“Some retorted upon me, `There are heathen at home; let us seek and save, first of all, the lost ones perishing at our doors.”’ We must evangelize our home front first, before we worry about the rest of the world. Aren’t there millions of sinners living all around us? Isn’t it logical and right to preach to them first?...’
“This I felt to be most true, and an appalling fact; but I unfailingly observed that those who made this retort neglected those home heathen themselves. They would ungrudgingly spend more on a fashionable party at dinner or tea, on concert or ball or theatre, or on some ostentatious display, or worldly or selfish indulgence, ten times more, perhaps in a single day, than they would give in a year, or in half a lifetime, for the conversion of the whole heathen world, either at home or abroad.”
-John Paton, Missionary from Scotland to the South Sea Islands”
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"It has been objected that there are multitudes in our own nation, and within our immediate spheres of action, who are as ignorant as the South-Sea savages, and that therefore we have work enough at home, without going into other countries.
That there are thousands in our own land as far from God as possible, I readily grant, and that this ought to excite us to ten-fold diligence in our work, And in attempts to spread divine knowledge amongst them is a certain fact; but that it ought to supersede all attempts to spread the gospel in foreign parts seems to want proof.
Our own countrymen have the means of grace, and may attend on the word preached if they choose it. They have the means of knowing the truth, and faithful ministers are placed in almost every part of the land, whose spheres of action might be much extended if their congregations were but more hearty and active in the cause: but with them the case is widely different, who have no Bible, no written language, (which many of them have not,) no ministers, no good civil government, nor any of those advantages which we have.
Pity therefore, humanity, and much more Christianity, call loudly for every possible exertion to introduce the gospel amongst them.
--William Carey, Section one of Enquiry into the Use of Means in the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Heathen.
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You nailed it. Perfect. Praise God
ReplyDeleteThe need for salvation is universal there is no variance from one location to another. The need for the proclamation of the gospel is not universal. In the United States for example there is a church on every corner, a bible in every motel room, billboards, radio and television all carry the message. I acknowledge that much of the preaching is lacking, even erroneous, however in every village throughout our nation there is someone who can point a man to Christ, such is not the case in many nations throughout the world.
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