BLESSED AND A BLESSING- 3 NATIONS

Rick Jackson

PROVERBS 14:34

In the history of the world there are three nations that really stand out as having been blessed by God and as being a blessing to others. This is not to say there aren't others but there are three that are practically indisputable in this regard. Israel, Great Britain, and the United States of America. Obviously books have been written on the subject of each individual nation but here let us just note three things about each of these three nations and why God has blessed them and made them a blessing to others.

I. THE NATION OF ISRAEL (PSALM 33:12, MAL. 3:6-12)

Israel was used of God to:

1. Give us the Bible (Rm. 3:1-2)

2. Give us the Saviour (Rev. 12)

3. Give us the Gospel (Mt. 28:18-20, Acts 9:1-6, 15-16, 20)

II. THE BRITISH EMPIRE

The British Empire was used of God to:

1. Give us the English Bible (II Tm. 3:16)

The Wycliff English Bible in 1382, the Tyndale Bible in 1525, the Coverdale in 1535, the Rogers Bible in 1537, the Great Bible in 1539, the Geneva in 1560, the Bishops in 1568, the King James Bible in 1611

2. Give us the modern missions using William Carey, God's plodder (Mark 16:15)

When he died at 73 (1834), he had seen the Scriptures translated and printed into forty languages, he had been a college professor, and had founded a college at Serampore. He had seen India open its doors to missionaries, he had seen the edict passed prohibiting sati (burning widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands), and he had seen converts for Christ.

On his deathbed Carey called out to a missionary friend, "Dr. Duff! You have been speaking about Dr. Carey; when I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey -- speak about Dr. Carey's God." That charge was symbolic of Carey, considered by many to be a "unique figure, towering above both contemporaries and successors" in the ministry of missions.

*from Profiles in Evangelism by Fred Barlow, Sword of the Lord Publishers, ©1976.

3. Give us some great influences for Christ- John & Charles Wesley, William Booth, John Bunyan, David Livingstone, Charles Spurgeon, George Mueller, John Newton, Hudson Taylor, C.T. Studd, George Whitfield to name a few (Mt. 5:13)

III. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (I COR. 3:11)

The United States of America has been used of God to:

1. Send the Bible to all the world (Rm. 10:17-18)

2. Send missionaries to the whole earth (Rm. 10:13-15)

3. Send out some great lights for Christ- C.I. Scofield, D.L. Moody, John R. Rice, Billy Sunday, Fanny Crosby, R.A. Torrey, Henry Morris (Matthew 5:14-16)