“He says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth,’" (Is. 49:6.)
"You are the light of the world…” (Matt. 5:14a.)
In the early 1700s, there lived in the mountains of Saxony in the central part of Europe a religious group known as the Moravian Brethren. They were refugees, having fled the persecution of the anti-Reformation movement in Bohemia and Moravia. Challenged in a chance encounter with a slave from the West Indian island of St. Thomas, this fellowship decided that they wanted to let their lights shine throughout the world. Thus in 1732, they sent Leonard Dober, a potter by trade, and David Nitschmann, a carpenter, to the island to live and preach the gospel.
Mind you, in those years missionaries didn't come home on furlough every two years. Yet, in the years following this small band of believers sent missionaries to Greenland (1733), the Indian territories of North America (1734), Surinam (1735), South Africa (1736), the Samoyedic peoples of the Arctic (1737), Algiers and Ceylon, or Sri Lanka (1740), China (1742), Persia(1747), Abyssynia and Labrador (1752). Beginning in 1732 and over the course of the next 150 years, this group of faith was to send 2158 of its members into the world to proclaim Christ.
Reading of the Moravian Brethren I am humbled. This truly was a group that maintained a divine discontent. They wished to be a light to the world. I hope that every disciple of Christ will capture this fervent spirit in seeing to it that every person on earth hears the good news. Surely, with all of our money and resources, we can take the gospel to every person on earth.
So often it is hard to discover what God's will is in making a decision. However, this is one area in which we know what God's will is; the question is will we meet the challenge. What it all boils down to is this, are there enough of us willing to go, and are we willing to send them?
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