Mars, Modern Idols, and More | News Briefs

Missions-Catalyst-no-tagline_largePolyprismatic-Tiled-World-Map-800px“Without faith in Christ, where does one look for salvation? Read on. But be warned. This edition is a little odd.”

  1. EARTH: Elon Musk’s Salvation Plan for Humanity
  2. GERMANY: Six Modern Idols in the Land of the Reformation
  3. CENTRAL ASIA: “I Want to Know What I am Saying”
  4. USA: JESUS Film Project Introduces Gift Cards
  5. SOUTH ASIA: How God Is Using One Elderly Man, Serving Via Skype

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Greetings,

“Beat it into their heads continually,” he said. To what did Martin Luther refer? Nothing less than “the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls,” sola fide, faith alone. Five hundred years after the Reformation, the church continues to stand on this faith, and it can deliver prisoners from works-based cults (see this video or this one).

David Platt writes, “Salvation by faith alone is the best news we could possibly hear or deliver. If we lose that, we lose everything. So let us rejoice in that salvation, and let sola fide ring out from our lips in the Church and among the lost until the day when such faith finally becomes sight.”

Without faith in Christ, where does one look for salvation? Read on. But be warned. This edition is a little odd.

blessings,
Pat

EARTH: Elon Musk’s Salvation Plan for Humanity

Source: God Reports, October 3, 2017

SpaceX founder and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk is not pinning his hopes on God’s plan for a new Heaven and a new Earth.

He is offering an astonishing and remarkably detailed Plan B: to escape the confines of Earth before the apocalypse arrives, colonize Mars, and eventually move out to other planets and stellar bodies in the far reaches of our solar system.

Musk sees two paths diverging in the years ahead. “History is going to bifurcate along two directions: One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event—I don’t have an immediate doomsday prophecy—but eventually … there will be some doomsday event,” he declared.

“The alternative is to become a space-faring civilization and a multi-planet species, which I hope you agree that is the right way to go.”

He delivered these remarks in a 63-minute talk, “Making Humans a Multi-planetary Species” before the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on September 27.

From a secular perspective, it might be considered one of the most momentous talks in human history. The audience greeted Musk like a rock star, interrupting his remarks on numerous occasions with boisterous cheers as they began to grasp this daring plan for humanity’s future.

His plans are so detailed and so far along in the implementation, they cannot be dismissed as the wild musings of someone obsessed with sci-fi fantasy. No, Musk is well on his way to achieving his objective, bankrolled initially by contracts with NASA and his own billions.

» Read full story.

» Watch an interview on TED; Mars plan discussed at the 30-minute mark.

GERMANY: Six Modern Idols in the Land of the Reformation

Source: International Mission Board, October 9, 2017

Idol worship is alive and well in Germany, the land of the Reformation, as well as in cities across Western Europe. Often idol worship isn’t as obvious as it would be in a Buddhist temple in Thailand or Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, but it’s no less enslaving.

The apostle Paul described those who worship idols as having “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and [having] worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever” (Romans 1:25).

Take a walk through Frankfurt, Germany, and discover some of the idols tempting people here.

» Read full story. Unfortunately, you might recognized some of these idols. They are worshipped in many other contexts as well.

» You might appreciate the new documentary, A Return to Grace: Luther’s Life and Legacy. Or read how Africa’s “reverse missionaries” are bringing Christianity back to the United Kingdom (Quartz Africa).

CENTRAL ASIA: “I Want to Know What I am Saying”

Source: Operation Mobilization, October 7, 2017

Islam is considered part of one’s cultural identity in much of Central Asia. However, many people leave religious practice to the elderly. Often, when people turn 50, they begin searching for forgiveness of sins. For Muslims, that means going to the mosque.

Aslan’s mother was no exception. An older woman looking for spiritual peace, she had started attending a mosque and reciting Islamic prayers. But she wanted a translation of the Arabic prayers. “I am [Central Asian], and I want to know what I am saying to God,” she told a Muslim religious leader.

During that time, some relatives living in a nearby city approached Aslan’s mother. “We found a group of people who are reading, worshipping, and praying in our language. Can we go and see these people?”

The discovery of that Central Asian church transformed Aslan’s family. His mother, touched by prayer and teaching she could understand, became a believer. Over the next seven years, the rest of the family followed.

» Full story illustrates how Scripture and related literature distribution is making a difference in Central Asia.

» You might also appreciate and want to share the following articles about helping people discover God’s Word for themselves: Frontiers workers involved in a Bible discussion group explain Why We Stopped Leading; a Pioneers worker in West Africa often asks, Can I Tell You a Story?

USA: JESUS Film Project Introduces Gift Cards

Source: Mission Network News, October 13, 2017

JESUS Film Project has a new strategy to help share the gospel—gift cards. While there are many ways to share the JESUS Film, a whole new door has opened for it.

“The gift card allows you to give this to someone. One of my favorite ways of doing that is somebody who’s helped me, an attendant at a gas station, a waitress, a waiter, somebody who’s given me some service,” JESUS Film Project’s Ray Rohland shares.

“I say, ‘You were very kind to me, can I give you a gift?’ And, 99.9% of the time they’ll say yes. When they get the card, the card has a QR code on it or a URL, and they can follow those links, put in a promotion code, and they’re left on a page that says to them, ‘What language do you speak?’”

From here, individuals have to opportunity to download or stream the JESUS Film in their heart language. The JESUS Film (classic version) is currently in 1,542 languages. The JESUS Film gift cards are meant to help reach the non-English speakers living in the United States and Canada.

» Read full story.

SOUTH ASIA: How God Is Using One Elderly Man, Serving Via Skype

Source: Email from Missions Catalyst reader, October 2017

For the past 14 months or so, we have been having weekly meetings at our house, very small meetings, and almost every week we get an update from an elderly gentleman (he is 86), who has been holding Skype meetings with a congregation in a remote area of South Asia. He preaches, the pastor translates, and exciting things are happening. These happen once or twice every week.

During the past year, all unadvertised (except by the Spirit), the congregation has been reaching up to new villages in that area, and each week many people are healed of all kinds of disease—diabetes, heart issues, blindness, deafness, demonic oppression or possession—and many hundreds are coming to Christ. Over the course of the past year, about 5,000 people have been become Christians, a few at first, then more as the momentum accelerates. This is just the count reached directly by the core church, not those indirectly reached.

Sometimes, God has prepared a person ahead of time—not yet a Christian—who has told the people in the village that a messenger of the truth was coming; in one village where that happened, almost the entire village, about 1,500 people became Christians. Another time is was “only” about 250.

The meetings are not advertised—people would be arrested and killed in that case—but, like those Brother Andrew discusses in God’s Smuggler, arranged as seeking people get together, being led by the Spirit.

I am very encouraged by these ongoing reports, and felt led to spread the encouragement. After all, Peter does the same: “…encourage one another with these words.” Indeed, the Lord’s coming is nigh, when the word of God is being preached to all the nations, even remote villages in difficult-to-reach countries.

» Note: As Christians commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation of Christianity in northwest Europe, says Steve Bell of Interserve, let’s not airbrush the supernatural out of the biblical narrative.