The closest to Heaven some may ever be
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
A few months ago I visited Southeast Asia on a mission trip with my church. Before being sent out, our team spent time in prayer for the nation we were visiting and learned a little bit about the culture we were walking into. Looking back, nothing could have prepared me for what we witnessed.
We entered a country coated in deep poverty. The average income is $7 a day, roughly $2,500 a year. On top of that, this is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet. Most of our time was spent inside the capital city where persistent honking, traffic jams, and swarms of people crossing streets and flooding sidewalks is the norm. With an income average like this, it is almost certain that the majority of the population will never be able to afford getting on a plane. Neighboring nations have their borders closed to these natives, entrusting that the majority of these people will never leave their country.
Romans 10 lays out the mission task clearly: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.’”
A country that is 93% muslim and as densely populated as this one almost guarantees that the average citizen will never meet a believer in Christ. How then are they to believe in the One whom they have never heard?
It’s not often that the Lord gives me a direct word or phrase that is so clear I know it is from Him. However, I felt extreme conviction early on in this trip that I haven’t been able to shake since.
On my second or third day in country, I looked around at the conditions people were living in: starvation, deformity, sickness, uncleanliness. Children curled up on newspapers on the sidewalk sleeping. Beggars tapping on the panes of our car window. Women completely covered head to toe in the blazing heat. Physical and spiritual chains more evident than I had ever seen them.
I looked around and couldn’t help but think, “This might be the closest to hell I will ever be.” There is a lot of guilt in that sentence. Because the truth is, our God is so great that He is sovereign over even the darkest places. He created the dirt under our feet in third world countries, as He did the peaks of the Swiss Alps. He created each one of His image bearers in that country as He did His image bearers in every corner of the earth. Yet, I looked around at my surroundings and felt a weight of brokenness and pain like I’d never felt before.
Then the Lord convicted my heart with immense clarity. This might be the closest to hell I’ll ever get, but without a miracle, this is the closest to Heaven that almost all of these people will ever be.
“How are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”
Each of us has the same playbook from the Lord. We know that His final command to us before ascending into Heaven was to go and make disciples of all nations. Every believer has that calling. It will look different for each of us- some of us will become full-time missionaries in far off nations like the one I visited, some of us moved to big cities with few ties and can use our temporary homes as our mission field, and each of us know family members and friends who do not know the Lord.
We do not have the power to save, praise God. But His death on the cross and his extension of grace to each of us has put us in the mighty and wonderful position of sharing His death, burial, resurrection, and saving power with as many people as we can. If you are in Christ today, tell someone the good news of Jesus Christ.
“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ”
