Cameroon Bible Institute

Chapter Seven: THE WAITING WORLD

          In Matthew 9:37 Jesus made an
observation concerning the harvest which is plenty while the laborers are few.
From this observation, He commanded His followers to go preach the good news to
all the nations and creatures of the earth (Matthew 28:19, Luke 24:47,
Mark16:15, Act 1:8).

This command is yet to be fulfilled
because the gospel has not yet reach all the geographical areas of the world.
Out of the 5,445 languages spoken in the world, the Bible has been translated into
about 3000 languages. The rest of the people of the world speaking the
languages that the Bible has not been translated into have not been able to
read the word of God. Moreover, Jesus asked his disciples to preach the word to
everyone. Considering how large the world’s population has become today,
compared to the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples, there is a
possibility that some persons have not yet heard the gospel in some interior
part of many countries.

If Jesus’ meaning of the world was limited
to countries or nations, we will consider that the gospel has been preached to
the world because a significant number of persons in each nation of the world
has heard the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the
gospel was meant to be preached to “people group”. That is, a group of persons
found in a particular geographical area, relating to each other and have the
same language, culture and custom. From this point of view, we come to
understand why Jesus said the harvest is plenty because most “people group”
have not yet heard the gospel. We have the “unreached people” like the Tribal
people, Muslims, Chinese, Hindus, and Buddhist who are still to accept Jesus
Christ.

One of the challenges faced today is the fact
that some nations are regarded as closed nations. These nations have adopted
laws that hinders the conversion of their citizens to Christianity thus
prohibited missionaries from going there to preach the gospel. However, there
is no law that can be above the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover,
when one door closes, it gives room for another to be opened. Peradventures
some of these doors are closed because their fields are not yet ripe.  But then, if there is a will, missionaries can
use other methods to penetrate such countries (e.g. as social workers,
administrators, medical personnel etc.), live amongst the people and preach the
gospel.

It is worth noting here that the gap
between the sinful man and the righteous God is still very wide. Talk less of
the gap between the fields that are ripe and the number of laborers who are
very fewer. The unreached “people group” population is overwhelming. Till we
develop the mind of Paul as written in Romans 15:20-21, and transform believers
to World Christians, the status quo of this gap risk remaining the same or may
increase.