“A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time” – Isaiah 60:22.
I would like to share some thoughts on the above Scripture that has long been one of my favorites.
Through all the works of God, known and unknown, runs one golden thread, one unchangeable principle: eternal growth, eternal expansion. This is inherent in the very nature of God, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
God has worked through the eternity past, He is working in the present, and His work of creation and development will go on throughout the eternal future. “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him” (Ps. 103:17).
From eternity to eternity planets are glorified, galaxies are completed, yet the end never comes. The end can never come because God is everlasting.
We are forced to believe in God, just as we are compelled to believe in unlimited time and space. What lies outside of space? What is the substitute for time? If not God, then what?
So with the principle of expansion; it is absurd to think of an eternal, infinite Creator finding Himself at the end of His resources or creative will. “I know that whatsoever God does,” said the Wise man, “it shall be forever.” FOREVER! None of His finished works will ever be destroyed. Whatever He has completed, there is still limitless time and space for the limitless growth of His family of glorified worlds. The Bible capsulizes it in this phrase: “World without end.”
Every day which passes here on Earth, somewhere in space new worlds are being finished and glorified, while others are just beginning the long process of creation and development and will one day become part of God’s glorified Heaven.
This is the big picture, but our chief interest is in our corner of this infinitely vast creation. Isaiah 60:22 deals with the future of our world, something we can comprehend and act upon.
Throughout the 6000-year day of salvation God planned for our Earth, His people have been a small minority living in the midst of a corrupt world (Deut. 7:7). The nation of Israel, though small, was larger than many nations in its day. When Moses spoke of Israel as “the fewest of all people,” he was speaking of the true Israel, those worthy of the name. These have always been few in number.
This, one might think, is not expansion. Yet it is. The planted seed is small, and its germination unseen, but where the Spirit of the Lord works, there is growth. In this “eleventh hour,” the true believers are very, very few in number, but their characters are expanding daily toward perfection, and God’s appointed number (Rev. 14:1) is nearing completion.
When the Bride has made herself ready (Rev. 19:7) and the marriage of the Lamb is consummated, their spiritual offspring will multiply and replenish the earth. Then “Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit” (Isa. 27:6).
The visible judgments of God will turn the tide, and once God’s way becomes the popular way, the movement will gather speed. The result will be a revival such as the world has never seen, with its object the development of the populace of the Kingdom of God.
Six thousand years of free choice have produced the rulers of the Kingdom, a mighty and wonderful achievement; but in that time the world has reached the condition described in Isaiah 59, where “none calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth…for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” The mercy of God has hardened their hearts. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11). But things will change. “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9).
Only one thousand years beyond this dark picture, we find the blessed result of God’s purifying judgments: “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num.14:21).
As our planet goes from glory to glory, its destiny will be guided and controlled by volunteers who, in the face of all the world, dared to stand alone and be different, to be God-like. Is it not just and right that they should thus sit on the throne as rulers? (Rev. 3:21). God rewards every one according to their works (Rev. 22:12; Jer. 17:10), and greater work will merit—and receive—greater reward.
Let us work to be worthy of the great reward. If we qualify, we will no longer be part of a tiny minority but will belong to the largest family in the universe—God’s glorious, heavenly hosts of angels (Eph. 3:14-15). – SK