The Greatest Crisis

The following is a lightly edited transcript provided by a transcription service. Please check the video before quoting.

David Platt at Breakaway

So I only have a few minutes tonight to speak about the greatest injustice in the world. So I’m going to dive right in and I want to let you know where this is all going over the next few minutes. So at the end of our time together tonight, I’m going to offer you a specific invitation to stand wherever you are in this arena. If you would be willing to put a stake in the ground tonight and say the following, I’ll put it up here on the screen.

God, I will do whatever you call me to do, no matter what it costs to get the gospel to people who have never heard it. God, I will do whatever you call me to do, no matter what it costs to get the gospel to people who have never heard it.

So the key words in this statement are God. So this is you potentially standing before God. This is not about standing because somebody else is standing or you think you should stand or feel bad sitting. This is about you soberly saying to the God who made you and who loves you saying to him, I will do whatever. So no strings attached.

Where is God?

God, if that is to pack my bags and move somewhere else, anywhere else in the world, I’ll do it. If that is to sell my possessions, if that is to not marry or only marry someone else who’s saying the same thing, it would make no sense to say this, then marry someone who’s not saying this. So this is at the very least limiting the number of people you might marry.

So we’re talking major decisions in your life now and in the future, in the rest of your life. This is saying God, whenever, wherever, however, whatever you call me to do, no matter the cost, knowing there is absolutely no way for you to carry out this commitment without cost, without sacrifice. So this is not for everybody.

Many of you are not ready to say this, so don’t stand. We’re talking about sacrifice. To do what? To get the gospel, the good news of God’s love in Jesus. We’ve just been singing about to people, to women and men and kids and young adults and college students. People just like you and me who follow this have never heard it. So people who’ve never heard the gospel,

Who Are the Unreached?

Lemme show you a map up here on the screen. There are three main colors on this map. The green areas of this map represent places in the world that have been reached with the gospel. So if you are living in one of the green areas, it doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. Obviously not everybody in the green areas is a Christian, but it does mean you have Christians around you.

You have churches around you where the gospel is being proclaimed. That area has been reached with the gospel. The yellow areas on this map represent areas that are less reached with the gospel, and it’s usually in one of two directions.

Either there used to be a lot of gospel proclamations and access to Christians and churches in a particular place, maybe parts of Europe, and now there’s a lot less. So there’s a lot less access to the gospel or maybe the gospel has come to one of those places more recently. So it’s starting to grow, but there’s still not a lot of access to the gospel. And then you have the red. So the red areas on this map are classified as unreached by the gospel.

What do We Mean by Unreached?

So let’s be clear what we mean by unreached. Unreached doesn’t just mean lost, so people are just as lost in college station as they are in Somalia. The difference is there’s a good number of Christians and churches in College Station.

There are hardly any Christians and churches in Somalia, which means practically, if you live in one of the red areas, the likelihood is you’ll be born, you’ll live and you’ll die and you’ll never even hear the gospel. You’ll be unreached by it.

And the number of people living in this red area on this map is 3.2 billion. There are approximately 3.2 billion people in the world who will die without ever hearing the gospel. If someone either doesn’t go there or if the few believers who are there don’t get some help and support. And here’s the deal, I believe we can reach them.

Think about the world we live in today, globalization, urbanization, ease of travel, and new technologies. We have more opportunities to spread the gospel in the world than we have ever had before in history. The church in the first century could have only dreamed about the opportunities that we have to reach the nations. It took them months to sail from one city to the next. We can get to the other side of the world in a day.

How do We Reach the Unreached?

They had to write letters that would take weeks or months to be delivered between social media, translation software, and the metaverse. We can communicate with people around the world in real time from a device in our pockets.

And I look out across this arena, I see students getting degrees that will open all kinds of doors to jobs overseas in these red areas for any medical students, for any nurses, doctors, I could point you today to hundreds of jobs in the heart of the Middle East that you can get as soon as you graduate.

The same is true for teachers, engineers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and fitness specialists. I could go on and on in addition to jobs you can get here in one of the wealthiest places in the world that can support work in the red. But it all starts with saying, God, I will do whatever you call me to do no matter what it costs to get the gospel to people who’ve never heard it.

And in order to lead us to this invitation, for some of you to stand and say this, I actually want to do something a little different. I want to flip this idea around a moment and just ask the question, what if we don’t stand?

What does God Call Us to Do?

And say this? In other words, what happens if we don’t do whatever God calls us to do? What happens if we don’t sacrifice and we don’t get the gospel to people who’ve never heard it? What happens to 3.2 billion people when they die if we don’t get the gospel to them? That’s a pretty important question, isn’t it?

For 3 billion people in the world, and I think for most Christians in America where the gospel has come, either we don’t realize there are 3 billion people in the world who’ve never heard the gospel or we think they’ll be okay when they die, they’ll go to heaven.

That’s the only answer I can come up with for why we are not talking about this all the time in our churches and campus ministries and everywhere in Christianity Today, if we believed 3 billion people were dying and going to an eternal hell without ever even hearing how they could go to heaven, I think we’d be talking about this all the time.

We got to do something and not just a few of us here or there, like all of us, we got to all do something, pull our resources together, go send, get behind brothers and sisters who are already there in the red like this is not tolerable.

We Must Bring Justice

We’re passionate about justice. Is there any greater injustice than 3 billion people going to eternal hell while all the people who know how to get to heaven sit back and do little to nothing? And by the way, that is what we’re doing and we’ve done the research, but we spend, we know almost all of our resources on ourselves.

We give a small percentage of our resources to churches or ministries and then an even smaller percentage of that we spend on what we call missions work around the world. That’s the category we put it in where we give to other places.

So we spend most of our money in churches and ministries on making church comfortable for ourselves and then we give a small percentage to go around the world, but even that tiny percentage that goes around the world, did you know that approximately 99% of the money we give around the world actually goes to places that are green on this map in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Europe and Asia over here?

I’m not saying it’s bad to give and be a part of what our brothers and sisters are doing in those places,

God Opens Our Eyes

But God opens our eyes. We’re throwing pennies to billions of people who’ve never even heard the gospel. And I guess that makes sense if the people in the red are going to heaven, but it makes no sense.

This cultural Christianity we are living in or we just kind of coast things out till we get to heaven and a nice comfortable Christian spin on the American dream makes no sense if those 3 billion people are going to hell. So what does the Bible say and what does God tell us in his word happens to them? And I just want to show you what God says about them..

We Must Follow What God Calls us to do

In a way that should leave us with a clear answer to what happens if we don’t do whatever God calls us to do, no matter the cost to get the gospel to them. So can I just encourage you to write this down either physically or at least imprint it on your mind and your heart what God says about these 3.2 billion people?

So here’s the first thing we know about them, and if you have a Bible and want to follow along, I’m going to have verses up here on the screen, but Romans chapter one is where we’re going to start. We’re just going to kind of work our way through it. So Romans chapter one, the first thing God tells us about them, all the people in the red is that they have knowledge of God. They have knowledge of God. This is Romans 1, verse 18.

We Must Not Suppress God

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppressed the truth of God by their wickedness and following this what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them since the creation of the world.

God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse for although they knew God, they all have knowledge of God, plain and simple, everyone in the red, no matter where they live, who they are, they have knowledge of God.

We Must Not Reject God

Now, of course, they don’t acknowledge or believe in God, which leads to truth number two about them. They have all rejected God. This says Romans 1 21 through 25, although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened, although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore, God gave them over the sinful desires of their hearts, the sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. Watch this, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and they worshiped served, and created things rather than the creator who is forever praised. Amen.

Now, just to be clear, this is not just talking about them. This is talking also about us and every other person in the world, whether in the green yellow, or red on that map. This is the reality of sin in every single person’s heart.

In my heart, in your heart, and in every person around the world, we have all sinned against God. We’ve turned from God’s ways to our own ways, God’s thoughts to our own thoughts, what we would call our truth, which then leads to truth number three. Again, talking about those but in a way that applies to all of us. None of them are innocent before God.

We are All Guilty of Sin Before God

These initial verses in Romans are so sobering from one 18 to about two 16, you see God talking about the Gentiles, the people who are not Jewish people, and their sinfulness. Then in verse 17 of chapter two, he says, now if you call yourself a Jew, and he begins to talk about the sinfulness of the Jewish people all the way to chapter three, verse eight, then in chapter three verse nine, he says, what shall we conclude then?

Are we any better? No, and not at all. Then he says, as it is written, follow this. There is no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands, no one who seeks God all have turned away. They have together become worth.

There is no one who does good, not even one. In other words, all people are guilty of sin before God. And here’s why this is so important because the way this question is most often asked when I’m on a college campus and somebody says, well, I mean what do you think happens to the innocent person in Africa or Asia?

This child, this person, adult, this mom, this dad? What happens to them when they die if they’ve never heard the gospel? And if you were to ask me that question, I would say to you, based on the word of God, without hesitation, that person goes to heaven even though they’ve never heard the gospel.

And I would say that because if they’re innocent, they have no need for a gospel that says how you can be saved from sin. If they’re innocent, of course, they’d go to heaven. The only problem is they don’t exist.

We Must Spread the Gospel Around the World

There are no innocent people around the world just waiting to hear the gospel. You see how we bias the question toward us and away from God as if God is unjust and all of us deserve heaven. That’s not what the gospel says.

There are no innocent people all around the world. There are guilty people all around the world. That’s why they need the gospel. There are no innocent people in the world before God, which leads to the fourth thing God tells us about them. They all stand condemned for rejecting. God says in verses 19 and 20, in Romans three, when over to whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth is silenced, the whole world is held accountable to God.

No one again will be declared righteous and God’s sight by the works of the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sin. In other words, not only are all people guilty, but there’s no amount of good we can do to overcome our guilt because we have rejected God. And that’s true regardless of whether or not we’ve heard the gospel.

And this is really important because I think many Christians have the idea that these people in the red, I mean surely they’ll go to heaven because they haven’t rejected the gospel. They never even heard it.

What does it Mean to be Let Into Heaven?

So surely God is loving and will let them into heaven. But think about that. If that were the case, if they’re not hearing the gospel gives them some sort of pass into heaven because they haven’t heard, then what’s the worst thing we could do for their eternity?

Go and tell them what the gospel was before we got there, a hundred percent of them going to heaven. Now that we showed up with the good news, there’s a chance they could go to hell. Thanks a lot. Like, keep it to yourself. The reality is whether or not people have heard the gospel, they stand condemned for rejecting God.

These are some of the most weighty verses in the Bible. This picture of the sinfulness of men and women all over the world, including you and me and all those in the red. And I just picture Paul writing this letter to the church in Rome and for three chapters he’s talking about sinfulness and he gets to chapter three verse 20, and I can just picture him in tears, just overwhelmed by the guilt of every person before holy God standing condemned before God.

But then I picture him wiping the tears from his eyes and picking up the pen and writing. But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known. And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe there is no difference for all who have sinned and what fall short of the glory of God and our

God Loves All

Just memorize the bad news, the good news, Romans 3 25, they’re justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Ah, this is truth number five about them. God loves them and God has made a way of salvation for them. Just as God loves us, God loves them.

This is the gospel. God has made a way for them to be saved from all their sin. God has come to them just like he’s come to us in the person of Jesus. Jesus has lived the life we could not live a life of no sin. And then even though he had no sin for which to die, Jesus chose to die on a cross to pay the price for sinners.

And the good news keeps getting better because he didn’t stay dead for long. Three days later, he rose from the grave in victory over sin and death so that anyone, anywhere, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, if you will turn from your sin, and put your trust in Jesus, you will be forgiven of all your sin and reconcile to him to enjoy God for all of eternity.

This is the gospel. I don’t assume in an arena this size that everyone in this room knows this gospel in your heart.

God Will Forgive Your Sin

So let me share the good news with you. This is what God has done for you, not just the person beside you in front of you, behind you. God loves you so much that he has made a way for you to be forgiven of all your sins and restored a relationship with him forever.

I think about being in the red one day. I was sitting outside this temple with a couple of guys, one guy who worshiped this temple and this particular religion, and another guy who worshiped another temple in a totally different religion.

So the three of us are talking and they keep saying we have different religions, but they’re very similar. We may use different terms, but our religions are fundamentally the same. We’re just kind of superficially different.

And I’m sitting there listening and listening and finally I said, it’s almost like you guys picture God or whatever you want to call him at the top of a mountain and we’re all at the bottom of a mountain and you may take this path up and I may take this path up, but in the end, we’ll find ourselves in the same place.

Jesus is the Way to Salvation

And they smiled. They said, exactly, you understand? I said, lemme ask you a question. I said, “What would you think if I told you that the God on the top of the mountain didn’t wait for us to find our way up to him, but he actually came down the mountain to where we are?” And they said, well, that would be great. I said that is the difference. Let me introduce you to Jesus. God has made the way of salvation for us now based on what we do, but based on what he has done in love for us.

And it’s not just us. He’s made a way of salvation for them, which leads to truth number six. They cannot come to God apart from faith in Jesus. The people in the red cannot come to God apart from faith in Jesus. This is Romans 3 27 through 30 where that is boasting. It’s excluded on what principle?

That observing the law is based on what you do, not on that of faith, if we maintain that a man is justified, made right before God by faith, apart from observing the law, apart from what we do, is God, the God of Jews only. Is he not the God of Gentiles two, yes of Gentiles two, since there is only one not God who will justify making right the circumcised, that’s the Jewish people by faith and the uncircumcised, that’s the Gentiles through that same faith.

Spreading Jesus

They can’t come to God apart from faith in Jesus. But that then brings us back to the question, doesn’t it? How can people put their faith in Jesus if they’ve never heard of Jesus? And that is the exact question that Paul asks in Romans chapter 10.

So turn it over there with me or look at it on the screen here. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they’ve not believed in? How can they believe in the one whom they’ve not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they’re sent as it’s written? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?

Did you follow that? The picture here is crystal clear. People can’t put their faith in Jesus if they don’t hear about Jesus and they won’t hear about Jesus. If somebody doesn’t do whatever God calls them to do, to go and tell them about Jesus, get the picture. 3 billion people cannot go to heaven if they don’t hear about the one who makes heaven possible. And it’s simple logic they won’t hear unless somebody goes and tells them,

Let the Unreached Hear the Gospel

Which leads to the last thing about them. And it’s where you and I come in. Number seven, Jesus has left us in this world to get the gospel to them. It’s why we’re here. It’s why you’re here in this world to do whatever he says to get the gospel to them. Right? Before Jesus went to heaven, what did he tell his followers?

Go and make disciples of all the nations. It’s crystal clear, not just a couple of you do this, this is what it means to follow me.

You give your life to go and make disciples of all the nations, not just in one place, disciples in every place, among every group of people, among all the nations. You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you so that you’ll be, why do you have the Holy Spirit in you so that you’ll be a what?

A witness where to the ends of the earth. This is Christianity. This is what it means to follow Jesus. Lemme show it to you in what we just read in Romans chapter 10. Look at the verbs in this passage in reverse. And as you do, you’ll see Jesus’ plan for the spread of his love to all the nations. So it all starts, look at the last verb here. Okay, sent. It all starts with Jesus sending his followers. And what does he send them to do? He sends them to preach.

Share the Good News of God

And when you hear the preach, don’t picture standing behind a podium in front of a large group of people like that, but on a much more basic level, just looking in somebody else’s eyes and telling them the good news of God’s love for them. Like proclaiming, and sharing good news. That’s what this word means.

So Jesus sends his followers to preach. When they preach, what happens? People will hear, right? Unless we’re preaching to a wall just to yourself, people will hear the gospel when we proclaim it, when we share it, and when they hear what will happen, they will believe. Now, obviously, we know not everybody who hears the gospel believes we know that. But what did we sing just a second ago?

We know how the story ends. Revelation chapter seven verses nine and 10 tell us that a day is coming when a multitude that no one can count from every nation, every tribe, every language, and every people will gather around the throne of God praising him for his salvation. You know what that means?

That means you can go anywhere on that map in the red, you can share this gospel and somebody’s coming out, somebody’s going to be around the throne that day guaranteed. So when they hear not all, but some will believe, and when they believe, what will they do? They will call on his name and everyone who calls on his name will be what? Saved. There’s the plan. So let’s just ask the question then. Where could there be a potential breakdown in this plan?

People Must Believe

Will everyone who calls in the name of the Lord be saved? Yes. No breakdown there. Will those who believe call? Yes. Will those who hear believe? Again, not everybody, but definitely some will.

When this gospel is preached, will people hear yes again unless we’re talking to a wall? Is Jesus still sending his followers or has he taken a generation off? No. Jesus is still sending. So the only potential breakdown in this whole plan is when followers of Jesus sent by him fail to speak this gospel to people who’ve never heard it.

In other words, the only potential breakdown in this plan is when followers of Jesus decide we’re just going to live our lives in places where the gospel has gone and we’re going to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to places where it hasn’t gone.

We’re going to create a whole culture of Christianity that essentially ignores them and every once in a while throws some pennies to them to make ourselves feel better. And tonight I am inviting you to change that picture, to refuse to settle for a cultural Christianity that is content to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to 3 billion people in need of the greatest news in the world.

The People in Afghanistan

And you might say, well, what can I do to change that? I’m only one person. Well, of course you are. God made you that way, but so are they. I know I’ve mentioned 3 billion over and over again, but these are individual people. See them. We’re talking about Jira and Afghanistan. Her group is Pashtoon. It’s the largest people group in Afghanistan.

She and her close-knit tribe live by a code of protecting one another’s honor and showing generous hospitality. She works hard for her family day in and day out in a barren mountainous region where she lives. I’m talking about the heal in Somalia. He lives in the capital, Mogadishu, a port city just north of the equator on the Indian Ocean.

Most of the men he knows have left Somalia. He has stayed. He’s convinced this is the best way he can care for his parents his wife and his kids. We’re talking about Amir and Aaliyah in Yemen, older brother, and younger sister, they still possess childlike zeal for life even though they live in one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world right now surrounded by civil war and conflict that they are born into. Their parents struggle to find food for them every single day.

God Made Us and Love’s Us All

And hear what Jesus is saying about each one of them. They are all hard to heal. Amir and Aaliyah, all have knowledge of God God who made them and loves them. They have all rejected God. They’re all guilty of sin and they all stand condemned before God in their sin.

Yet God loves all of them. God loves Hara. God loves to heal. God loves Amir. God loves Aaliyah so much that he has sent his son Jesus God in the flesh to give his life so they could have eternal life, but they can’t experience eternal life if no one tells them about Jesus. And Jesus is saying to an arena full of college students who know this good news, I’ve left you here for a reason.

And it’s not to spend your life on stuff that won’t last. I know that what goes on in that stadium during the fall on this campus or even in this arena is fun and exciting. But they are superficial battles. They’re not real battles.

They don’t matter. Open your eyes and see what matters. Give your affection to what matters. There’s a billion Haas and heels and amirs and aliases on a road right now that leads to an eternal hell and nobody’s even told them how to go to heaven.

Seeing God through Fresh Eyes

Did you see it? God, open your eyes tonight for the first time or in a fresh way to see this. And then I know some are still thinking, but how can that be just of God? I know so many are probably thinking that. How can that be just of God?

And it is just like us in our sinfulness to point the finger and question the justice of God while we directly disobey the commands of God. See it. Do you want justice? Then give your life. Do whatever he calls you to do to alleviate eternal suffering, eternal poverty, eternal slavery to sin for billions of people.

That’s the invitation for you no matter who you are, regardless of your giftings, the way you’re wired, no matter what you bring to the table, to put a stake in the ground tonight and to say, God, I will do whatever you call me to do, no matter what it costs to get the gospel to people who have never heard it. I’m just saying one more thing before we give an opportunity to respond. If there is any hesitation in you, whatever, am I really willing to do whatever

What does it Mean to be Christian?

I go to this place or that place, change this or that in my life. I don’t know. I just want to encourage you, Christian one, this is what it means to be a Christian. This is not like super mature Christianity. This is basic Christianity.

If anyone would come after me, Jesus says he must deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me wherever I lead. This is what it means to be a Christian. The fact that this even sounds like a big level of commitment shows how much we have diluted the call to follow Christ. This is what it means to be a Christian.

Trust in Jesus

There are 3 billion people in the world who haven’t heard the gospel because we’re not following Jesus because he’s clearly told us to go. But so this is what it means to be a Christian. And then based on that, just think if you can trust Jesus to save you and satisfy you for the next 10 trillion years, surely.

You can trust him to lead you for the next few on this earth and to satisfy you every step of the way as you give your life for the end of the story, as you give your life, whether that’s maybe the Lord leads you in college station the rest of your life and you sacrifice here for the spread of the gospel among the red, or maybe the Lord leads you into the Middle East. Whatever you want me to do, I just want to live.

To see a multitude that no one can count from every nation, tribe, and tongue gathered around your throne singing your praises. My life is yours, so will you bow your heads with me? I want to invite you to bow your heads and close your eyes. I really want to challenge you to keep your eyes closed during this time.

I know it’s so easy just to kind of look around. I want to see what’s happening. This invitation is not about anybody else but you and God. This is not about seeing how anybody else responds and it’s sure not about letting the way they respond affect your response as best as I can. I just want to help you look to God alone right now, you before God.

He’s the one speaking to your heart. Tune everybody else out In just a moment, I’m going to ask you to stand if you would say this, God, I will do whatever you call me to do no matter what it costs to get the gospel. People who’ve never heard it, and really, I really want to encourage you to stand only if you’re willing to put a stake in the ground tonight and say that before God.

Spread the Word of God

And some of you, for a host of reasons, are not at a point where you’re ready to say that at the same time. Others of you may have maybe said something like this in the past, and I want you to feel free to stand and say in a fresh way tonight, that steak is still in the ground in my life. God, here I am.

Whatever you call me to do, you alone know what’s going on in your heart and your life right now. And I’m praying to God for a generation of students who will say, we’re going to do whatever he tells us to do to get the gospel. People who have never heard it and tonight is an opportunity for some of you to join in that.