by James Ruckman
In 1950, there were approximately 2.5 billion people in the world. The USA had approximately 100,000 missionaries going out to reach their world.
Today our world population is over 7.5 billion!!! The harvest field has tripled in the number of souls. The USA is currently sending some 29,000 missionaries to reach their world (only 7,200 of which are Independent Baptist). The number of missionaries has decreased by 71%!
So let’s make this clear: in 68 years, the mission field has tripled in size while the missionary labor force going out of the USA has decreased by 71%.
Jesus said “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he would send laborers…”.
WE NEED TO BE FASTING AND PRAYING; pleading and crying; begging and imploring the Lord to send, to shove, to push, to cause, to thrust men and women out of their comforts and onto a mission field. We need Christians to lose their desire to fulfill the American Dream and leave it all behind to reach the world for whom Christ died!
And we need preachers to quit making the Call of God so mysterious that no one understands it, and so stringent that no one could ever respond to it. God calls men; God calls women; God calls boys and He calls girls to the mission field! We need to quit being so jealous of our members that we won’t even let God have them to use them in His harvest fields.
Will you pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers?
Yes, the world does need more, especially places where man has not yet laid a foundation, where there aren’t already a bunch of churches. It’s amazing how many men will make excuses not to go. Often, it’s the one main excuse, and it’s not biblical.
Looking at the state of things today I believe the greatest need for missionaries is in our own nation the United States of America!