Preaching A Message Of Reconciliation

Consider the following pairs of nations. What do they all have in common?

Armenia – Azerbaijan
China – Philippines
Egypt – Ethiopia
India – Pakistan
Iran – Israel
Russia – Ukraine
Saudi Arabia – Yemen
Sudan – South Sudan

If your answer is that each pair of countries is currently or has recently been in conflict, you would be correct. However, each pair of combatants also shares another characteristic. People from each country in that list have tuned in to our streaming stations. Yes, that’s right. People on both sides of each of these conflicts are listening to the Gospel programs we broadcast.
Our programming has probably not had a role in bringing any of these conflicts to an end. However, what is more important, accepting and acting on the truth we broadcast does bring spiritual peace. It not only ends a person’s hostility toward God, it brings reconciliation to Him. Reconciliation with God will eventually have an impact on the conflicts between peoples.
The places people listen from constantly amaze me. That we have listeners in Pakistan and India is only to be expected as those two countries are where the majority of Urdu speakers live. However, the diaspora from the Sub-Continent has become so great that there is virtually no corner of the world where there isn’t someone who understands Urdu. So far, in 2025, people from over 130 countries have tuned in.
Logistics alone make it impossible for missionaries to visit all these places in person, not to mention the 120 plus other countries where our listeners live. However, the data highlights another truth: Our programs not only are reaching areas we cannot personally visit, people are also listening in areas missionaries are forbidden. For example, it is illegal for Christians to visit Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Yet, people in Mecca have connected to our station 87 times this year. By definition, these folks have to be Muslims.
Our website tells a similar story. During the last 12 months there have been over 136,000 hits from 110 different countries. The vast majority of those hits were from bots, but a minimum of 2,200 to 2,600 were from real people, some of whom visited multiple times. In addition to perusing our content, they downloaded 737 commentaries and other books from the site.
Our names will never show up on the rosters of the peace conferences. We won’t be the ones doing the negotiating and drafting treaties. Yet, we’re like the yeast Jesus talked about (Matthew 13:33) – spreading and working invisibly to bring peace to one heart at a time. It is through the Christ that we preach, that true reconciliation between peoples will eventually come. The Apostle Paul writes regarding Jews and Gentiles, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.” (Ephesians 2:14-17 NIV)