That River Flows

“Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden…now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates” (Genesis 2:9-14; the four place names give us the same sense as our phrase, “the four corners of the earth”).

“By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing” (Ezekiel 47:12).

“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations [τῶν ἐθνῶν]” (Revelation 22:1,2).

There’s a River Flood Warning for a town about ten miles north of where I live. I don’t know whether it’s that or the fact that I’ve been thinking about the Holy Spirit a lot lately, but I woke up with this biblical river on my mind.

I have lived in the desert; I know that sometimes fruit-bearing takes time, and that you celebrate the harvest no matter what.

Still, I long for the harvest from the shores of this biblical river. I desire “they will bear every month” and “yielding its fruit every month.” I pray for “the healing of the nations” – and not the counterfeit that comes through the intentions, devices, and efforts of humanity.

I earnestly hope to see “the healing of the nations.” I wish our English translations would render τῶν ἐθνῶν as “peoples.”

The lower levels of the auditorium in my congregation’s building are below ground level. When it rains like this we are concerned with flooding. I’ve been told that the creek which runs by the front of the building used to run through the auditorium. The man who built it moved the creek to its present location, but it used to run right through where the stage is now. God put it where it was originally, and it ran there for millennia. I guess it still hasn’t fully accepted the new arrangement.

I have a vision for a river, not in our auditorium (please, Lord!), but for this biblical river that heals the souls of all sorts of peoples from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures.

Ezekiel said the fruit of those trees was continual and healing “because their water flows from the sanctuary” (it comes after the sacrifice of the Prince in Ezekiel 46, but that’s a different post!). The “sanctuary” that provides this river isn’t an earthly building. I know this because Jesus gives us the understanding of Ezekiel’s “visions of God” (40:2).

Jesus, at that well in Samaria so long ago, told the outcast woman, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). It wasn’t about an earthly sanctuary (“Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father,” 4:21). It was about a gift from Jesus that turns the recipient into a sanctuary.

Jesus says the same later in Jerusalem: “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”’ But this He spoke of the Spirit, Whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39). What we receive from Jesus causes us to be the sanctuary (compare with Isaiah 8:11-14; Ezekiel 11:16) from which flows the river that gives life, that is instrumental in continual, healing fruit. I want this. Not just for me, but for Jesus’ disciples. I want us to be the means by which the Spirit brings eternal healing to all sorts of people.

It will come when we become a people (by His grace) who are passionate about His Word more than worldliness (Psalm 1:1-3). It will flow when we, by the power and authority of that indwelling Spirit, call on the world to “come, and drink” (Revelation 22:17).

Beloved Church, bear this desire with me. Let us desperately beg the Father to do this, through His Son, by His Spirit, drowning our self-centeredness, fear, pride, worldliness, and neglect of His Word in continual, healing, eternal life for many, many peoples.

The Glorious House

“For thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land. I will shake all the nations; and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,’ declares the Lord of hosts. ‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ declares the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:6-9).

I had the joy of speaking during the last session of a women’s conference at our church yesterday morning. We looked at the great contrast between Solomon’s Temple, destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians, and the second Temple, completed in 515 B.C. At the dedication of its foundation, the weeping of the folks who remembered the splendor of the first Temple blended with the joyful shouts of the young folks, who were excited to be rebuilding the Temple, even if it were much smaller (Ezra 3:10-13). The LORD, aware of the temptation to discouragement, asks, “who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem to you like nothing in comparison” (Haggai 2:3). He spoke the thoughts of many of them, no doubt. He then gives them a triple “take courage…take courage…take courage” (2:4), reminding them of the promise of His presence rooted in the Exodus itself (2:5). He ends the sermon with a foreshadowing of a greater glory.

That glory is the global Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn’t have time to trace this out in yesterday’s sermon (I was focusing on taking courage for God’s glory), but Haggai’s prophecy here fits into a cover-to-cover theme in the Bible. The “wealth of the nations” will be brought into God’s “house,” and He will fill it with a glory that will make Solomon’s Temple look like nothing. And there, He promises, He “will give peace.”

Let’s go back.

Noah, after the Flood and after his being sinned against by “Ham, the father of Canaan” (Genesis 9:20-24), gives this prophecy:

“Blessed be the LORD,
The God of Shem [father of the Semites, the Jews];
And let Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth [the father of the nations],
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant” (Genesis 9:26,27).

The LORD is blessed. His old covenant relationship with the children of Shem (and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) is foretold (“the LORD, the God of Shem”). Here’s the awesome part: God’s plan to bring the Gentiles into the new covenant is also foretold! God will cause the nations to grow, and will bring them into the “tents” of His covenant people. This is the new covenant, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s the glory described in Ephesians 2:11-22. As Peter the apostle (a Jew) said at the first Church Council in Antioch, “God…made no distinction between us [Jewish believers in Christ] and them [Gentile believers in Christ], cleansing their hearts by faith…we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are” (Acts 15:9,11).

The nations are brought into the house of God.

Eleven generations after Noah, Abraham shows the depth of his faith and almost sacrifices his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. After God provides “for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering” (22:8), another Gospel promise is made by the LORD to Abraham: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). The nations will find their blessing “in [Abraham’s] seed.” The apostle Paul will tell us this “seed” (singular) is Christ (Galatians 3:16) – Jesus, Jewish descendant of Shem and Abraham. In Shem’s descendant the descendants of Japheth will be blessed.

That two examples of the beginning of the Book. Let’s go the end of the Book.

“I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:22-27).

What is brought into the city? The “glory” of “the kings of the earth” (21:24). This is paralleled with “the glory and honor of the nations” in 21:26, but it is not until 21:27 that we get a third parallel that makes clear what this “glory and honor” is. Just as “glory” is brought “into it” (21:24) and “the glory and honor” is brought “into it” (21:26), “those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” come “into it” (21:27). The “glory and honor of the nations” are the saved from out of the nations, “whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

God has brought the wealth, the glory, the honor of the nations into His house, making it glorious. We know that the “house of God” in the New Testament is the Church, the people of God in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:9-17; 6:19,20; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 3:6; 1 Peter 2:4,5). Seeing all of this, then, we know that God’s house is global – all believers in Christ throughout the nations. He dwells with them through His Holy Spirit. While Solomon’s Temple was on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the new covenant House of God covers the planet. It is greater than the kingdoms of this world – God’s shaking of “the heavens and earth” is an overthrowing of kingdoms and their powers during His gathering to “fill this house with glory” (Haggai 2:21,22). Solomon’s Temple was visited by those faithful old covenant Jews who obeyed the pilgrimage feasts, but the new covenant House of God is filled with Jews who believe in Christ and those “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,

And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness will cover the earth

And deep darkness the peoples;

But the LORD will rise upon you.

Nations will come to your light,

And kings to the brightness of your rising.

Lift up your eyes round about and see;

They all gather together, they come to you.

Your sons will come from afar,

And your daughters will be carried in their arms.

Then you will see and be radiant,

And your heart will thrill and rejoice;

Because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you,

The wealth of the nations will come to you…

…and I shall glorify My glorious house” (Isaiah 60:1-5,7).

She is beautiful. Rejoice!

Thankfulness and Praise from Hebrews 1:5

“For to which of the angels did He ever say,

‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You’?

And again,

‘I will be a Father to Him
And He shall be a Son to Me’?” (Hebrews 1:5).

I am thankful that the Son is not only greater than the angels, but He is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:21).

Today’s verse in Hebrews draws upon the Davidic covenant and the Christ as complete fulfillment.

The first quote is from Psalm 2.

“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron,
You shall shatter them like earthenware’” (Psalm 2:7-9).

Paul uses Psalm 2:7 as an explanatory text for Christ’s resurrection (Acts 13:33). From Christ’s resurrection to His enthronement at God’s right hand should be seen as one great movement – from the lowest state (in the place of the dead) to the highest state (“…at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” Hebrews 1:3). The sonship described in Psalm 2:7 is not biological reproduction. Read the Psalm. As often happens in the Bible, ideas are often explained by parallel passages which function as apposition. In this case, 2:6 explains what this sonship reference is; the LORD proclaims, “as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.” The begotting of 2:7 is enthronement language.[1] The eternal Son, through the work He accomplished in His life and atoning death, is anointed (“Christ” in verb form) as absolute King. Remember the creation of humanity in God’s “image” and “likeness,” and that this imaging and likening was dominion (Genesis 1:26). This image was tainted on the day humanity rebelled against God (we wanted to reign independent and autonomously instead of reflecting His sovereignty). The eternal divine Son, Who came and lived as the second Adam, was faithful in obedience to the Father. So He reigns as the absolute, perfect “image” and “likeness” of the Father, ruling over all.

The second quote in Hebrews 1:5 comes from 2 Samuel 7:14//1 Chronicles 17:13. The relationship between “the LORD and…His Anointed” (Psalm 2:2) is revealed to be that between a Father and Son. This is not just about governance, but eternal relationship. The Father and Son shared a love from all eternity past (John 17:24). The Father and Son shared a glory from all eternity past (John 17:5). This love and glory is now displayed in the Kingdom rule of the Son for the eternal glory of the Father.

Praise Him, for the eternal Son, because of what He accomplished in life and death as one of us, is now revealed to be God’s King of kings and Lord of lords for the subjecting of the nations (Psalm 2:8,9; Revelation 2:26,27; 12:5) and eternal glory of the Father.

The desert rat on his throne, content to let the King of kings reign over all.

---

[1] The same understand is revealed in Psalm 89:27, where “I shall make Him My firstborn” is explained by the line, “the highest of the kings of the earth.”

The Riches of Delayed Judgment and Eternal Mercy

On Sunday nights we’re considering the book of Numbers. Last Lord’s Day evening we looked at chapter 21, where, for the first time, Israel engages in warfare during the wilderness wanderings. Some of the ethical questions that rise up when reading Joshua also come up here.

“When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, then he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. So Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.’ The LORD heard the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites; then they utterly destroyed them and their cities. Thus the name of the place was called Hormah” (Numbers 21:1-3).

Too often we allow the atomistic tendencies of biblical scholarship to govern our reading of the Scripture. We don’t consider Numbers in its greater context as part of the first five books of the Bible (I have no problem standing with tradition and calling them the books of Moses). Numbers 21 does raise ethical dilemmas – until we consider it as the “continuing story” of a much larger saga. In verses 1-3 the Canaanites are destroyed. Why? The greater epic tells us.

“These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers.’ He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant’” (Genesis 9:19-27). The curse of Noah on Ham and his descendants begins to come to fruition centuries later in Numbers 21. The sin of their father is visited upon them.

What about the Amorites? “...Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, ‘Let me pass through your land. We will not turn off into field or vineyard; we will not drink water from wells. We will go by the king's highway until we have passed through your border.’ But Sihon would not permit Israel to pass through his border. So Sihon gathered all his people and went out against Israel in the wilderness, and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. Then Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the sons of Ammon; for the border of the sons of Ammon was Jazer. Israel took all these cities and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all her villages...thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites. Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. Then they turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went out with all his people, for battle at Edrei. But the LORD said to Moses, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’ So they killed him and his sons and all his people, until there was no remnant left him; and they possessed his land” (Numbers 21:21-25,31,35).

Again, seeing this passage as part of the greater story answers some of our questions. “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete’” (Genesis 15:13-16). God’s plan was declared for this land and people centuries prior to the judgment. If we don’t consider this, Numbers 21 will seem unfair and even cruel. In light of Genesis 15:16, however, it is the end of an extremely long delay in judgment. What does the Bible say about this? “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds” (Romans 2:4-6). Hundreds and hundreds of years of delayed (and deserved) judgment was a display of “the riches of His...patience,” but they never repented.

Judgment may be delayed, but it is never cancelled. It begins to fall in Numbers 21.

One day in Athens the apostle Paul stands in the Areopagus and speaks to the gathered intelligentsia: “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:24-31).

Why did God create the nations of people, giving them boundaries and limited times? “...that they would seek God...” And, after centuries of existence with God’s patience but no repentance, judgment comes.

“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me...” (Exodus 20:3-5//Deuteronomy 5:7-9). Unfair? No. Because each generation not only receives the consequences of the previous generations’ sin, but embraces this sin and makes the lawlessness its own.

“...through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned...for as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:12,19).

A nation of people exists in a certain time and certain place for the sole purpose of seeking God. When they reject this purpose generation after generation, two things are happening. First, they are rejecting the wealth of God: His patience. Second, they are compounding the coming judgment by not only rejecting repentance, but taking their parents’ sin upon themselves and making it even greater in their generation.

Too many believers have a low view of the sinfulness of humanity. They conceive of humanity as full of “good” or “well-meaning” or even “innocent” people. So passages like those in Numbers 21 shock and disturb us. The Bible teaches a deep and eternally deadly lostness among all of humanity without exception.

There is a sobering application here, of course. From God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 15 to the fulfillment of that promise in Numbers 21 is something like 800-1000 years. The U.S.A. (just to use one example) is 238 years old. Delay is not suspended or non-existent judgment, especially since two centuries is a very small period of time compared to the average in human history.

Preach the Law, contemporary violation of it, salvation from its consequences in Christ, and command repentance in your preaching, Church (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15; 6:12; Luke 13:3,5; 24:47; ; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20). May God’s rich patience and sweet grace bring revival so that instead of compounding the coming judgment we pass on an inheritance of blessing: “...I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:5,6//Deuteronomy 5:9,10).

This is not just a promise from the Law, but also of the Gospel:

• “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20).
• “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him...if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me” (John 14:15,21,23,24).
• “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9,10).
• “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected” (1 John 2:3-5).
• “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2,3).

Judgment is promised and inevitable, but the blessing of forgiveness, eternal life, and the riches of God Himself are freely given in His Son. “...the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Repent and believe today. For those who do, the riches of delayed judgment today become the song of a rich mercy throughout eternity: “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).

Jeremiah's Turning #9: Supernatural Evangelism

Following the word “turn” (שוב) through Jeremiah’s prophecy.

“‘If you will return [שוב], O Israel,’ declares the LORD, ‘Then you should return [שוב] to Me. And if you will put away your detested things from My presence, and will not waver, and you will swear, “As the LORD lives,” in truth, in justice and in righteousness; then the nations will bless themselves in Him, and in Him they will glory.’ For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds. Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say, “Blow the trumpet in the land; cry aloud and say, “Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.” Lift up a standard toward Zion! Seek refuge, do not stand still, for I am bringing evil from the north, and great destruction. A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out; he has gone out from his place to make your land a waste. Your cities will be ruins without inhabitant.’ For this, put on sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of the LORD has not turned [שוב] back from us.” (Jeremiah 4:1-8).

God commands that His people be a repentant people, a people who do not mingle the world with Himself. What’s at stake? The Gospel fulfillment of the promise to Abraham:

• “...in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).
• “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU’” (Galatians 3:8).
• “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth’...after these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Revelation 5:9,10; 7:9,10).

“And you will swear, ‘As the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice and in righteousness; then the nations will bless themselves in Him, and in Him they will glory” (Jeremiah 4:2). This is God’s Gospel promise through a repentant, faithful people. No where in this does the Gospel promise extent to a worldly entertainment or gimmicky strategy for drawing the lost. God attaches a promise of supernaturally successful evangelism to a faithful, holy, and repentant people. The "then" is God's promise.

The only alternative to being a people of circumcised heart is being a people under the wrath of God.

This is how the nations will be blessed by the Gospel, and this is how God will ultimately receive the most glory in their sight.

Repent, Church. This is what the unbelieving world needs.

“Saving repentance is an evangelical grace by which a person who is made to feel, by the Holy Spirit, the manifold evils of his sin, and being given faith in Christ, humbles himself over his sin with godly sorrow, detestation of his sin and self-abhorrency. In such repentance the person also prays for pardon and strength of grace, and has a purpose and endeavor, by supplies of the Spirit’s power, to walk before God and to totally please Him in all things. As repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives, on account of the body of death, and the motions of it, it is therefore every man’s duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly. Such is the provision which God has made through Christ in the covenant of grace for the preservation of believers in the way of salvation, that although even the smallest sin deserves damnation, yet there is no sin great enough to bring damnation on those who repent. This makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary” (1689 Baptist Confession, 15.4-6).

Praise the Evangelist of the Whole World

“The LORD has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Psalm 98:2,3).

He has done great things:

• “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; ‘THEIR VOICE HAS GONE OUT INTO ALL THE EARTH, AND THEIR WORDS TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD [a quote from Psalm 19:4]’” (Romans 10:17,18).
• “Now to Him Who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 16:25-27).
• “We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth...and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach - if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven” (Colossians 1:3-6,21-23).

Commit yourself by faith unto obedience (John 3:36; Romans 1:5; 16:26; Acts 6:7; 2 Thessalonians 1:8) in the power of His Holy Spirit - praise Him with great praise for the Gospel song of salvation He has sung (and keeps singing) over all the earth through His Church: “O sing to the LORD a new song, for He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him...shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the LORD. Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy” (Psalm 98:1,4-8).