The fifth day arrived. There were the vast stretches of ocean and sea. God called into existence the denizens of the deep, the fishes, and all that move in the waters, and also the fowl of the air. We have seen in Rev. 17:1515And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. (Revelation 17:15) that the waters, which John saw in his apocalyptic vision, were symbolic of peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. Does it not seem that the peopling of the seas is symbolic of God's gracious work among the Gentiles through the Gospel? The Old Testament testimony was confined very largely to the children of Israel. Our Lord was sent unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The great feature of the New Testament is, however, the Gospel of God going out world-wide to the veritable ends of the earth. The commission of our risen Lord was:- "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature " (Mark 16:1515And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16:15)). "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:1919Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: (Matthew 28:19)). "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:4747And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47)). And when we come to the Gospel of John, written long years after the three synoptical Gospels were written, this wide-spread preaching of the Gospel is still more marked. "God so loved the world," " Whosoever " repeated again and again is world-wide in its appeal. No longer is God's message confined to the children of Israel. It goes out to the ends of the earth.
And when we come to the Acts of the Apostles we find one, who fiercely persecuted the Church of God, suddenly converted, and commissioned by Christ in glory to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. We follow the story of the missionary labors of the Apostle Paul, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and note how diligently and at what cost to himself, he labored to carry the Gospel of God to the Gentiles.
The Apostle Paul was the first great missionary to carry the Gospel to strange lands. Since his day we have the record of much missionary effort from the time of St. Augustine, who came as a missionary to the shores of Kent, England, when that country was pagan and idolatrous, to the days of Carey, Judson, Martyn, Moffat, Livingstone, Paton, Hudson Taylor, etc., etc. God speed every missionary laborer in the fields white already to harvest. India, China, Japan, Africa, North America, South America, the far-off islands of the Pacific-all can furnish many thrilling tales of devoted missionaries, many of whom energized by the Spirit of God to carry out our Lord's commission to evangelize all nations, have laid down their lives in this blessed service.