Excerpted from The Challenge of Missions,
by Oswald J. Smith

It has been found that there are still over 2,000 tribes without the Gospel. Moreover, these tribes have been located. We know where they are. I want you to think of them …and remember, no missionary is working among them and none of them have the Word of God. As a matter of fact, they have never even heard the name of Jesus.

But how are they to be reached? Only by the young people of our churches, our Bible Schools and our Seminaries. It is the young who can go. Mission Boards everywhere are pleading for workers.

That is why I toured Great Britain and appealed to the young people there until 1,200 of them responded. That is why I have gone all over the United States and Canada. “The labourers are few.” We must have more. That is why I am giving myself first and foremost to missionary work. The world must be evangelized. Our only hope is in the young people. Unless they go, the job will never be done for no one else can do it. God is calling the young. The youth of our country must respond.

Let us remember that practically all the disciples were young men. Jesus chose them in their youth. They had their lives before them and they lived them for God. May we, too, accept the challenge? May we give our best. God had an only Son and He made Him a missionary. Can we do less?

There are many who would go if they could be pioneers. They have read the life stories of men like Livingstone, Moffat, Carey, Judson, etc. My friends, may I say the Missionary Societies are calling for thousands of pioneers right now, for there are still two thousand tribes to be evangelized. Why not concentrate on the unoccupied areas? Why not be a trailblazer?

When I was in Sumatra I heard of a town to which no one had gone, and I penetrated back through the jungles until I reached it. Never will I forget the thrill that was mine as I crossed the threshold of that town, realizing that I was in all probability the first messenger of the Cross to have done so. If I were a young man today, I would not want to go to a field where others had laboured, except to become “oriented.” I would ask, as Livingstone did, to be sent to new fields, for I would want to be the first to reduce the language to writing, translate portions of the Bible, and give the people the Gospel. I too, would be a pioneer.

Why waste your life here in America or Great Britain? Why settle down to the humdrum and the monotony of making money? Why not get a vision? You can go where no one else has gone. You can invest your life in something really worth while. If you stay here, you will be treading someone else’s toes. If you go out there, you will have plenty of elbow room. Why not live a life really worth while? You too, can be a pioneer.