Missions: God's Plan From the BeginningSample

The best part about reading God’s promises in the Old Testament is that we know that these promises will come true. We know because all over the Old Testament, God proved himself faithful to keep his promises. He told Abraham he would have a son, and he did. He promised to give Abraham’s family the land of Canaan, and he did. He promised that if the Israelites worshipped other gods, they would be removed from the Promised Land, and that happened too.

So, when God promised that he would save the nations, we don’t even need Revelation 21 to know that this will happen. Revelation 21 is a glimpse into the future when all these passages will be fulfilled. However, this is one of the ways that we get to be like the Israel of the Old Testament. One day we will see people from every tribe, tongue, and nation worshipping before the throne of God. Today, we get to have faith. We can listen to God’s promises that “all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord” (Ps 22:27). We too can “proclaim among the nations what he has done” (Ps 9:11). We do so in obedience to Jesus, but we do it knowing that this was the plan all along.