🌍 World Missions — Unit 2: The Nations in God’s Plan

Introduction: Missions Did Not Begin in the New Testament

Many Christians imagine that the missionary idea began when Jesus spoke the Great Commission, or perhaps when Paul set out for the Gentiles. But the truth is far older. The heart of God for all the nations runs like a golden thread from the first pages of Genesis to the last of Malachi. When Jesus said "make disciples of all the nations," He was not introducing a new idea; He was bringing to harvest a seed that God had planted long before. To understand missions, then, we must begin not in Jerusalem but in the Old Testament, where God revealed from the very beginning that His saving purpose embraced the whole world.

I. The Promise to Abraham

The missionary plan of God is written into the very covenant by which He called Abraham. "I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2–3, NKJV). Notice the reach of that promise: not one family, not one nation, but all the families of the earth. God repeated it after Abraham's obedience on Mount Moriah: "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 22:18, NKJV).

Here is the key to the whole Old Testament. Israel was chosen, but never for Israel's sake alone. Israel was the channel; the world was the goal. The apostle Paul saw this clearly, and he called the promise to Abraham nothing less than the gospel preached in advance: "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed'" (Galatians 3:8, NKJV). The blessing was always meant to flow through Abraham's family to the ends of the earth.

II. Israel Chosen to Be a Light

When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He told them plainly why He had set them apart: "You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6, NKJV). Consider what a priest is. A priest stands between God and other people, representing God to them and bringing them to God. To be a kingdom of priests, then, was to be a nation that would mediate the knowledge of the true God to all the other nations of the earth. Israel was God's treasured possession, but for a purpose far larger than itself.

Israel was to display the character of God so plainly that the surrounding nations would take notice. Moses told them that when the nations heard their laws, they would say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people" (Deuteronomy 4:6, NKJV). The light was never meant to be hidden under the bushel of one nation; it was meant to shine out to all.

III. The Nations in the Songs of Israel

If we listen carefully to the hymnbook of Israel, we will hear the missionary heartbeat on nearly every page. The Psalms are filled with the nations. "God be merciful to us and bless us... that Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations" (Psalm 67:1–2, NKJV). "Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples" (Psalm 96:3, NKJV). "All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name" (Psalm 86:9, NKJV). The people of God were singing of a world won to God long before any missionary set sail. The vision of every tongue confessing the Lord, which we will meet in Unit 3, was already alive in their songs.

IV. The Prophets and the Nations

The prophets carried the same vision forward, and none more gloriously than Isaiah. Of the coming Servant of the Lord, God said: "I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6, NKJV). Of His temple, God declared: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations" (Isaiah 56:7, NKJV). Isaiah saw the day when the nations would stream to the mountain of the Lord to learn His ways (Isaiah 2:2–3). And the last of the prophets sounded the same note: "For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles... My name shall be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts" (Malachi 1:11, NKJV). The Old Testament closes still looking outward, still expecting the nations to come.

V. Jonah, the Reluctant Missionary

There is one Old Testament book that is, from beginning to end, a missionary story — and it is also a mirror held up to the people of God. God called the prophet Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh, a great pagan city of the Gentiles. But Jonah ran in the opposite direction. Why? Not because he feared he would fail, but because he feared he would succeed. When at last Nineveh repented and God spared the city, Jonah was angry, and he confessed the real reason for his flight: "I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm" (Jonah 4:2, NKJV). Jonah did not want the Gentiles to be saved.

The book ends not with the prophet's words but with God's question: "And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left?" (Jonah 4:11, NKJV). It is a question that hangs over every believer. Jonah had the truth, but he had no heart for the lost. He shows us the great danger of a people who possess the knowledge of God yet feel no burden for the nations who do not. God's pity for the lost city is the very heart of missions, and it is the same burden the Lord put on our hearts in the Great Commission.

Conclusion: The Oldest Promise

From Abraham to Malachi, the Old Testament tells a single story that bends always toward the nations. God chose one man, one family, one nation — not to keep His blessing in, but to send it out. The Gentile mission is not a New Testament novelty; it is the fulfillment of the oldest promise in redemptive history. When we carry the gospel to the peoples of the earth, we are completing what God began when He said to Abraham, "In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

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