Islam as well?
You believe because you’re a Christian you’re going to heaven, but you never really know for sure. Maybe you’re not good enough Christian. Maybe your belief is not strong enough, right? And so, every week you’re being taught this doctrine of hell and there is a huge fear that you actually might end up in hell and children are terrified of this. I mean, this is something that creates terror in children because they are you’re going there, preaching there, fire and damnation is going to happen. So, there’s all these graphic, graphic details.
In fact, there’s a big best-selling American book called “Taken Away” or somethng. I forget the title… is a whole title. There was a whole series where they were talking about what is hell like, they were describing it in graphic detail. So there is a terror of hell and this terror of hell is a big force in driving the mission as well because they are hoping that, maybe they don’t know for sure, if they’re going to get saved, but maybe if they are doing this thing,. Then God will finally be happy at them and they will get saved and they won’t go to hell. It’s so, that is another motivation. And then finally if they do that then every nation will, then the end will come in, then Jesus will take them away to heaven.
The reason why I’m giving the story is, for us, for me, all of this was you meaning that I never understood. It took me at least, I said several years after being in the US and I was very curious about American society, I was interacting with many different kinds of people. In fact I remember, I was on a date, once in this woman asked me what brought you to America and I said I came here for the anthropology of the native. So, I came here to study the results. Kind of a joke… but it was also true because I want to study the society because they kept sending people to study us. But, we never sent people to study them, when study their society.
So in studying it we have to realize that there are several kinds of asymmetries, that happened. One of the asymmetries is the asymmetry of Doctrine right, as they have different belief systems. One belief system says that everybody has their own tradition, it is good for them and let everybody follow what they are following. What is the problem? The other belief system says that there is one truth, the rest are false, and it is important that we make everybody believe in the truth, right? So other symmetry of Doctrine… so that asymmetry comes from the Joshua Project. You’ll find go therefore and Make Disciples of all the nations. This is the asymmetry which is driving the mission.
So, what is the Joshua Project? There was a project before this call. the AD 2,000 movement. So, there was a lot of you know. And a lot of belief around 2000 years after Jesus came, that maybe, that was the apocalyptic moment, Judgment Day will happen and so they were driving towards saying, 2,000 years have passed and we still have not converted the entire world. So, we really need to focus on it. So, if you rather I read the documents in the 1990s on this AD 2,000 movement and they were like saying, in fact their Flight Deck said, just like Coke is there in every city, in every place, we need to market our mission like Coke is doing, is marketing and we need to do have this whole marketing effort that will bring this to the entire world. And this is the biggest multinational on the planet in terms of its marketing effort. They have the Jesus film. I don’t know what the current count is, but it is like translated into maybe 800 or 900 languages. So, they’ll go to some small tribal place, that tribe is never seen a film in their language, but these people have studied the language and dubbed it. And in that film Jesus is asking them to come to him. It shows, imagine the impact, that creates with is the biggest multinational marketing effort that dwarfs any multinational corporation on the planet.
