Roger Lee - Armenia, the Unreached World, and the Call to Engage

What if the story of Ishmael has been misunderstood all along? Most of us have heard Ishmael described as a mistake, a symbol of human impatience with God's timing. But a closer look at Genesis 16 reveals something striking: when Hagar fled into the wilderness, God did not simply let her go. He sent the angel of the Lord to her, made promises over her son, and declared that Ishmael would be great. The name Ishmael itself means 'God hears,' pointing to a destiny rooted in worship, prayer, and encounter with the living God. This reframing opens our eyes to the 1.9 billion Muslims in the world today not merely as followers of a false religion, but as a people with a hijacked calling, one that was always meant to be directed toward the one true God. When we understand this, the urgency of the Great Commission takes on a new dimension. There are 3.6 billion unreached people in the world right now, many of them in the Muslim world, with no access to a believer, a Bible, or a local church. This is not just a statistic. It is a spiritual reality that invites us to ask how we are engaging, whether through prayer, giving, sending, or going. The altar of prayer is not a passive act. It is the very strategy God uses to break through entrenched spiritual strongholds and open doors where no human effort alone can reach.