Will All Nations Be Reached Before Christ Returns?
00:00:00.000 | Today we have an important missions question from a listener named Zach.
00:00:07.680 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:08.680 | A friend and I have been reading your book, Let the Nations Be Glad.
00:00:12.040 | It has been a blessing to both of us as we each pursue our roles in missions.
00:00:16.480 | So thank you for that book.
00:00:17.960 | I've been wondering if Christians will have to reach every unreached people group or at
00:00:21.880 | least every unengaged unreached people group before Jesus returns.
00:00:27.320 | It seems to me that the disciples lived as though they believed Jesus would return any
00:00:30.680 | day, and the Bible certainly speaks of Jesus coming at any moment.
00:00:34.680 | Also looking at Revelation 14, 6, I wonder if that passage is saying that if Jesus returns
00:00:38.840 | before we as Christians have accomplished the task to reach all the unreached, the angel
00:00:44.080 | will take care of the rest, so to speak.
00:00:46.840 | Pastor John, what do you think?
00:00:49.040 | Let me preface what I'm going to say with the statement that I am so willing to be corrected
00:00:56.840 | on this.
00:00:57.840 | And I'll say more about that maybe as we go along, so please don't hear me having the
00:01:04.600 | level of forcefulness in this as I might with other teachings that I find to be clearer.
00:01:13.480 | But I do have convictions, and I'll tell you what they are.
00:01:16.620 | The way I would express my understanding of the Bible is that Jesus clearly commanded
00:01:20.920 | us to make disciples of all the peoples, tribes, languages of the world.
00:01:24.800 | Matthew 28, 19, Revelation 5, 9, he gave us his Holy Spirit and power to that end, Acts
00:01:33.080 | 1, 8.
00:01:34.080 | He promised to be with us to the end of the age for that purpose, Matthew 28, 20, and
00:01:39.920 | he said that the end would come, that is, he would come when this task of witnessing
00:01:46.120 | to all the nations is complete.
00:01:48.000 | Yes, I did say that in the book.
00:01:50.400 | I'm saying it now.
00:01:51.400 | I don't want to claim that I can define precisely the work of world evangelization so down to
00:02:03.400 | the detail that I will know the day and the hour when it is complete.
00:02:07.560 | I'm not even close.
00:02:09.600 | So there is significant ambiguity.
00:02:13.040 | Hear me, there's significant ambiguity.
00:02:15.920 | It may sound like, "Oh, when the nations are reached, he's coming."
00:02:18.960 | Well, the nations being reached is not defined in the Bible with any clarity.
00:02:25.560 | So there's ambiguity in saying the end will come when the work is complete, though I'm
00:02:31.520 | saying that.
00:02:33.560 | One of the main passages in the Bible for believing this is Matthew 24, 14, "This gospel
00:02:40.720 | of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations,
00:02:47.760 | and then the end will come."
00:02:51.560 | So the main sentence in Zach's question that I need to respond to is this.
00:02:57.200 | He says, "It seems to me that the disciples lived as though they believed Jesus would
00:03:02.320 | return at any day, and the Bible certainly speaks," he says, "of Jesus coming at any
00:03:09.800 | moment."
00:03:10.800 | Now, I disagree with both of those statements.
00:03:14.680 | It's as widely accepted as they are.
00:03:17.680 | I think the apostles and Jesus both taught and lived as though they expected a significant
00:03:25.800 | delay in Jesus coming, not as though he might come at any moment, and I don't think the
00:03:32.520 | Bible speaks clearly of Jesus coming at any moment.
00:03:38.200 | Now, whole books have been written to argue both sides of this issue, and I've got less
00:03:44.500 | than 10 minutes now.
00:03:47.440 | Let it be said loud and clear that disagreements about the timing of the coming of the Lord—and
00:03:56.960 | may it be so—not the fact of it, but the timing of it, are not the kind of disagreements
00:04:04.360 | that separate me from fellowship with other Christians.
00:04:10.240 | So let me just give a few biblical pointers—I'm going to call it that, pointers—for why
00:04:16.360 | I think the way I do.
00:04:18.080 | Jesus said in Matthew 24, 5 through 8, about the time after he would leave the earth, this,
00:04:27.840 | "Many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many
00:04:33.760 | astray.
00:04:35.200 | And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
00:04:40.200 | See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
00:04:47.960 | For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines
00:04:53.600 | and earthquakes in various places.
00:04:57.280 | All these are but the beginning of the birth pains."
00:05:01.960 | Now, that simply does not sound like Jesus is saying, "As soon as I leave, I could
00:05:09.560 | come back at any minute," because he's got all this happening before he comes.
00:05:16.200 | In fact, it seems to me that Jesus went out of his way to discourage people in his day
00:05:24.760 | from thinking that the end would come immediately, or any minute after he left.
00:05:29.640 | For example, in Luke 19, 11, and 12, it says, "As they heard these things, he proceeded
00:05:37.080 | to tell a parable," because he was near Jerusalem and because they supposed that the
00:05:45.360 | kingdom of God was to appear immediately.
00:05:48.480 | So he's correcting a timing issue.
00:05:51.800 | And then he says this, "He said, therefore, 'A nobleman went into a far country to receive
00:06:00.980 | for himself a kingdom and then return.'"
00:06:06.080 | So what's the point of that?
00:06:08.040 | The point is, Jesus' departure, his going to heaven, is like a nobleman going to a far
00:06:15.880 | country and then return.
00:06:18.440 | And he tells it to keep them from thinking it would be immediate.
00:06:22.520 | And he said, "Far country," precisely to discourage them from thinking that he'd come right away.
00:06:30.200 | Or let's take Paul, for example.
00:06:31.800 | When Paul faced a similar misunderstanding in Thessalonica about how soon the second
00:06:38.160 | coming would happen, here's how he responded.
00:06:41.200 | Second Thessalonians 2, verse 1, following.
00:06:44.720 | "Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to
00:06:49.600 | him, that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is
00:06:57.840 | revealed.
00:06:58.840 | And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time.
00:07:06.560 | The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth
00:07:12.560 | and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming."
00:07:15.600 | I don't see how Paul could say that and expect the Thessalonians to believe that Jesus could
00:07:22.760 | come that afternoon.
00:07:24.840 | He's telling them things that are not yet in place, this man of lawlessness, before
00:07:30.600 | the Lord will come.
00:07:33.560 | So what do I make?
00:07:36.180 | What do I make of Jesus' words when he says, for example, in Matthew 25, 13, "Watch, therefore,
00:07:43.920 | for you know neither the day nor the hour."
00:07:47.320 | Or Luke 12, 40, "You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour.
00:07:54.260 | You do not expect."
00:07:56.320 | Now I take these statements to mean that every believer in every generation should be spiritually
00:08:04.640 | vigilant, watchful, never allowing themselves to become drunk with worldliness and indifference
00:08:14.240 | to the Lord's coming.
00:08:16.600 | Because it is possible that in any generation that people may become so besotted, a person
00:08:25.100 | may become so besotted spiritually that they are utterly oblivious to how suddenly things
00:08:32.660 | may develop to issue in the second coming.
00:08:36.380 | Here's the way Jesus says it in Luke 12, 45, "If that servant says to himself, 'My
00:08:43.220 | master is delayed in coming,' and he begins to beat the male and female servants and to
00:08:50.260 | eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does
00:08:57.140 | not expect him, and at an hour he does not know."
00:09:02.260 | In other words, the people who will be taken off guard and ruined at the coming of the
00:09:09.580 | Lord are those who cease to be vigilant.
00:09:14.080 | So always stay awake spiritually, be vigilant, be ready, be alert, be doing your Lord's
00:09:21.580 | business so that He can find you so occupied when He comes.
00:09:25.580 | Now when the New Testament says things like, "The coming of the Lord is at hand," or
00:09:30.020 | "Behold, the judge is standing at the gates," James 5, 8, and 9, both of those statements
00:09:35.900 | come from James 5, the point is not that He will open the gates immediately, but that
00:09:43.340 | we better not presume upon His delay as though we could do what we jolly will.
00:09:51.060 | Please, we don't control His coming.
00:09:53.540 | He is at the gates.
00:09:54.700 | He can open them when He pleases.
00:09:56.700 | He controls the timing.
00:09:59.660 | So I think the most crucial word for us maybe to all agree on here, whatever eschatology
00:10:05.860 | you have, and I've got some really good friends who disagree with me on this.
00:10:10.060 | My father didn't see things the way I'm describing them right now, and I love my father to death,
00:10:16.580 | and I think he's in heaven now and cheering me on.
00:10:20.420 | I don't know if he agrees with me now or not.
00:10:22.420 | I hope he does.
00:10:24.300 | So the most important thing we agreed on, and all of us who love Christ, love His mission,
00:10:29.300 | love the cross, love the gospel, love His second coming, can agree on is Acts 1, 8.
00:10:34.500 | It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed with His own authority.
00:10:39.860 | You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses
00:10:45.860 | in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
00:10:50.420 | So let's seek that power now, and let's finish that mission.
00:10:56.060 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for the question, Zach, and wherever you're listening
00:11:00.340 | in the midst of your busy day, thank you for joining us today.
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00:11:09.780 | For our episode archive or to submit a question of your own, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:18.180 | Well next time, an important question from a man who has been freed from the bondage
00:11:21.420 | of pornography.
00:11:22.880 | Now he faces the question of how to battle lust and temptations subtler than porn.
00:11:28.440 | This is a question we get from men about things like swimsuit issues and lingerie catalogs
00:11:33.220 | that show up in their mailboxes.
00:11:35.360 | That is up next time.
00:11:36.360 | On the other side of the weekend, I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:11:38.480 | We'll see you then.
00:11:39.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:11:47.640 | you