David Jeremiah - In a World of Bad News, BE THE GOOD NEWS (10/23/2022)
In Matthew 24:14, Jesus prophesied that the gospel of the kingdom would be preached worldwide as a witness to all nations before the end comes, a prediction that seemed impossible from a small group in Galilee but is being fulfilled through persistent evangelism despite opposition, just as seen in the perseverance of a Maasai evangelist and the global spread of the good news.
The Barefoot Evangelists of 1986
It was July of 1986, and thousands of men and women from developing nations around the world boarded airplanes, many of them for the very first time in their lives. They checked into hotels to find something they had never seen before: indoor plumbing. They were called barefoot evangelists—men and women with little education or training who hacked through jungles, forded rivers, endured rejection, and took the good news to huts and hamlets all over the world. Evangelist Billy Graham had raised millions of dollars to bring eight thousand of these local preachers to the Dutch capital for days of training and encouragement.
I remember when he did that. Never in church history had such a gathering occurred on this scale. There were representatives at that conference from one hundred eighty different nations. In one of his sermons that week, Billy Graham preached a very unique and yet very common Billy Graham sermon. I cannot preach like Billy Graham, but I am going to read to you what he said. He said, “Biblical evangelism preaches Christ alone as the Savior of men. Paul told the Corinthians, ‘For Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.’ Jesus alone is the way to God. Apart from Him we are spiritually dead and lost. Jesus Christ by His death and resurrection became the Gospel. Jesus Christ is the Gospel!”
Joseph's Unyielding Witness
And sitting in rapt attention was one particular barefoot evangelist named Joseph, a converted warrior from the Maasai tribe of Central Africa. During the conference, he asked to see Billy Graham. For logistical reasons, as you can all imagine with eight thousand people there, a lot of people wanted to see Billy Graham, and it was very difficult. He could not meet very many people, but Joseph was given a few minutes to tell his story.
As a young man, Joseph had heard the gospel on a dusty African road and he responded instantly by trusting Jesus Christ as his Savior. He soon longed to return to his native village and share the good news of the kingdom of heaven, so he went from door to door when he got home, telling others what had happened to him. He expected everybody’s face to light up, and instead, they were filled with rage. According to his report, the men of the village seized Joseph and held him down while the women brutally flogged him with barbed wire.
After the beating, he was dragged into the bush and left there to die. He crawled to a watering hole, spent several days recovering, and decided he had either left something out of the story or shared the message incorrectly. So he worked on his testimony, rehearsed it, prayed, limped back to the village to try again, saying, “Jesus died for you so that you might have forgiveness and come to know the living God.” He got another flogging. Recovering a bit, he went back and was whipped a third time.
The Power of Persistent Testimony
The barbed wire the third time was cutting into the old wounds from the first time. By now, one of the women who was beating him started to weep uncontrollably. As Joseph lapsed into unconsciousness, he saw others who were beginning to cry. He awoke in his own bed, his former tormentors trying to save his life. And as a result of his patient witness, the whole village came to Jesus Christ.
So Joseph was telling Dr. Graham this story. In order to make his point, he pulled up his shirt so that he could see the scars on his chest and on his back. After he left, the famous evangelist could say only, “I’m not fit to untie his shoes, and he wanted to see me.” Have you ever thought of yourself as a barefoot evangelist, someone who can share the gospel anytime, anywhere, whatever your level of training or education, regardless of the reaction? Well, that is what you are.
Jesus' Astonishing Prophecy
The world is filled with those of us wanting to tell others what Jesus has done for us, and that reality reflects another prophecy from Matthew 24. Remarkably, on one of the last days of His natural life, Jesus predicted a time when the gospel of the kingdom would be preached to the ends of the earth, heralding the approach of His return. No one in those days could ever dream of it. Jesus was a country preacher from a rural mountain in Galilee. He encountered a lot of skepticism on the rare occasions He came to Jerusalem for the festivals.
He spoke in simple parables, pastoral teachings. Few people outside of His circles even knew who He was. People know way more about Jesus now than they did back then. Yet speaking privately with His disciples, shortly before His brutal death, He said to them, one day His unique message would touch the furthest corners of the globe. The gospel of the kingdom would be preached to the ends of the earth, and when it did, the world would never be the same.
The Most Implausible Prediction
Now, of all the prophecies that we have studied this far in Matthew 24, I must tell you, this is the most implausible. I mean, one could imagine the continuation of war, deceivers come and go, there is always going to be disease and famine, but who in the world could ever imagine that the words of a rural rabbi from Galilee would transform human history? Who would ever believe that His words would reverberate in every subsequent generation and be as life-changing two thousand years later as the disciples had known it to be in their own lives?
This is our Lord’s positive prediction. So far, we have looked at a lot of grim prognostications in the Olivet Discourse, but during all those difficult days at the end of history, one thing will be unstoppable, and that is the relentless spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ in every generation, on every continent, and through every difficulty. Like a beam of light through the blackened night, the good news will bring the world its only hope.
Understanding the Gospel of the Kingdom
The message of Jesus, crucified and resurrected, will echo through all the turbulence of the times and herald His swift return. Think of it. The gospel that you and I have in our lives, in our hearts, in our hands, is the only message of hope for the world in which we live. Matthew 24:14, Jesus said it this way: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to the nations, and then the end will come.”
I want to talk with you today about the unstoppable message of the gospel. Let us start with the word “gospel” itself. The Greek term is evangelion. You can instantly see how we get our word “evangelism” from that Greek word—evangelion, evangelism. But look closer. Notice that in the middle of that word is the word “angel,” E-V-A-N-G-E-L-I-O-N. What is an angel doing in the middle of the gospel?
Well, the word literally means messenger. The Greek prefix “eu” means good, so the word “gospel” literally means good message, good news. I always love this because the word “angel” is also used to describe a preacher, so I am an angel—my wife would not agree, but I am going to say it. This word appears for the first time in the Bible at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. In Matthew 4:23 it says: “And Jesus went about all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom,” the good news of the kingdom.
The Heart of the Gospel
The gospel, as you know, is a set of facts rooted in history, based upon the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Son of God, Son of Man, came to this earth and paid the penalty for the sin of the whole world. He could do that because He was the infinite God. One man could not do that for another man, but God can do it for all men, and He did. He came to this world. That is the fact of the gospel.
And those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, as we know, enter a living relationship with God by grace and through faith, and Christ alone is the one who can bring forgiveness and eternal life. Ephesians 1:13 says it this way: “In Christ you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” When we receive this message called the gospel by simple faith, and we confess Jesus Christ as the Lord of our lives, we become living recipients and embodiments of the good news. In other words, we say yes to Jesus.
I cannot help but pause here and ask this question at the beginning of this message: Have you said yes to Jesus? Everything in life and eternity depends on your answer to that question. In Romans 1:16, Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” watch this, “for the gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”
The Kingdom Already and Not Yet
So when you go back to Matthew 24, there is something else that is very interesting. Matthew says: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached.” Why is it called the gospel of the kingdom? Let me try to deal with that because it can become a theological hornets' nest if you let it. The gospel of the kingdom is not any different, really, than the gospel that we know, the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was preached during Jesus’s life, and the answer sounds complicated, but I will keep it simple.
The word “kingdom” is short for the king’s domain. Jesus is the King and we are a part of His kingdom. When we accept Jesus Christ, He sets up His throne in our hearts; He becomes King of our lives. So when He came to bring the gospel, He brought His kingdom. We are now part of His kingdom because He lives in our heart. Now most of you know that is not the end of the story because one day, after the Rapture, after the Tribulation, He is going to return to this earth—we will be with Him and the angels—and He is going to set up His earthly kingdom on this earth.
For one thousand years, He will literally reign as King without any sin or jealousy or any of the other things that happen in earthly kingdoms. It will be a perfect kingdom and it will be the best time the earth has ever seen. That is what we call the Millennium; that is the kingdom. So, get this straight. The kingdom of God is in your heart now, but the kingdom of God will also be in the world on the earth during the period of the Millennium.
The Spread Before and After the Rapture
There is a famous theological phrase for this. It goes like this: “God’s kingdom is already but not yet.” It is already but not yet. When Jesus came to our world the first time, He planted the kingdom on this planet, infiltrating the nations and making the church a part of His kingdom as He came into our hearts. Colossians says it this way: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of His Son of love.” When we became Christians, we became members of the kingdom of God.
And when He comes again, He will establish His theocratic kingdom in Israel and reign there for one thousand years. So there you have it. That is the kingdom. And so, in one sense, Jesus’s kingdom is already here; in another sense, it is still to be established. In Mark’s version of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus was recorded as simply saying: “And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” That is the key point.
Both the current kingdom of the church and the coming kingdom of the millennial age come from the historic fact of Jesus’s death and resurrection. The same gospel that makes you and me instant members of God’s kingdom right now will be the powerhouse that allows Christ to rule the world after His return when He sets up His kingdom. There is not more than one gospel, men and women. There is only one gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel of His domain. It is the gospel of our heart. It is the gospel of the Millennium. It is the gospel of God.
The Gospel's Global Advance Today
Let me tell you what I mean by double fulfillment. The message of the gospel, first of all, will be preached before the Rapture. We are living in what we might call the gospel age. The gospel is being preached all over the world in ways that many of us are quite unaware of. There is a flourishing of the gospel in the midst of the decadence of our culture. Hard to understand, but the darker the night becomes and the more desperate people become, the more they grab for anything that offers hope, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is eternal hope.
We live in a terrible time culturally, and in a wonderful time for the opportunities that we have to share Christ with our loved ones and friends. What happens when the Rapture comes? The Holy Spirit is removed. Do you know what His second name is? He is called the Restrainer. Can you imagine this world without the Restrainer? When the Holy Spirit is removed, all the people in whom He exists are gone; all of the impetus for good is taken away. No wonder the Tribulation happens; no wonder the world becomes the most awful place it has ever been.
So when Jesus said the kingdom is going to be preached to the end of the world, He was predicting that it would be preached during our lifetime and afterwards. The gospel is being preached now. I am preaching the gospel. And the one positive trend amidst the signs that we have discussed so far is that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all of the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. And it will be the end of the church age.
From Pentecost to the Present
One of these days, the last person will be saved and the Rapture will happen. One of these days, the last invitation will be given and the Rapture will happen. I hope you are not waiting for a sudden decision when you see everybody else going up. You do not want to do that. You do not want to take a chance on your eternity because of some silly reason or something somebody has told you. If you are not a Christian, if you are not saved, today is the day of salvation; this is the day of opportunity.
You do not know when the Rapture is going to happen, nor do I, but let me tell you something I do know: there is nothing that needs to happen before it takes place. The Rapture is an imminent event; that means nothing needs to happen before it happens. No one watching Jesus that day on the Mount of Olives could have imagined this prediction coming true—that the gospel coming from Jesus who was sitting four feet away from them would cover the whole earth.
Acts 1:8, Jesus: “You shall receive power as the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Now, did that come true? Let me do a little arithmetic with you, a little math. I love the math of the book of Acts because it tells you what happened. The Day of Pentecost happened, and Peter preached a great sermon. It must have been a good one because three thousand people got saved at the end of the sermon.
And many of them went home from the Day of Pentecost and they were unable to understand the gospel in their own language—it was the miracle of Pentecost. And soon, the number of believers reached five thousand. That is in Acts 4:4, and the disciples began multiplying exponentially, and the number of the churches multiplied as well. In fact, finally in the book of Acts, they do not have any way to describe it any longer, so they just say, “A lot of people got saved.”
Modern Progress and Future Revival
From Antioch, the first official church sent missionaries. Paul and Barnabas were commissioned, and they organized missions. By the early 300s, the Roman Empire had been reshaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing was the same. The gospel had penetrated every institution, every government, everything. The gospel had literally become wild in its propagation. Every generation of Christians from that time until this have spread the news to those around them.
There have been some people of gigantic stature who have led the way—men like Wesley and Carey and Moody and Billy Graham. Most of the work, however, has been done not by the great people that we know. They led the charge; they stood in front of us and challenged us, but the world was changed because of men and women we call laymen: people like you and me who have shared the gospel wherever we have gone.
And today, in this world, we have made progress in sending the gospel everywhere. There is a group called the Joshua Project that keeps track of the gospel and how it is doing in penetrating the various people groups around the world. And there are 17,432 people groups in the world, and about 10,000 of them have been reached with the gospel. That means there are 7,416 people groups that need the gospel that do not have it—what that means is they do not have the Bible, they do not know the gospel, they do not have anybody preaching to them, there are no missionaries.
Technology and Tribulation Evangelism
We are living in this time, men and women, where it is not as hard as it used to be. Because of technology, the gospel now can be taken out of our language and into another language much quicker. We are seeing the Bible and the gospel go into languages every year, every month, where it has never been before. The statistics I have given to you are from 2022, but they will be old very soon. We are making progress.
The good news is that today we are starting to penetrate even the most difficult barriers by means of technology. The Internet is essential, but cheaper methods for setting up satellite TV and radio have also allowed preachers to reach difficult homes of interested people who want to learn about the gospel. Men and women, we live in a time when the gospel has the opportunity to be heard as never before. And the darkness seems to be coming toward us. In the midst of that darkness, the gospel is standing up, showing the way, shining the light.
The unstoppable message of the gospel before the Rapture. But then the Rapture will happen and all God’s people will go to heaven, and immediately after that, in the first three and a half years of the Tribulation, there is going to be a massive revival. There is a prophecy that after the Rapture, during the Tribulation period, there will be the greatest revival on this earth that has ever happened.
First of all, there are going to be two incredible witnesses that show up. They are called the two witnesses—I think it is Moses and Elijah. These two witnesses are going to do amazing things. In fact, they will actually die and come back to life. During the ministry of the two witnesses, thousands of people will get right with God and become Christians. Well, if that is not enough, the two witnesses are followed by 144,000 Spirit-filled Jewish witnesses spread all over the world, preaching the gospel.
Becoming Unstoppable Messengers
So the gospel will be preached during the Tribulation. Many people do not realize that the first half of the Tribulation will be one of the greatest evangelistic awakenings in human history. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world, and then comes the return of God. Now, that is the message of the gospel, but I want to conclude my remarks to you today with the unstoppable messengers of the gospel.
The message is important, but without messengers, the message cannot get distributed. Without preachers, there is no message available. That is why Jesus said, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, they are already white for the harvest!” Jesus said we need helpers; we need messengers. There are people ready to be saved; they just need to hear the gospel. And then He said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
We are a group of barefoot evangelists. We are the people who carry the gospel to the world. First of all, we do it by showing it in our lives. We are representatives of the gospel. We are the embodiment of the gospel. That means we need to be different. We need to be people of God. In the world in which you and I live today, we are more conspicuous than we have ever been. There is a greater contrast between a person who is really walking with God and the rest of the people in the world than there has ever been.
Living as Light in Darkness
You will be noticed because you are different. Jesus said it this way: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light.” “Let your light shine,” Jesus said, “so that men will see your good works.” Jesus could have said, “That they may hear your good words,” but He did not say that in that passage. He said, “That they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
We need to be people that somebody would say there is something different about you because of your relationship with Jesus Christ. If your whole goal in life is just to morph into the culture, you are a secret service Christian; you are never going to make an impact. In 1 Peter 3:1, Peter told the wives of unsaved husbands to live such a humble and happy life that “if any of your husbands do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by your behavior.”
The best way to win your husband is not by the words that you speak, but by the life that you live. One of the secrets that I have discovered in our marriage is the secret of learning how to serve one another. The servant principle in a marriage is an overwhelming concept. So by showing, you preach the gospel. Then by sharing. At some point in our life, words are necessary, and there is no gospel without words.
Simple Witnessing and Generous Support
You can live a good life, but if people do not understand why you are living a good life, they have no hope of finding the answer. To be a witness is simply to tell people what Jesus has done for you. If Jesus has not done anything for you worthy of witness, you need to go back and examine your faith. The best witnesses are the people that just got saved—they cannot help themselves; they have to tell somebody what Jesus has done for them.
If God has done anything good in your life, figure out a way to tell somebody. There is not one of us here, no matter who you are, how long or short your salvation experience has been, who cannot witness. That is how the gospel changed the world. One last way you can help win the world is by supporting. When you give to the gospel, you help the gospel go forward, helping to fulfill our Lord’s prediction that when the gospel is preached to the whole world, the Lord Jesus will return the second time to set up His kingdom.
What better can you invest in, what better can you give to, than the gospel of Jesus Christ?