What do verses from Isaiah 24 and 42 mean for us today?
Isaiah's 66 chapters contain approximately two dozen prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ. These include:
Mixed in with those prophecies is a foreshadowing of Jesus' Great Commission. In two places, Isaiah talks about 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 Jesus was clearly echoing their words when He said Spirit-filled believers would be witnesses "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Today, "islands of the sea" may likely evoke images of cruise ships wandering around the Caribbean. Not so with Isaiah's fellow Jews. Instead, they likely thought of islands as perilous and distant places. Proclaiming the Lord's name on such islands would have been way 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 islanders. In the late 1700s, British bi-vocational pastor 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. God used that material to call Carey to foreign missionary service.
While Carey wound up serving in India rather than on a faraway island, stories about islands where the Gospel had not yet been preached did awaken him to the need. Carey's creation of a missionary-sending society, his mobilization efforts among British believers and local churches to reach the unreached, and his years of holistic missionary service earned him the title "Father of the Modern Missionary Movement."
Regarding us in the Church of the Nazarene, islands have long figured in our history. As the denomination was still forming in the U.S.A., it sent missionaries to Cape Verde, an Atlantic island nation. Even before the landmark Pilot Point merger, Caribbean island Cuba tied with Canada as the fourth nation entered by the developing Nazarene movement. Island nations Japan and the British Isles were the eighth and the tenth countries entered by the denomination. On and on it went until, from Antigua to Zanzibar, there are now Nazarene congregations on islands worldwide.
Some people excuse their non-involvement in world evangelism by arguing: "We have to reach those at home first." Isaiah's two "islands of the sea" passages stand directly against such inward-curved 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 in distant islands?"
We must also ask: "Am I personally doing all I should to contribute to fulfilling this call to the most remote places?"
-- Howard Culbertson,
This mini-essay on a world missions Bible passage is one of more than three dozen articles in the "Heart of God" series published in Engage, a monthly online magazine. That series explores what the Bible says about missions.
To the ancient Jews, who primarily lived in the land of Israel, the phrase "in the islands" would have evoked images of faraway places far beyond their known world. "The islands" signified the extremities of the earth. Those were places that were distant and sometimes even considered mythical.
The Bible writers' mention of "the islands" emphasizes the reach of God's judgment and salvation. Its usage was meant to convey the idea that no region or people would be out of the reach of God, whether in terms of judgment for disobedience or in terms of salvation and restoration.
In summary, to ancient Jews, the phrase "in the islands" would evoke the entirety of the known world beyond the boundaries of Israel. Isaiah and other prophets used the image of "the islands" to emphasize the worldwide reach of God's plans and actions.