We are meant to go to the nations.  We are meant to carry the gospel to all the world.  It is what God has purposed us to do.  We are not meant to stay in one place.  It is our tendency as humans to cluster but it is God’s intention that we would scatter across this earth to spread the good news of the Kingdom.

In Genesis He gave the command to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth.  God gives this command to Adam and Even and then to Noah.  Then we see in the 11th chapter the story of the Tower of Babel.  When humans came together and decided to stay together to make their name known.  God came down, confused their speech and scattered them.  Then He called Abraham to leave his family and go west.  If Abraham would obey God, God would bless Him so that the nations of the world would be blessed (this call to go, to spread across the earth with the good news is here even with Abraham).  If we will fast forward to the New Testament to Acts we see God’s answer to the tower – Pentecost.  At pentecost we see all the nations gathered at one point and the Holy Spirit coming and giving tongues to the apostles so that every language could here the good news.  Of course we must assume that these people who journeyed to Jerusalem also went back home (spread across the earth) and told what they had just experienced.  But then we also see Jesus’ command to the disciples to go and make disciples in Matthew 28 (He first told them to go and wait for the Holy Spirit and then to go).  They did indeed go and wait and the Holy Spirit was poured out on them but then they did what humanity has a tendency to do – they didn’t go – they stayed.  So, God allowed persecution to come and we see Stephen being killed and and as a result the disciples were scattered and they carried the gospel wherever they went.  If we really think about this, it is quite amazing.  God’s call on His people is to go, it is not to stay and cluster.  We must always be looking to go.  We must always be looking to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.  This is God’s plan, this is His purpose.  History says that if we don’t do this He will allow things to come our way to scatter us.