We tend to be pre-occupied with our own personal affairs or with the affairs of our own little circle: The Jews themselves, particularly at the time when Christ came, appeared to be self-centred. This is not to be wondered at when they were characterised by a self-righteous spirit. Yet the Old Testament Church had repeated hints given to it in the Old Testament Scriptures that the kingdom of God was not always to be so limited in extent as it was at that time. The addition of occasional Gentile converts to its ranks and the provision made in the law of Moses for their entry into the commonwealth of Israel, were indications that the day might well come when there would be a fuller ingathering of the outcast Gentile nations to the Church of God. But especially did the promises, given of old time, relating to the coming Messiah unto whom was the gathering of the people to be, and the promises concerning the glory of the Lord filling the whole earth, together with many other precious promises, place before the people of Israel incontrovertible proof of a time coming when the knowledge of God’s glory would no longer be contained within the bounds of the nation of Israel.
When Christ, who was to be a light to the Gentiles as well as the glory of His people Israel, appeared among His ancient people the Jews, he endeavoured to prepare them for the sudden enlargement of the true Church of God which was soon to take place. He forewarned them—”Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” John 10:16. He also told them—”And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” John 12:32. How amply were these words fulfilled on the day of Pentecost and subsequently.
But what are we to say today? Can we rest satisfied that the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom has fully taken place and that we are not warranted to expect any further extension of that kingdom? Has the message—”Other sheep I have”—now been exhausted of all its meaning, or, is the Lord still saying to us when we are ready to sit back in self-contented ease—”Other sheep I have . . . them also I must bring?” Is He not yet to see of the of His soul more fully than has yet taken place both in the return of Israel itself to the allegiance of Zion’s King and in the ingathering of multitudes from all nations and kindreds and tongues?
If this is so—and we believe it to be so—then let us as we look out on the multitudes around us still under the power of sin and unbelief and the teeming Christless millions in other lands, hear the voice of the great Shepherd of the sheep—“Other sheep I have . . . them also I must bring.” May our concern for these myriads of souls hurrying to eternity bring us to cry to the Lord on their behalf. Let us not be limited in our asking. There is nothing too hard for the Lord. By His power a nation can be born in a day. Let us believably plead His own promises and in His own good time He will send an answer in peace.