Pastor John, you recently tweeted Joshua 424, which reads,

He dried up the Jordan that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty.

And then you added the word missions to the tweet, how does Joshua 424 relate to global missions?

Well, I'm glad for the question, because I love to talk about this.

Let me read the text that I was quoting. This is Joshua 423 to 24.

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over as the Lord your God did the Red Sea.

So you get the splitting of the Jordan and the splitting of the Red Sea as one big, great, miraculous way God is dealing with these people,

which he dried up for us until we passed over. So that, now here's the purpose clause.

Why did God split the Red Sea? Why did God split the Jordan in such a stunning and miraculous way?

So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.

So what that text says is one of God's purposes in the Exodus and in the entrance into the land with a stretching forth of his mighty arm in dividing the seas

was so that the news would spread everywhere among all the nations, Yahweh, the God of Israel is supremely mighty.

Now that's what I mean by missions. We read in some 96 declare his glory among the nations.

And that becomes the theme of many missions conferences. Well here it is. God is declaring his glory among the nations.

God is a missionary God. And so what I would do to expand it and explain it would be to say from the very beginning,

when man fell and God inaugurated a plan of redemption, God had the nations in view.

Even when he chose Israel to focus on for two thousand years, he had the nations in view because he said to Abraham,

I'll make you a great nation. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed, Genesis 12, 2.

So when he chose Israel and began to do his mighty works in and for Israel, he was doing them always on the stage of the world with a view that the nations would see his glory.

So if you go back to Exodus 14 where they're coming out of Egypt, he says in chapter 14 verse 4,

I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

Now here's the question, when he did that, when he put his glory on display for the Egyptians, is that the only thing he had in mind?

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