Carpe Æternum - Seizing A Window Of Opportunity
Summertime. Warm sunny days. Fields of golden wheat wave softly in the gentle breeze, waiting to be harvested.
We are living in one of the most incredible seasons of spiritual history ever. The Christian Church is witnessing a harvest of souls far greater than any of the apostles witnessed! God’s great zeal for souls is leading His Church to massive victories winning the battle for the hearts of men, women, and children everywhere. Yet most Christians in the Western world are unaware of it.
Unprecedented Growth
Christianity is growing three times faster than the world’s population! Every day, more than 178,000 people come into the Kingdom of God!1
• 28,000 new Christians in Communist China.
• 20,000 in Africa.
• 35,000 in Latin America.
Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world, with a 6.9 percent growth rate, compared to 2.7 percent for Muslims, 2.2 percent for Hindus, and 1 .7 percent for Buddhists!
More than 70 percent of the progress in world evangelism from the time of Christ until today has occurred since 1900. Seventy percent of that progress has happened since the end of World War II and 70 percent of that progress has occurred in the past 36 months!2
From cover to cover, the Bible declares that every tribe, tongue, nation, and people will be touched by the power of the Gospel. Almost every continent has experienced a phenomenal increase in Divine activity within the last three years:
In 1900, Korea had no known born-again Christians, and was considered impossible to penetrate with the Gospel. But by 1986 South Korea was 20 percent Christian, and today it’s conservatively estimated at 40 percent Christian, with more than 12.5 million believers!5 (Psalm 86:9)
Mongolia, one of the most isolated countries in the world, was closed to the Gospel until recently. In 1983 there was only one known Mongolian Christian. By 1989 there were six. But last summer, I stood among more than 300 Mongolian university students singing praises to our great God. (Isaiah 52:10)
In 1950, China had one million believers. By 1980 there were 40 million and by 1992 more than 75 million! The Communist leaders themselves estimate that by the year 2000 there will be more than 100 million Chinese believers!1 (Malachi 1:11)
In India there are more than 85 million believers, more than in the entire USA! Two hundred teams are traveling the nation with an Indian version of the Jesus film, entitled The Man of Peace, and are reporting 100,000 decisions for Christ monthly!1 (Zechariah 9:10)
In 1953, Nepal had no known Christians, but conservative estimates now number them at more than 150,000. Last year more than 5,000 Nepali believers gathered on the steps of the Parliament and held an Faster sunrise service in the nation that has some of the strictest laws against Christianity.2 (Psalm 47:7-8)
More people have come to know the Lord in Muslim Iran in the past ten years than in the previous 1,000 years combined! Thriving churches are found in almost every city and village.2 (Psalm 82:8)
Latin America had only 50,000 born-again believers in 1900, but by 1980 there were more than 20 million. By 2000 that number will grow to more than 100 million! Latinos are getting saved at four times their population growth rate.1 (Isaiah 11:9)
Because Christian soldiers shared their faith with Muslims during the Persian Gulf War, more than 100 new churches have been planted in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. As a result of medical missionaries working among the Kurds after the war, almost the entire population of some Kurdish cities have converted to Christ.2 (Haggai 2:7)
In Myanmar (formerly Burma) 37 of the nation’s top Buddhist monks gave their hearts to the Lord at the premiere showing of the Jesus film.1 (Zephaniah 2:71)
Confirmed reports of supernatural visions of Christ have also resulted in dramatic conversions to Christianity.
In Algeria, a Muslim nation, every person in the village of Bugia became a Christian when Jesus appeared to each of them in dreams, declaring His Lordship, on the same night.2
During the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991 a number of Nigerian Muslim mullahs (holy men) were praying inside the Grand Mosque, the holiest place in all of Islam, when Jesus appeared to them and declared that He was God. They converted to Christianity.
Outside Kathmandu in the Hindu nation of Nepal, 200 people called the police to report seeing a man nailed to a wooden cross in the clouds above their homes. Most had never heard about Jesus, and many became Christians.4
Kairos
In the original Greek text, the Bible uses a special word for the kind of extraordinary spiritual outpouring we are seeing around the world. This word is kairos, which means an opportune or seasonable time; a special season of harvest. It’s not an ordinary word. It’s the word used by God in the New Testament whenever He wanted us to know that a particular event was an important moment in spiritual history .
(This is the first of five parts. Watch out for the rest of this article in the coming issues of Power Up!)
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