CENTURY OF GENOCIDE 1850-2000 AD
Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
During the 19th century we saw one of the greatest expansions of Christianity in world history. In the 18th century we saw a man by the name of William Carey who left the shores of Great Britain and went to India. He felt an overwhelming responsibility for the people who had never heard of the Gospel.
At a ministers’ meeting in 1786, Carey had raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the world. J. R. Ryland, the father of John Ryland, is said to have retorted: “Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine.”
William Carey published a little book called: AN ENQUIRY INTO THE OBLIGATIONS OF CHRISTIANS TO USE MEANS FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHENS. It was divided into five parts. The first part consisted of a Biblical basis for missions; the second part was a history of missions from the beginning to the present time; the third part consisted of statistics of what still needed to be done; the fourth part dealt with answers to objections that were raised, and the fifth part called for a mission society that could meet the practical means of seeing missions being accomplished.
Carey became famous for his saying: “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God.” In 1793 William Carey, along with his wife Dorothy and a missionary doctor by the name of John Thomas, arrived in Calcutta, India and began their missionary work. Later their son Peter died of dysentery which caused his wife Dorothy to have an emotional breakdown from which she never recovered.
William Carey started what was known as the “Modern Missionary Movement.” New mission societies were formed, missionaries were sent out and the kingdom of God began to spread. In 1793 William Carey left for India and he died at the age of 73 in 1834. During those years of discouragements: no Indian convert for seven years, debt, disease, a deterioration of his wife’s mind, death – the grace of God and the power of the Word continued to conquer for Christ through William Carey.
By the time Carey had run the race he had started what is known as a “Modern Missionary Movement,” and seen the Scriptures translated and printed into 40 languages, and founded a college at Serampore, been a college professor and started schools for girls. The Good News of the Gospel of the Kingdom was beginning to go out all over the world. An Indian theologian said about William Carey that he did more for India than Mahatma Gandhi did. Gandhi is known as the father of India. What a testimony of William Carey.
This was the first wave of the modern missionary movement. About 100 years later another young man (age 21) by the name of Hudson Taylor went to China and instead of working on the coast (as most missionaries were doing) he decided to dress like the Chinese and go into their interior. In so doing he started what is now known in mission history as the “second wave” of the Modern Missionary Movement. New societies were born, new endeavors were taken and the word of God began to spread into the interiors of the different nations and continents of the world.
The third wave, and possibly the last wave of nations in reaching this world, started in the 1930s when another young man was handing out Spanish Bibles in Central America. He met an old man that he gave the Bible to and the old man asked: “If your God is so great why can’t he speak my language?” This young man, William Townsend, realized that in the boundaries of what we now call “nations” there are different groups of people who speak different languages, having different cultures, dress, etc.
He saw the need to get the word of God into these different languages and to see a church planted in these different people groups that could then evangelize their own people. At the beginning of the 21st century we now have an understanding of what it takes to get the job done (world evangelism), where we stand at the moment in completing that task and what it will take to finish. It is an exciting time to be alive!
However, during this time there are many other evil forces at work which we will look at.