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O
fellow believer: "There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed."
Let us lift up our eves and behold the fields white unto harvest.
We have dwelt at length upon the great stretches of territory untaken in
our own lives. But we would fall woefully short of God's program
and purpose in this chapter if we did not give our thought to the vast
unoccupied fields in all the world. Oh, to get over the
"civil war" that we may go into all the world and win for the Lamb
the reward of His sufferings! The great Shepherd of the "other sheep"
who commanded us, "Occupy till I come" must be in agony over those other
sheep concerning whom He Himself said, "Them also I must bring." There
is perhaps no single point upon which the church of Jesus Christ is so
utterly disobedient to the command of her crucified Lord as upon the subject
of "missions." The Canaanites of covetousness and laziness--thc sins of
omission are greater often than the sins of commission--have killed the
forward march of the church. The church as a whole is "living after
the flesh"--and dying, going into atrophy and death. From Dr. Glover's
Progress of Worldwide Missions we would quote the following by a
well-known missionary leader, the Rev. Charles R. Watson, D.D., President
of the American University at Cairo:
The occupation of all
the unoccupied fields is the distinctive and crowning challenge of this
missionary age. Upon the church's acceptance of that challenge great
issues seem to depend: issues affecting the vitality of the Christian Church,
issues determining the welfare and happiness of millions of our fellow
creatures, issues conditioning the lives of nations, issues upon which
God Himself has been pleased to hang the unfolding of His eternal purposes
in Christ. The unoccupied fields must be occupied, and what is the
price of their occupation? The pathway which leads to their occupation
lies across other unoccupied fields--great areas these--in our own lives
and hearts, not yet surrendered to the will of Christ, not yet fully occupied
by His Spirit, not yet touched by the flame of a perfect love and consecration.
Only as He is permitted to fully occupy these nearer areas in our own lives
will He be able to gain entrance into those more distant fields of the
unoccupied world.
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