The Endgame of God: Why the Great Commission Is Urgent Right Now

August 19th, 2026
by Kurt Olson

This is Part 1 of an 18-part series drawn from Kurt Olson's book, The Endgame of God. New posts publish every Wednesday at GoMultiply.org/blog.

A Question That Should Stop You Cold

If every Christian lived exactly the way you and I live, how long would it take to reach every nation? For many of us, the honest answer is "never." That has to change.

Let me ask you something before you read another word. When you think about Jesus returning, does the thought excite you, or make you a little nervous? Your honest answer says a great deal about how you are living right now — and I have watched that one question stop rooms full of lifelong churchgoers in their tracks.

I titled my book, and this series, The Endgame of God because I am convinced — and have seen it firsthand on several continents — that the church of Jesus Christ will finish the way it started: in the powerful simplicity of ordinary, obedient disciples making more obedient disciples. That is God's endgame. Not bigger buildings or better programs — just disciples who obey Jesus and reproduce. And I believe we are living in the season when He intends to bring it to completion.

What Time Is It?

Two thousand years ago, the apostle John wrote,

"Dear children, the last hour is here" (1 John 2:18).

Sit with that.

If it was the last hour when John wrote it, what time is it now?

I am not interested in setting dates — Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour — but I am very interested in the question that matters more than any date: how are you going to live until you meet God? Because you will meet Him. That is not in question. The only question is how you will spend the time between now and then.

You Can Actually Help Speed the Day

Listen to Peter. In 2 Peter 3:11-12 he tells us to "look forward to the day of God and hurry it along." Hurry it along — that is a stunning idea. The way we live can actually help speed the coming of the day of God.

I saw this land on someone once. At a discipleship retreat in a grade-school library in my home state, a woman went home and told a friend what she was learning. Her friend said, "It sounds like these people are trying to speed up the return of Christ." When she reported that the next day, half-expecting me to correct it, I smiled and said, "We are!" That is simply taking Jesus at His word: the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations, "and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14). The finishing of the task is tied to the returning of the King.

The Question That Wrecked Me

Here is the question that first broke my heart, because it is the engine under this whole series. If every Christian on earth lived and operated exactly the way I live and operate, how long would it take for the Gospel to reach every nation? Be honest with your answer. For many of us — if we are truly honest — the answer is "never." If everyone gave what I give, shared what I share, and obeyed the way I obey, the Great Commission would simply never get finished. And if that is the honest answer, then something has to change. Not in the person next to us in the pew. In me. In you.

The Weight of What Remains

Let me make it concrete, because numbers can wake us up. Even now, there are roughly two billion people on earth who have never once heard the name of Jesus — not rejected Him, never even heard His name. Every single day, tens of thousands from those unreached peoples slip into eternity without ever having had the chance to accept or reject Him. Not because they weighed the Gospel and turned it down — because no one ever came. Those are not statistics; they are souls, each one loved by the God who made them.

Fuel for the Journey, Not Fear

Please hear me: I am not writing this to frighten you. End-times urgency is not fuel for fear; it is fuel for the journey — fuel for obedience. Fear paralyzes; urgency, rightly understood, sends you out the door with joy. And here is why I have such hope: right now, all over the planet, God is restoring the powerful simplicity of the New Testament church. In the poorest, most pressured places on earth, disciples are multiplying at a rate most Western believers have never heard about. He is already doing it — we do not have to start the movement; we get to join it.

We Are Not Running a Campaign

That is the heart of everything Go Multiply is about, so let me say it plainly. We are not running a campaign. We are joining what the Holy Spirit has already begun. There is no human agenda here, no brand to build, no empire to grow — just Jesus, and the invitation to take part in what He is doing. The goal always ends in Him. And His vision has not changed: every Christian a disciple, and every disciple a disciple-maker. Not a special class of professionals carrying the load for everyone else, but every ordinary follower of Jesus living as an obedient, reproducing disciple — because whatever we model is what the next generation will reproduce.

A Note of Caution

I will leave you with the same caution I put at the front of the book:
only keep reading if you are willing to have your religious assumptions challenged.

You will encounter things here you cannot un-know, and with knowledge comes responsibility. But if you are ready to let your one short life count for eternity, then read on, let the Lord change you, and spend the rest of your days as an agent of His Kingdom.

So let me ask you again, and this time write down your answer: if every Christian you know lived exactly the way you do, how long would it take to reach all nations with the Gospel? And if the answer troubles you — are you willing to let the change begin with you, this week?