Want some really good news? Want to know what is going on outside our country that should make you shout, (that is, if you are a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)? It is, that according to a book written by James Rutz, the fastest growing religion on the planet is NOT Islam in any form, radical or otherwise. No, every 25 minutes, there are approximately 175,000 new Christians who become what we in the South typically refer to as “born again.” However, it doesn’t stop there. These are people who are quite used to miracles, the kind you have read about all your life. The “problem,” if there is one, is that this phenomenon comparatively speaking is not happening on our soil, and we are going to have to, at some point, ask why that is the case.
Personally, I have a number of theories. One is that we have killed over 50 million of our pre-born citizens, and God does not take kindly to the shedding of innocent blood. We have become so dependent upon technology that we have nearly pushed God out of health and medicine, and we are perishing. Another is that we have gotten too fancy for our pants, and have told God what He does and does not do in our day. To try and assert that miracles are not for today is just plain folly, but I am not here to make anyone unhappy, or get into a theological throw-down; I am here to celebrate. I hope you will join me.
According to Rutz, who has gone to great lengths to document that which he asserts, here is what is occurring all over the world. “Very few people realize the nature of life on Earth is going through a major change,” he writes. “We are seeing a megashift in the basic direction of human history. Until our time, the ancient war between good and evil was hardly better than a stalemate. Now all has changed. The Creator whose epic story flows through the pages of Scripture has begun to dissolve the strongholds of evil. This new drama is being played out every hour around the globe, accompanied sometimes by mind-bending miracles.”
I am forever grateful that I was never taught that miracles are not for today. I have seen them, and I have experienced them. I am grateful that I have lived on the foreign mission field, where they were nearly commonplace. I experienced them in Iraq, and in Africa, and you are not going to be very successful in getting me to re-interpret what I have known to be true for the last 45 years.
Rutz says further: “There will be pockets of resistance and unforeseen breakthroughs. Still, at the rate we are growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more Christians than people by the autumn of 2032, about 8.2 billion.”
More Christians than people? What a divine comedy, indeed! Rutz continued, “The growing core of Christianity crosses theological lines and includes 707 million born-again people who are increasing by 8 percent a year.” These are people who can only be described as being those “of whom the world is not worthy.” For now, they are largely underground in China, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. But make no mistake, if Rutz is right, we will live to see these things happen in our lifetime, and I for one am going to be one glad girl.
