Why We Go To The Nations

by Albert Ghilardi

We are blessed to be a part of God’s movement toward the nations in this time of the end. God’s thrust is in a two-fold manner. Because of increasing evil, corruption and violence – as in Noah’s day - God is preparing for His coming through various kinds of judgments. These judgments include earthquakes, devastating weather phenomena, failure of economies and also strokes of discipline and judgments in His Church. At the same time, He is putting a final seal upon a remnant that fully wants to be His.

Truly our ministry toward the nations will align itself with all God’s judgements and raise up a godly seed to be aligned with His kingdom purposes. Our ministry must go beyond a social gospel that helps with poverty issues, feeding and clothing the hungry. In the Word, Christ fed the hungry multitudes and was deeply moved to help them with their natural need for food, but in John 6:53-57 Christ invited them to another meal, to eat His flesh and drink His blood. We sense the Lord is calling us to move beyond a social and evangelistic gospel so that nations might be addressed by the full glory of His kingdom. This will require a major work of preparation, fresh vision, faith and sacrifice in His Church.

Jesus used the analogy of the growth of corn in the Word to describe the development of the harvest,: first the blade, then the ear, finally the full corn (Mark 4:28,29). Let us outline below God’s full purpose for the nations.

In Genesis 17:4-6 the Lord proclaimed many nations and kings would come out from Abraham. This birthing of nations is the starting point, like the blade of corn. Then, in Kings 4:31-34 after God was able to deposit His glory among His own people, all nations were attracted and God was seeing the ear of corn brought forth (in type). The nations submitting to this emerging glory in the days of Solomon became a foreshadowing of prophetic passages like Psalm 72:17, Psalm 86:9 and Micah 4:1-4 in which it is declared, “And many nations shall come and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in His paths…” The nations submitting to the Lordship of Christ and to His ways and laws become to our God the harvest of the full corn He is looking for. What an awesome work is entrusted to His Church!

May the burden of our heart and ministry match what is found in the book of James 5:7. The husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth. He has long patience for it until it receives the early and the latter rain. The Lord wants to pour out His Spirit upon the nations in fullness, a working that will bring maturity and full stature to the Church. The reason that CMF must go to the nations at this time is to help bring forth a harvest of the full corn unto the glory of God. Indeed, evangelism must be carried on with full vigor and purity but it must also be followed by the input of the five-fold ministry listed in Ephesians 4:13. May the Lord be honored as we proclaim the coming of the fullness of His glory and purpose.

“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab.2:14)