By Jenni Campbell
Contributor
If the church were determined to be the Church, bold, unblemished and unblinking in its mission to preach the unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ without fear or favour, many of the atrocities we are witnessing in the world would never have occurred.
It may be a hard pill to swallow in the face of end-time prophecies that must come to pass, but the love of God and His righteousness spread among the more than eight billion population of the earth would deliver a different kind of result in many instances.
The gospel would impact families, stop the LBGTQI agenda in its tracks, dissuade pregnant women from aborting their babies, provide peace in the midst of violent upheavals, change minds from mass and contract murders, offer nourishment to the hungry in the midst of famines, and deliver captives from demonic oppression, among a plethora of other things.
When the Lord gave His disciples the instructions to go into all the world and preach the gospel, they had no idea that between AD 33 and 2023 (in nearly two thousand years), over 2.38 billion people on earth would be claiming to be Christians.
A rough average of 1.18 million people per year were converted.
Christianity is the largest religion in the world. Its influence is profound, shaping cultures and philosophies in various parts of the world, especially in the Americas, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and even Asia.
But despite this, the atrocities that plague populations suggest a serious deficit of salt and light. The lofty ideals of the faith and its moral underpinnings have not thwarted the flagrant wickedness that continues to run amok across nations, even those professing to be Christians.
According to the United States’ Pew Research Center, Christianity is the most prevalent religion in 157 countries and territories.
Of the 195 countries in the world today, 193 are member states of the United Nations, and two are non-member observer states: the Holy See and the State of Palestine.
In Israel, the Christian church is given no favours. It faces overwhelmingly high levels of persecution, as it does in the majority of Muslim and Communist countries.
With all the pandemonium surrounding Palestine in this war between Hamas and Israel, a strong Christian Church calls that country home.
Ethiopia, which is known to be the cradle of humanity and the country that declared Christianity its state religion in the 4th century AD (less than four hundred years after the Crucifiction of our Lord Jesus Christ), is the oldest Christian nation on earth. But, even with this distinction, Ethiopia has faced the harshest famine known to man. Its history is checkered with tribal and political upheavals that locks it in a cycle of pervasive poverty.
With a population of 82.95 million, 52.07 million Ethiopians are Christians, making up 62.8% of the nation.
Nigeria, with its massive 78.05 million Christian population, is known around the world for surreptitious scamming and unbridled corruption. Nigerian gospel music and its worship may be phenomenally powerful, but its global brand is con.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second-largest Christian country in Africa, with an overwhelming 95% of its population identifying as Christians.
Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been ongoing since the 1990s. This country has faced political repression and instability since it achieved independence in 1960. DRC is the fourth-largest African country by population and is home to an abundance of vital natural resources. Despite its massive human capital and resource endowment, peace and security have eluded the Congo.
The Philippines is the most Christian country in Asia, with 86.37 million followers, or 4% of the world’s Christian population.
Even with over 92% of Filipinos identifying as Christians, the country is ranked among the world’s most vulnerable nations, locked in a never-ending season of natural and economic disasters. Floods and severe economic challenges have ravaged the Philippines, keeping it unimaginably impoverished for centuries.
Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse and the former seat of the Holy Roman Empire, has been a Christian nation almost as long as it has existed as a unified entity. Despite some historical bumps in its relationship with the Church, Germany remains predominantly Christian, with 68.7% of its population identifying as such, according to Expatio.
China, the second-most populous country in the world, surprisingly has a strong Christian community, even though over half of its population doesn’t follow any religion.
China has the seventh-largest Christian population globally, with 68.41 million followers, or 3.1% of the world’s Christian population. Much of the Christian church in China remains underground, out of the sight and crosshairs of the antipathetic communist regime.
A similar situation obtains in Russia, that is unrelentingly communist in its political outlook, but staunchly Christian as well, boasting 107.5 million in church membership.
The United States is supposed to be the bastion of the Christian faith in the west with the highest church membership, making up 11.2% of all Christians worldwide, with a population of 243.06 million spread across its 50 states.
The United States continues to be a chief advocate and promoter of the LBGTQI lifestyle, feminism, Halloween, and the robust occult movement through its popular culture, music, and media.
This country imposes the most unChristian sanctions against other nations that choose not to bow to its unrighteous rules and deleterious advances.
If the church appears powerless to infiltrate and influence the governments and populations in strong Christian regimes, how can it advance the gospel across resistant borders and take it to the far reaches of the world?
In too many instances, the church is too burdened, too blemished, too compromised and too weak to impact anything.
It appears that many of the churches have arrived and settled in Laodicea. They are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and have been spat out of the mouth of God.
No nation can be exalted with a predominantly listless church.
It takes the people of God, called by His name, to humble themselves, turn from their wicked ways, and pray and seek God’s face for a nation to be healed.
The church, the government and the population must deliberately seek, actively pursue, and firmly establish that righteousness is the foremost and dominant force that instructs and bolsters all decisions in any country if that nation is to be exalted.
A claim to Christianity can be made by any nation, but if that nation overtly or covertly pursues filthy lucre, whoredom and sits comfortably in the den of corruption, such claim is a wicked and aweful lie from the pit of hell. God cannot be mocked.
Be sure of this, the Church of the Living God, the unblemished Bride of Jesus Christ, is emerging, establishing righteous altars, ripping down strongholds, casting aside the obstacles of religiosity, overcoming adversaries by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of her testimonies. She is fiercely focused on mission, strong, unabashed and resilient, taking the gospel to the far flung corners of the globe regardless of challenges, with the certain knowledge that every battle is already won. The gates of hell cannot prevail against her. She is anointed, appointed and well-built and firmly standing on the solid rock. Let the true church arise!