“Go into the Highways and Hedges”
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of God before you.”
Matthew 21:31
. However wretched may be the
specimens of humanity that men spurn and turn aside from, they are
not too low, too wretched, for the notice and love of God. Christ
longs to have care-worn, weary, oppressed human beings come to
Him. He longs to give them the light and joy and peace that are to be
found nowhere else. The veriest sinners are the objects of His deep,
earnest pity and love. He sends His Holy Spirit to yearn over them
with tenderness, seeking to draw them to Himself.
The servant who brought in the poor and the blind reported to his
master, “It is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And
the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges,
and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Here Christ
pointed to the work of the gospel outside the pale of Judaism, in the
highways and byways of the world.
In obedience to this command, Paul and Barnabas declared to the
Jews, “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been
spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves
unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath
the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set Thee to be a light of the
Gentiles, that Thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the
earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified
the word of the Lord; and as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed.”
Acts 13:46-48
.
The gospel message proclaimed by Christ’s disciples was the an-
nouncement of His first advent to the world. It bore to men the good
tidings of salvation through faith in Him. It pointed forward to His
second coming in glory to redeem His people, and it set before men
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the hope, through faith and obedience, of sharing the inheritance of
the saints in light. This message is given to men today, and at this time
there is coupled with it the announcement of Christ’s second coming
as at hand. The signs which He Himself gave of His coming have been
fulfilled, and by the teaching of God’s word we may know that the
Lord is at the door.
John in the Revelation foretells the proclamation of the gospel
message just before Christ’s second coming. He beholds an angel
flying “in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach
unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give