TL;DR:
Isaiah’s calls to proclaim God's praise “in the islands” reflect the Bible's global missionary vision. His words call us to evangelize remote and difficult places. Verses in Isaiah 24 and 42 challenge the inward-focused idea that we must reach those at home first.
“Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.”
“Let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands.”
What do these verses from Isaiah 24 and 42 mean for us today?
The 66 chapters of Isaiah contain approximately two dozen passages that Christians have traditionally understood as prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ. These include:
Alongside those prophecies is a foreshadowing of Jesus' Great Commission. In two places, Isaiah speaks of praising God in the most remote places imaginable. Those two passages—Isaiah 24:15 and 42:12—do not appear in lists of Isaiah's messianic prophecies. Perhaps they should, for their worldwide vision anticipates Jesus' declaration that Spirit-filled believers would be His witnesses "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Today, “islands of the sea” may bring to mind images of cruise ships sailing around the Caribbean. Not so with Isaiah's original audience. They were not seafarers. Instead, they thought of islands as distant places fraught with danger. Proclaiming the Lord's name on such islands would have been far outside their comfort zones.
Despite huge distances and dangers, real and imagined, missionaries throughout Christian history have been motivated to proclaim the gospel to unevangelized island communities. In the late 1700s, British Baptist pastor and former shoemaker William Carey read Captain James Cook's Voyages Around the World. Cook's accounts of his visits to islands in the South Pacific included descriptions of indigenous religious beliefs and rituals. Those accounts helped broaden Carey's awareness of the need for foreign missionary service. Although he eventually served in India rather than on a faraway island, Carey created a missionary-sending society and mobilized British believers and local churches to reach the unreached. His years of whole-person missionary ministry have led many to call him the “father of modern Protestant missions.”
Islands have also figured prominently in the history of the Church of the Nazarene. As the denomination was still forming in the U.S.A., it sent missionaries to Cabo Verde, an Atlantic island nation. Even before the landmark Pilot Point merger, Cuba and Canada were tied as the fourth countries entered by the developing Nazarene movement. Japan and the British Isles were the eighth and tenth areas entered by the denomination. That expansion continued, and today Nazarene congregations can be found on islands around the world, from Antigua to Zanzibar.
Some Christians hesitate to become involved in world evangelism because they believe, “We have to reach those at home first.” Isaiah's two “islands of the sea” passages stand directly against such inward-focused thinking.
Isaiah 24 and 42 should cause us to ask: Is my local church truly burdened to fulfill the call to exalt and proclaim the Lord on distant islands?
We must also ask: Am I personally doing all I should to contribute to fulfilling this call to the most remote places?
Note: Thousands of islands around the world are inhabited by millions of people.
This reflection on a Bible passage about world missions is one of more than three dozen articles in the “Heart of God” series published in Engage, a monthly online magazine. That series looks at what the Bible says about world missions.
Like acrostics? Here are more of them.
To the people of ancient Israel and Judah, living primarily in the land of Israel, the biblical phrase translated “the islands” or “the coastlands” could represent distant lands beyond their familiar world. Those distant regions may have been known chiefly through travelers' reports and stories. The Bible writers' use of this language calls attention to the worldwide reach of God's judgment and salvation: No region or people lies beyond His reach, whether in judgment for disobedience or in salvation and restoration.
