Explosion

[music] [music] [music] down. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hi, I'm Bob Curts. I'm a Christian. I know the Lord is my savior. I really want to make my life count. But the problems we face in our world are staggering. During the next 20 minutes, you will frequently be given a quick glimpse of this card, showing you how many people have been born during the time we spend together. Already, for example, 405 more people have joined us since this film began. India now has 540 million people. China 740 million. The projected population of Asia by the year 2000 is 3 and a half billion which is equivalent to the total population of the world right now. How in the world are we going to feed this many people? The statistics are terrifying. Let me try to personalize them for you the way that I've tried to do it for myself. Steve, >> let us pray. [music] >> Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the good food mommy fixes. Please help the boys and girls to find food. Please help their mommies to [clears throat] find food to fix for them tonight. Help them all to love you and serve you. Amen. >> You and I live in a land of plenty. Even a poor man in this country would be considered rich in many parts of Asia, Africa, or Latin America. Let's suppose, for example, my wife and I lived in an overpop populated land where starvation was already a way of life. What would it be like? We would be grateful for a few slices of bread and maybe a bowl of watery soup for each of us. We read a lot of newspaper stories about critical problems in our educational systems. But suppose my children, suppose yours lived in central Africa or Indonesia or Korea or Paraguay where only a small percent of even the best qualified children could attend school. Before the Nigerian Civil War, BAFA made excellent progress as an emerging African nation. Yet even there, only one out of every 50 qualified students could get into primary school. The Bible says, "To whom much is given, much shall be required." I wonder if we really understand what that means. [music] [music] a little startling perhaps. What about that scripture verse? To whom much is given, much shall be required. Down in our research room, they tell me that every 3 days almost a million new people are added to the world. You heard me correctly. Every 3 days almost a million babies are born. And here we are, you and I, the richest Christians in the history of the world, in danger of drowning in a vast sea of materialism instead of being concerned about helping these multitudes. to whom much is given, much shall be required. That's you and me, friend. And nearly a million new babies born every three days. That's our world. The world into which the Lord has sent us to tell every person about his son. If you're a normal human being, then you should be concerned about the scarcity of food, housing, medicine, and education in other lands. But what about the most critical shortage of all? The Bible tells us of a day when there shall be a famine, not of bread, but a famine for the word of God. The problem today is that there are millions of hungry-hearted people who don't even know that God has a message for them because no one has told them. How many Bibles are there at your house? How many Christian books, magazines? Let's say this stack represents the number of Bibles there are in the little community outside Chicago where I live. How many might there be in a similarized town in Europe? Suppose it were a similar area in Latin America, in Africa, in Japan where the gospel has been told for more than 100 years. How about Eastern Europe? Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, where it can mean death to be caught reading a Bible. To whom much is given, much shall be required. I don't know about you, but those words haunt me. I've got a good job here with CBS and a promising future in television. God has given me some talents for which I'm grateful. But I'm a Christian. I can't settle back and take life easy. I don't dare. I wonder if you'd bow your head with me for just a moment. My father, our father, help me and my friends who are now sharing this experience. Help us to open our hearts, our minds to dare to believe that we can do something about the awesome need of our world today. Help us to see that we who have so much have a definite responsibility to those who have so little. >> We ask this in the name of thy dear son. Amen. Remember what I said? Every three days a million new people are added to the world. Do you know what this means? It means that you and I have the greatest opportunity for evangelization in the history of the church of Jesus Christ. The greatest opportunity and the greatest responsibility. We have the potential in our lifetime to bring the message of salvation to every person alive in the world today. But will we do it? Now, you have probably seen a lot of slides and motion pictures brought back from the fields by missionaries. If you're like me, you've probably been guilty of viewing these with various stages of indifference. But as we look now at a few clips from overseas, ask God to show you how you can become a participant in the biggest job the church has ever faced. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> We certainly should thank God for what so many of our missionaries have accomplished. Often against difficult, almost insurmountable odds, they have won many victories for the glory of God. But teachers in crowded rooftop schools, [music] overworked nurses, and tired evangelists haven't even begun to scratch the surface. If we [music] haven't kept the pace before now, how can we hope to reach the coming multitudes? [music] What of the world of children who still need to hear about the Lord Jesus? How will we ever get the message to them? Half the people in the world today are under 21 years of age. Where are the Christian young people who will go and share their faith with others their own age? And what about the businessman in Japan? Or the housewife in the market in Bolivia or the apartment dweller in Brazil or the factory worker in India? How will they ever hear? The world's cities are crowded with people. Everywhere there is a neverending stream. [music] People like you and me. And God is not willing that any of them should perish. So what should I do? Resign from my job here at the television station. Head for the Orient or Africa or South America? Get out my checkbook? That'd be a lot easier. and send a few dollars to my favorite missionary. Shall I be satisfied with what my wife and I are trying to do in our community to witness to young couples and then sit back in complacent self-satisfaction? I have here with me several persons, each of them involved in the concern of the church overseas. I've asked them to share with us their concern about the population explosion and our responsibility. Gentlemen, >> each of us has to do the thing that the Lord shows us that we are to do personally. It may be that God will call you out of your profession completely. Or it may be that he may call you to go overseas and perhaps teach in a university in the field of the arts and television. On the other hand, he may call you to stay here at home and give your full support to those who are attempting to meet the need in this tremendous population explosion. The main thing is that each of us do what God wants us to do. And that means getting all the information we can first so that we can make intelligent judgments and it involves opening ourselves spiritually without reservation to do whatever the Lord wants us to do. >> Having served as a missionary in Latin America for 15 years, I'm sensitive to the problem of population control since it is one of the major issues being faced by that part of the world. In dealing with young people and students in North America and elsewhere, it seems to me that we must bring out to them the possibility that in the overseas mission of the church, they may well have to become involved in the social implications of the educational process related to population control as well as in the direct evangelistic extension of the church to the population. Our world population explosion faces the church of Jesus Christ with a very serious crisis. It is not the crisis of closed doors. It is the crisis of open doors, of opportunities, of responsibilities. For example, in Africa today, there are thousands of grade schools and high schools in which we could and should be teaching the word of God every week. With the exception of China, uh, Asia's two billion people are wide open to the distribution of the word of God. Bible sales in Latin America are greater than ever before. This is mission's greatest hour. >> Thank you, gentlemen. I for one am grateful for the leadership we have in the church today. But be careful, my friend. These men would be the first to agree with me that our biggest danger is to expect our missionaries to face and solve all the problems alone. Until you and I, until every member of the body of Christ join in this common task, until some of us go and reach these multitudes, there will be millions who will never hear and will be lost for all eternity. Just how great is your concern? Not the person sitting next to you, but you. How great is your concern for a world which is producing almost a million new people every 3 days? Souls for whom Christ hung on a cross. Souls for whom God gave his word to man. How much do you care? Be honest. Now, how much? Let me share with you a burden that has become like wind and fire in my heart. I told you I'm in television. It's a fascinating world, television. It depends on people with creativity and initiative. A television program succeeds or fails on the basis of ideas and the implementation of ideas. Creativity and initiative. Tie those two words to the Bible quotation. To whom much is given, much shall be required. Ask God to make them come alive in your mind right now. the population explosion, the enormous task, the almost insurmountable job the church faces of making even the slightest dent in the evangelization of the world. Hear me carefully now. The church will never begin to meet that need. Never, my Christian friend, until you and I, until every member of the body of Christ begins to cry out to God. Give us ideas, oh Lord. Make us creative. Use our minds and our energies. pull our efforts in a determined thrust to make Christ known across the world. Our missionaries are doing all they can. But like us, they are men. Let more of us join them. Let's back them with our prayers, our concern. Write to them. Tell them you pray for them. Let's urge more believers to become foreign missionaries. Let's give our money to the church's total cause of world evangelism. In a world of hatred, confusion, dilemma, and staggering population increases, let's be true witnesses to the love of Jesus Christ. [music] [bell] [music] >> [bell] [music] >> Heat. Heat. >> [bell] [music] [music]