This is key to a worldwide revival.
Isaiah 49:5-6 And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength), He says, ""It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make You a light of the gentiles so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.''
The Apostle Paul says it this way in Romans chapter 11.
"Now if Israel's transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if the jews rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead (for the whole world)?"
This quote from Charles Spurgeon. Thursday Evening, June 14th, 1883 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington:
Why did the Lord Jesus tell the disciples to "begin at Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the world"? It may have been that he knew that there would come a time when some of his disciples would despise the Jews, and therefore he said When you preach my gospel, begin with them. This is a standing commandment, and everywhere we ought to preach the gospel to the Jew as well as to the Gentile; Paul even says, "to the Jew first" (Romans 1:16). Some seem to think that there ought to be no mission to the Jews that there is no hope of converting them, that they are of no use when they are converted, and so on. I have even heard some who call themselves Christians speak slightingly of the Jewish people. What? and your Lord and Master a Jew? There is no race on earth so exalted as they are. They are the seed of Abraham, God's friend. We have nobles and dukes in England, but how far could they trace their pedigree? Why, up to a nobody. But the poorest Jew on earth is descended linearly from Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham. Instead of treating them with anything like disrespect, the Saviour says, "Begin at Jerusalem." Just as we say, "Ladies first," so it is "to the Jew first..." They take precedence among races, and are to be first waited on at the gospel feast. Jesus would have us entertain a deep regard to that nation which God chose of old, and out of which Christ also came, for he is of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. He puts those first who knew him first. Let us never sneer at a Jew again; for our Lord teaches us the rule of his house when he says, "Begin at Jerusalem." Let the seed of Israel first have the gospel presented to them, and if they reject it we shall be clear of their blood. But we shall not be faithful to our orders unless we have taken note of Jews as well as Gentiles. Deuteronomy 4: 30-32 "When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice." For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. "Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it?
Psalm 102:12-14 You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come.
To sum it up:
The time to favor Zion has come.
...by the
way of the sea of Galilee, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Nations.
 The
people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
Isaiah 9:1-2 |
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