The God of All Nations: Numbers 6:22-27, Psalm 67 and Acts 11: 1-19

Aug 06, 2023

Summary of Sermon

The blessing that Priests were to speak to the people about God’s blessings were supposed to be shared by the Jews to the world around them. Sadly, time and time again, the Jews hoarded the Good News of God’s mercy and grace and rather than share the truth, they embraced the lies of pagan gods.

In Psalm 67, there is a similar chant about 1000 years later from the one in Numbers. Here God expands and tells us that the blessing is for the nations. Not just the Jews. But they still hoarded it and they did not do a lot of sharing with the Gentile nations around them.

In Acts 11: 1-19, Peter gives the account of his journey to Cornelius’ home from Acts 10. There he enters the home of Gentiles and preaches to them the Gospel. They too are saved, receive the Holy Spirit and are baptized. The Jews in Jerusalem were first angry with Peter that he went to preach to a Gentile and actually entered his home. But they come to the understanding that God has granted salvation to the Gentiles as well. Even then, some 3000 years after the Numbers 6 blessing the Jews, even saved Jews, did not understand that they were responsible to share God’s grace, mercy and salvation with the world.

Now, here we are 2000 years removed from Acts 11 and a vast majority of the Gentile world has heard the Gospel for themselves, but there is still work to do.