Isaiah 11:10-12 - Homiletics

God's mercy in bringing the Gentiles into his kingdom.

In the old world, when "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth," God sent forth a fierce destruction, and swept away the entire human race, excepting eight persons. After the Flood he promised, of his own free grace, that he would never so destroy mankind again ( Genesis 9:11-15 ). But it was open to him to have sent upon the world some other equally severe visitation, and to have once more rid the earth of "a seed of evildoers." The general corruption of the Gentile world, when Christ came, was excessive. It is scarcely possible that the corruption of the antediluvians can have been greater. As a modern historian sums up his account of heathendom at the coming of Christ, "Corruption had attained its full tide at the commencement of the second century. Vices gnawed at the marrow of nations, and, above all, of the Romans: their national existence was more than menaced; the moral sickness had become a physical one in its effects—a subtle poison penetrating into the vitals of the state; and, as before in the sanguinary civil wars, so now the lords of the world seemed minded to destroy themselves by their vices. Men were denuded of all that was really good, and, surrounded on all sides by the thick clouds of a blinded conscience, they caught with wild eagerness at the grossest sensual enjoyments, in the wild tumult of which they plunged to intoxication". Or take St. Paul's account of the condition of the heathen when he began his preaching: "As men did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, deceit, debate, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" ( Romans 1:28-32 ). Yet, instead of destroying this polluted race, God had compassion on them, and went out of his way to seek them.

I. HE LIFTED UP CHRIST TO THEM AS AN ENSIGN FROM AFAR . By the manifestation of Christ's character in the Gospels, he set them up a Pattern which they could not but admire, which drew them irresistibly by its purity and loveliness, made them hate themselves, and brought them low on their knees before his footstool.

II. HE OFFERED HIS GOSPEL FREELY TO THEM FROM THE FIRST . "Go, disciple ye all nations , baptizing them;" "Preach the gospel to every creature ;" "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." There was no limit, no favoritism; no offer of salvation only to those who had acted up to their previous light.

III. HE RAISED UP A SPECIAL TEACHER , SPECIALLY QUALIFIED , TO BE " THE APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES ." What impression Christianity would have made on the Gentile world without St. Paul, or some one similarly qualified, it is difficult to say. Conceivably, it might have taken merely the dimensions of a Jewish sect, which believed that the Messiah had come. St. Paul, raised up for the purpose, lifted it above the sphere of Jewish controversy into world-wide consideration. Teaching personally at Antioch, at Ephesus, at Athens, at Corinth, at Rome, disputing with philosophers, converting members of Caesar's household, he gave it a position among the religions of the world which could not be ignored by later educated inquirers. The apostle of the Gentiles spread Christianity from Syria to Rome, perhaps to Spain, and gave it that hold upon the attention of the educated classes which secured, under God's blessing, its ultimate triumph.