Friday, August 2, 2013
Isaiah 60:3 The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.
ARISE AND SHINE (5)
Remember where we started this week: Jerusalem and the temple lay in ruins. The people were in a foreign land under oppression. They were hardly the envy of the nations. The immigration department was not flooded with applications from those trying to get in. Yet God foretold that this is exactly what was going to happen to Israel and Jerusalem. Therefore even in their captivity and despair they could arise and shine because the Light that came would make Jerusalem a place where many people from different nations would come to bask in it's light. Even kings would come to it.
Who could imagine such a change taking place? It must have seemed impossible to the people in captivity. Yet with God all things are possible. His promises never fail. What God promised here happened when the Light of Israel came in the form of a little baby born of a virgin. The flow of Gentiles coming to Israel began with the wise men from the East. It continued during Jesus' ministry with the Syro-phonecian woman, the Roman centurion and other Gentiles who came to see Jesus.
The flow of Gentiles increased even more after Jesus' death, resurrection, ascension into heaven, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The Ethiopian Eunoch, Cornelius and his family, and many others came to see the light of the world and became part of God's glorious kingdom.
It was not the physical city of Jerusalem that drew the Gentiles, but the new Jerusalem, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:22). Gentiles of all nations were flooding into this New Jerusalem to have the Light of the world shine on them. The Apostles went out into the nations and many multitudes were brought to faith and came to the light. We are privileged to witness the Gentiles coming into God's Kingdom through the preaching of the Apostle Paul.
In the centuries to come, the light of the gospel continued to shine out and draw people in. Still to this day we are privileged to see the Gentiles coming to that light which shines upon us and which shines from us. When we see that, we are made to shine all the more with joy and thankfulness to God.
