The following article was taken from “How Lost Are The Heathen?” by J. Oswald Sanders, former General Director Emeritus of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship:
The Responsibility Of The Christian
If the foregoing pages set forth the Scriptural teaching concerning the spiritual condition of the unevangelized heathen, and I believe they do, then how urgent is our obligation to make Christ known to all men. Even if the position taken is challenged, but there remains the faintest possibility that they represent the facts of the case, what a burden of responsibility still rests upon us! To have the knowledge of Christ imposes upon us the inescapable duty to share that knowledge with every man without delay. To withhold it is a crime of infinite magnitude against that large portion of the human race which is still in midnight gloom.
The Church and individual Christians will have much to answer for because they have withheld the saving truth from needy souls. Missionary history in all lands is replete with poignant incidents which underline the crime of delay.
An old Eskimo said to Bishop Selkirk, “You have been many moons in this land. Did you know this good news then? Since you were a boy? And your father knew? Then why did you not come sooner?”
A Peruvian in the snowy Andes exclaimed, “How is it that during all the years of my life I have never before heard that Jesus Christ spoke these precious words?”
A Moor asked a Bible colporteur in Casablanca, “Why have you not run everywhere with this book? Why do so many of my people not know of Jesus whom it proclaims? Why have you hoarded it to yourselves? Shame on you!”
An Egyptian woman, hearing the gospel for the first time said, “It is a wonderful story. Do the women in your country believe it?” “Yes.” Pause. “I don’t think they can believe it or they would not have been so long in coming to tell us.”
“So you have come at last,” said a Taoist priest to a missionary as he entered a Chinese temple. In a vision he had been impressed that some day a messenger would come from a far-away land. But should he have had to wait eighteen years?
“How long have you had the glad tidings in England?” asked Mr. Nyi of Hudson Taylor. He replied vaguely, “Several hundred years.” “What, several hundred years? Is it possible you have known about Jesus so long and only now have come to tell us?”
A Muslim woman in Bengal inquired of a missionary, “How long is it since Jesus died for sinful people? Loot at me. I am old, I have prayed, given alms, gone to holy shrines, become as dust from fasting. And all this is useless. Where have you been all the time?”
Where indeed?
