China is one of the largest and powerful countries in the world today. With a population exceeding 1.3 billion, it is quickly raising to the status of one of the top world leaders. But while this world looks on at the way China has increased both in technology and politics, God has been doing amazing things in a nation known to be very opposed to the Gospel.
Christianity arrived in China in 635 A.D., and since that time hundreds of thousands of missionaries have gone through its borders. However, though there was some success, the Chinese had been closed to the Gospel, and anti-foreigner feels ran high. This led to incredible amounts of persecution. Since the first China martyrs in 845, over a quarter of a million Christians have given the ultimate sacrifice for following Jesus in this country: their lives. From 1900 to present, more Christians have been killed in China than in all other countries combined.
The Church in China went through what is known as the ‘Silent Years,’ when Communism shut down Christian activity and all foreign missionaries were expelled. The remaining Chinese believers faced intense persecution, and thousands died for their faith. For decades the outside world heard nothing of the fate of the Church inside China. Many believed it had been completely destroyed.
They were wrong. The number of Christians in the country has grown to over one hundred million under Communism’s rule since 1949. Before that time, there were only approximately four and a half million Christians, which means the Church has twenty-four times as many believers then before that year. It has been the center of a massive revival unlike anything in the history of mankind, with twenty-five thousand converts every day.
Although these facts are encouraging, the amount of Christians inside China is only 7.6% of the population. For every one Christian in the country, there are fourteen more Chinese that still live in darkness. Of the approximately five hundred people groups in China, just over fifty have been reached with the Gospel. The remaining four hundred and fifty have never seen a Bible, don’t know who Jesus is, and have no idea that there is a God who loves them. These are not people that have heard of Christ and rejected Him; rather, they have never known He existed in the first place.
Who will be willing to reach these peoples, to get them their first Bible, to plant the first church among them? Who will pray for China and give of their time, comforts and finances to bring the Gospel to these people for the very first time? What about you?
Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China and founder of China Inland Mission, said these words: “How shall God’s name be hallowed among them? His kingdom come among them? His will be done by them? His name, His attributes, they have never heard; His kingdom is not proclaimed among them. His will is not made known to them. Do you believe that each unit of these millions has a precious soul, and that there is no other Name under heaven given to men by which they must be saved except Jesus? That no man comes to the Father but through Him? If so, think of the state of these unsaved ones and solemnly examine yourself in the sight of God to see whether you are doing your utmost to make Him known to them.
“Shall not the eternal interests of one-fifth of our race stir up the deepest sympathies of our nature with the most strenuous effort of our Blood-bought powers; shall not the low wail of helpless misery arising from one-half of the heathen world pierce our sluggish ear and rouse us, spirit, soul, and body, to one mighty, continued, unconquerable effort for China’s salvation; that strong in God’s strength and in the power of His might, we may…rescue these captives from the thralldom of sin and Satan; to grace the triumph of our Sovereign King, and to shine forth forever as stars in His Diadem.”
-Reagan Schrock, GOA blog manger
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