Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / What Would World War III Mean for Missions?

Transcript

What Would World War III Mean for Missions? · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:03
  Thanks for listening to the podcast, as you have probably felt for yourself.
• 0:08
  In the past year or so, global tensions have risen to a boil.
• 0:14
  It's hard to believe how often World War three has been a top trend in
• 0:18
  Twitter in the past couple of years. Way too often to be honest.
• 0:22
  And this leads to today's question from Malcolm, who lives in Fishers, Indiana,
• 0:27
  an email that resonates with a lot of other emails in the inbox in
• 0:30
  the past year. Pastor John, Hello to you. I'm a twenty two
• 0:34
  year old and often anxious about the state of the world. For several years,
• 0:38
  we've enjoyed relative peace and things were looking calm. But now there are
• 0:43
  wars in Ukraine and in Palestine, and a threat of war looms over Taiwan.
• 0:48
  All the world's major armies seem to be awakening from a long slumber.
• 0:53
  NATO is growing, enemies of the West are uniting, the weapons manufacturers are
• 0:58
  in overdrive. As we step into this new age of global tension, and
• 1:03
  as you see the news, the wars and the rumors of wars, what
• 1:07
  are your spiritual reflections about global conflicts? The Bible seems to say a lot
• 1:11
  about warfare between nations. So, how do you comfort yourself with biblical truth
• 1:15
  and with God's sovereignty when it seems that the world is growing more hostile and
• 1:19
  World War III is talked about more and more openly as a real possibility in
• 1:26
  the near future. Well, I could, I suppose, answer Malcolm's question
• 1:32
  with a very general biblical observation about the absolute sovereignty of God over nations,
• 1:40
  and over the Church and over my life, and then combine that sovereignty with
• 1:46
  the sweet, precious promise that He works everything together for the good of those
• 1:53
  who love him. I could do that, and it would be wonderful.
• 1:57
  That would be a glorious However, I want to answer his question with something
• 2:04
  much more specific, just because I saw it while preparing a message on Missions
• 2:13
  last October and it did for me just what Malcolm is asking in me.
• 2:19
  How do you comfort yourself, Paster John, in the light of these kinds
• 2:22
  of upheavals in the world. And so that's what I want to do.
• 2:28
  I want to suggest that one specific worry that rises in this setting that we're
• 2:36
  in right now, wars and rumors of wars and social upheavals, what happens
• 2:40
  to the global missionary enterprise in times of wars and rumors of wars. That's
• 2:49
  the specific thing that creeps into my heart with anxious thoughts. I think many
• 2:57
  of us feel from time to time, the anxiety arising that social upheaval and
• 3:04
  political and military disruption will so distract the church and so intimidate the Church that
• 3:12
  we forsake or neglect or minimize the command of Jesus to make disciples among all
• 3:20
  the peoples of the world. And we just feel like, well, that's
• 3:22
  got to be put on hold because the world is about to blow up and
• 3:24
  go to hell in a haadbasket. What good does it do to send the
• 3:29
  missionaries to so and so when the place is about to explode in war.
• 3:32
  I think that's the kind of feeling that rises in our hearts with your road
• 3:36
  to world missions in wartime. So I'm reframing Malcolm's question to be more specific,
• 3:44
  not just how do I comfort myself in a world about to be engulfed
• 3:49
  in war, but how do I steady my hand and keep my focus and
• 3:54
  press on in the cause of world evangelization even while the world is moving toward
• 4:00
  annihilation. That's the question I'm trying to face. And what I saw last
• 4:08
  October when I was preparing for my Global Focus sermon at Bethlehem was from Matthew
• 4:14
  twenty four, and the connection between war and missions. Now I had never
• 4:20
  made this connection before. So here's what Jesus said about times we live in.
• 4:27
  And I think these words from Matthew twenty four are intended by Jesus in
• 4:32
  every generation where these things show up to make us lift our eyes and pray
• 4:39
  that our redemption is drawing near. So here's what he says. Many will
• 4:43
  come in my name saying I am the Christ, and they will lead many
• 4:46
  astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that
• 4:53
  you are not alarmed, for this must take place. But the end is
• 4:58
  not yet, for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
• 5:04
  So those are the international upheavals. And now come the natural upheavals, the
• 5:11
  disasters. And he goes on, there will be famines and earthquakes in various
• 5:19
  places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. So he's
• 5:26
  picturing the coming of the Kingdom of God that Jesus will bring as a kind
• 5:32
  of new birth for the cosmos, and natural disasters are like labor pains.
• 5:41
  Then he goes on. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put
• 5:47
  you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my namesake.
• 5:53
  Then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another,
• 5:58
  and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness is
• 6:03
  increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures
• 6:09
  to the end will be saved. And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be
• 6:16
  proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations. And then
• 6:23
  the end will come. Now I have said in lots of missions conferences over
• 6:30
  the decades, even though in the very last days of history, the love
• 6:36
  of many in the visible Church will grow cold Verse twelve. This promise that
• 6:44
  the Gospel will be preached to all the peoples of the world, even while
• 6:49
  we are being hated, he says, by all these peoples, this promise
• 6:55
  is going to come true. But the Christians who take the Gospel well to
• 7:00
  the nations during this time of great trouble will not be among those whose love
• 7:09
  has grown cold. Right, I mean, they will be the people who
• 7:13
  have white hot, not cold love for Jesus in the face of persecution and
• 7:19
  killing. Not everybody's love is going to grow cold in the last days.
• 7:24
  In other words, the great Commission will be completed by faithful Christians while millions
• 7:30
  are leaving the church like lukewarm coals rolling away from the fire. Now all
• 7:40
  that I had seen before, but this time, while I was meditating on
• 7:46
  this passage, I saw the connection between war and missions, not just the
• 7:50
  dechurching of cold love and missions, but the connection between military and missions.
• 8:03
  So verse six, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Nation
• 8:07
  will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and this gospel of the Kingdom
• 8:13
  will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations.
• 8:18
  And then the end will come. So this connection makes plain wars and rumors
• 8:26
  of wars will not stop God's mission. That's the lesson that I saw fresh
• 8:33
  in this text. The mission will be completed in spite of sometimes because of
• 8:41
  nation rising against nation. Now, even as I say it, I know
• 8:46
  there could be an objection, even a biblical objection, because peace time is
• 8:50
  good for the church. But we're not naive. We know that historically wars
• 8:56
  and social upheavals have hindered mission. Yes they have, that's true, But
• 9:01
  how many of those setbacks prove to be advances in disguise? For example,
• 9:09
  the removal of missionaries from China, which felt like such a setback between nineteen
• 9:13
  forty nine and nineteen fifty three, was it a setback? I mean,
• 9:18
  thirty years later, it appears that the church had grown by tenfold in China
• 9:26
  without the missionaries. So who knows what our advances and what are setbacks?
• 9:33
  In God's strange ways, whatever disruptions in missions are caused by wars and rumors
• 9:41
  of wars, the words of Jesus stand firm. Wars and rumors of wars
• 9:48
  will not stop world evangelization. In the midst of hatred, coldness, wars,
• 9:56
  this gospel will be preached all the peoples and then the end will come.
• 10:03
  So to test my new insight against historical experience, I did a little
• 10:09
  research and here's what I found. What has God done in missions during wartime?
• 10:20
  During the American Civil War eighteen sixty to eighteen sixty five, Sarah de
• 10:24
  Reimus founded the Women's Union Missionary Society for sending single women to Asia. The
• 10:31
  Episcopal Church opened work in Haiti. The Paris Evangelical Missionary Society opened work in
• 10:37
  Senegal. The London Missionary Society published the first dictionary of the Samoan language.
• 10:43
  The China Inland Mission Today OMF was founded by James Hudson Taylor, which has
• 10:50
  sent thousands of missionaries to Asia. All of that while Americans are consumed with
• 10:56
  the Civil War? What about World War One? Nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen,
• 11:03
  c t stud was glorying in a great revival movement in the Congo During
• 11:09
  the First World War. The Inter Denominational Foreign Mission Association IFMA was founded During
• 11:15
  World War One? What about the Second World War? Nineteen thirty nine to
• 11:20
  forty five, William Cameron Townshend founded Wicklift Bible Translators. New Tribes Mission was
• 11:26
  founded with a vision to reach the tribal peoples of Bolivia. The Conservative Baptist
• 11:31
  Foreign Mission Society was founded, now named World Venture. The Baptist General Conference
• 11:37
  started its own missionary sending agency. That's the denomination that our church belongs to.
• 11:43
  During the Second World War, Mission Aviation Fellowship was started. Far East
• 11:48
  Broadcasting Company was founded Evangelical Foreign Missions Association was formed. All during that horrific
• 11:54
  Second World War. What about Korean War nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty three,
• 12:00
  the World Evangelical Alliance was organized. Bill and Vnette Bright created Campus Crusade for
• 12:05
  Christ. Trans World Radio was founded. You get the picture. This is
• 12:11
  just a tiny taste of the truth that wars and rumors of wars are not
• 12:20
  going to stop God's promise to complete the task of world missions. So,
• 12:24
  Malcolm, this is what the Lord has been using recently in my life to
• 12:31
  strengthen my heart and encourage me to press on in this great work phenomenal connections
• 12:41
  here in Matthew twenty four, connecting the wars and international upheavals of verses six
• 12:46
  and seven and eight with the Church's unfolding global mission in verse fourteen that had
• 12:54
  his an amazing connection. Pastors, I thank you from making that in this
• 12:58
  episode. And if you want to read more about God's absolute sovereignty over nations
• 13:01
  and warfare, see John Piper's book Providence, and you'll find sections all over
• 13:05
  that book that are relevant for life in an age where war tensions are on
• 13:11
  the rise. I was just flipping through Providence this morning, and I see
• 13:15
  especially on pages three sixty five to three sixty eight and three ninety one to
• 13:20
  three ninety three, three sixty five to three sixty eight and three ninety one
• 13:26
  to three ninety three are some sections with a lot of a lot of gold.
• 13:31
  Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.
• 13:33
  If you want to ask Pastor John, type out your question and email it
• 13:37
  to me at ask Pastor John at Desiring good dot org our email address,
• 13:41
  ask Pastor John at desiring Good dot org. As we end January, in
• 13:48
  our Bible reading, we're reading Psalm twenty two together. It's a dark psalm.
• 13:52
  It's a heavy psalm. It's an essential psalm too, because the entire
• 13:56
  thing speaks of Christ and his work on the cross. For us, it
• 14:00
  becomes a psalm on his lips on the cross. And because of this fact,
• 14:05
  it raises an important question too that we need to resolve on Monday,
• 14:09
  and we will. I'm your host, Tony RANKI We'll see you next week.