GOD’S purposes have limited and also directed and extended the activities of His Church on earth as to his witness regarding the mind and will of God for man’s salvation. For we find in the record of the Old Testament that the oracles of God and the revelation of the way of salvation for sinful and lost men were almost exclusively given to Israel as a nation, following upon the divine manifestation and bestowal of grace and promises to such as Noah, and then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. According to the sovereign purpose and inscrutable wisdom of God, all other nations were left in spiritual darkness and death for many centuries, right down to the Advent of the Son of God into the World. After His birth, and on His being brought into the Temple by His parents, Simeon took the child Jesus up in his arms and uttered these blessed Words, regarding Him; “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation: . . . a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel,” (Luke 2, v 30 & 32). At this time the saint of God, Simeon, was under the special influence and guidance of the Holy Ghost, and gave utterance to the purpose of God with respect to the extension of the revelation of the way of salvation to the Gentile World, and beyond the confines of Israel.
During the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, statements were made by Him in His teachings which clearly indicated that God’s purpose of salvation was to be made known, and experienced by sinners, throughout the World: irrespective of the fact that He did say to one who came to Him, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He had His own design in so addressing the Syrophenician woman to begin with. But He said to Nicodemus a ruler of the Jews, “God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” (John 3, v 16). God’s love to multitudes of sinners in all parts of the world was to be made known through Him and by His sufferings and atoning death on the Cross; and in such a way that poor dark, vile, hell deserving sinners from among all nations and classes would come to believe and be saved and have everlasting life, in the free grace of God.
The Lord Jesus knew well all those who were given to Him of the Father, out of the World, and who were and are His own, for whom He poured out His soul unto death, for their eternal redemption. He knew where they were to be born and when they were to appear in this sinful, dark and wide and varied world, and after His death and resurrection, and in contemplation of His ascension to heaven, He had before His divine mind, the drawing of His covenant people in an experimental and saving manner to Himself, from among a sinful world, in every nation and generation. His few apostolic servants knew them not, nor where they were to be found in their day, at the beginning of the Gospel era. This was, as it still is, the Lord’s secret.
And so the risen and living Head of the Church gave the command to His then servants in the Gospel, “Go ye into all the World, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Mark, 16, v 15 & 16). And this command has not been withdrawn or abrogated, but is binding upon His church and servants today, as in the past. And there are two fundamental truths involved in this: firstly, that it is only through the instrumentality of the Word of God or the Word of the truth of the gospel, that sinners are saved; and secondly, it is only by this divinely appointed means that the Holy Spirit works effectually in the hearts of sinners to their being brought to believe in the Redeemer unto their salvation; and that thus Christ is glorified.
Now in the Acts of the Apostles it is recorded that the Apostles were charged to be witnesses unto their Lord and Saviour, . . . “both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth, (Acts 1, v 8). Unto the uttermost part of the earth, they were to go with the gospel of Christ and salvation. Where they would have fruit of their labours in the conversion of sinners, how many would be thus brought to believe and repent of their sins, or who would be thus blest through their gospel activities, they knew not. But the Lord knew. What they did know was, that the now glorified Redeemer had said to them—”Go ye into all the World,” and into all the World, they went with the gospel.
This brings us to an interesting and essential aspect of obedience to this divine command, it is the question and fact of the divine superintendence in providence, whereby the footsteps and activities of the apostles and other servants of Christ were directed and guided, as seen throughout the Acts of the Apostles. It was not by what men call “chance,” that the gospel was preached at Ephesus, Athens and at Philippi, etc.” In this last case, Paul in seeking genuinely to obey the Lord’s command, “assayed to go into Bithynia: but the spirit suffered him not” (Acts 16, v 7); and he was of course thereafter directed to Philippi, a dark, heathen place. And he and Silas go with the gospel of salvation there, where there was nothing but spiritual death, superstition and ignorance of God. But God in directing their literal steps and movements in providence, had saving blessings in store for sinners in Philippi. A point here is that they were guided in providence to places and peoples who never heard the Word of God before and who never heard that there was such a person as the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save that which was lost. And in such a part of the World, as in other like places, it was made manifest, that the Lord had a people here, who were loved from everlasting, redeemed by the blood of the Cross, and who were now to be brought to know the Saviour in their personal experience, through the preaching of the gospel with the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The jailor at Philippi might well have been the last man whom Paul and Silas thought would be converted. But as we have hinted already, secret things belong unto the Lord our God, and He knoweth them that are His as His Covenant people, even while still dead in trespasses and sins, and steeped in paganism and superstition. Yet what was revealed to Paul and Silas, as to others, was, “Go ye into all the World” and preach and show unto sinners the way of salvation: that is instrumentally. The issues are with the sovereign and gracious God of heaven.
See how the purpose of God in grace is manifested and fulfilled through the obedience and activities of His Church and servants, in going forth from Jerusalem into all the World, as appears at Antioch in Pisidia, (Acts 13, v 44-49). Paul and Barnabas met great and bitter opposition here from the Jews. But when the Gentiles heard the Word of God ” . . . they were glad, and glorified the Word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Let us repeat: “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” And this result followed upon the Church carrying out the command of her exalted Saviour and Lord, to proceed beyond the headquarters of the main church at Jerusalem to the uttermost part of the earth.
And as the Most High has already directed us as a Church in Scotland, to send the gospel of Christ, to parts of dark Africa, for example; let us continue to concern ourselves seriously and actively with the Master’s business of supplying the ordinances of the Gospel to hundreds of Africans, old and young, throughout wide areas of that far off land, dark as it is. It is ours to obey “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel,” embracing also Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as the Lord opens doors and directs in His all wise providence. And it is the Lord’s to turn sinners from darkness to light, according to His eternal purpose of grace.
And it is the Church’s privilege and duty to go out into “the regions beyond” in prayers and supplications for the success of the gospel of Christ; according to the will of God. And to follow the gospel, and accompany prayers with practical and generous giving as the Most High may prosper in temporalities, and what we give of our temporal substance to support the work of the blessed Gospel of Salvation to sinners, beyond these shores of our land, is indeed well spent. There cannot but be the greatest satisfaction to living, exercised believers, who have love to Christ’s cause and precious souls, in knowing that they are assisting in bringing the Bible, the Gospel, education and Christian civilisation to many of their fellow beings, who would otherwise continue as heathen, in every sense of the term. To see with ones eyes, and to hear with ones ears, as we have recently in Africa, even the external effects of the Word of God and Christian education upon formerly heathen Africans is deeply affecting. And what of such as are brought to know and follow the Redeemer, out in the African bush? Do we remember, as we ought what is often referred to in Christian circles: “that one soul is more precious than the whole material World.” Satan, novices and the spiritually ignorant may seek to hinder the work of the Kingdom at home and abroad. Paul experienced this time and again, “Satan hindered us” he writes. Never mind, whatever Satan tries to do by way of hindering the Church in serving her Lord, the Lord Jesus still says: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” And he will fulfill His own blessed purposes thereby to the praise of His glory.