Light Through All Ages
September 10, 2025
Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The gracious God has given revelation to men throughout the centuries, from Adam to this very day.
Acts 3:21 say God has spoken “by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” See also Luke 1:70.
Acts 14:17 says, “he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
Acts 17:26-27 says, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.”
It is not God’s fault that men sit in darkness. He is the Good Shepherd who has sought lost sinners from the time of Adam and Eve.
God planned salvation before the world was made and has worked it out in history. Christ is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Re. 13:8). God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” and Christ “gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Ti. 2:3-6).
The Bible says that Christ lights every man (Joh. 1:9). Every man has the light of creation, which is so bright that it leaves men without excuse (Ps. 19:1-6; Ro. 1:18). Every man has the light of conscience, which is bright enough to condemn men at God’s judgment (Ro. 2:14-16). It is man’s responsibility to seek God (Ac. 17:26-27). When men respond to the light they have, God gives more light. We see this in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch (Ac. 8:26-40) and Cornelius the Roman centurion(Ac. 10-11). God is working in men’s hearts, using the light that they have and sending more light when they respond.
Consider some of the ways that God has given light to men through all times:
- God sought Adam and Eve after their fall and personally taught them about the coming Saviour through prophecy (Ge. 3:8-15) and through the typology of clothing them in the skins that were acquired through the slaying of innocent animals (Ge. 3:21).
- Abel, Adam’s second son, was a prophet who preached salvation by grace through faith in the blood and death of an innocent substitute (Lu. 11:50-51).
- Adam lived for 930 years, so he was alive during the lifetimes of the men mentioned in Genesis 5 except for Noah. Noah was born about 150 years after Adam died. Thus, the knowledge of the truth was readily available.
- Enoch was a prophet who proclaimed the Second Coming of Christ and end-time judgment (Ge. 5:24; Jude 1:14-15).
- Methuselah was given his name by his prophet father, Enoch (Ge. 5:21, 27). It means “it will come” and was a prophecy of the coming flood. He died that same year as the flood.
- Noah was a preacher of righteousness and preached as he was building the Ark before the Flood (2 Pe. 2:5).
- After the Flood, Noah lived for 350 years and Shem lived for 500 years. They knew about the true God and salvation and doubtless witnessed for Him, yet most men rejected the truth and followed the rebellion of Babel.
- Melchizedek was a priest who preached the Word of God in Abraham’s day (Ge. 14:17-20). He was the king of Salem which later became Jerusalem. The writer of Hebrews said that there are many things that we don’t know about Melchizedek (Heb. 5:10-11), but we do know that he was “a priest of the most high God” (Elyon El), which is repeated four times in this account (Ge. 14:1, 19, 20, 22). God is also called “possessor of heaven and earth” (Ge. 14:19, 22). Melchizedek was thus a witness for the living God in those dark times. By his very name and city, he proclaimed righteousness (zedek) and peace (Salem). Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, thus honoring him as God’s representative on earth.
- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were prophets who knew about Christ’s coming kingdom (Ac. 3:21). The “restitution of all things” refers to this kingdom. Abraham saw Christ (Joh. 8:56). The Patriarchs were a light to the nations of Canaan and Mesopotamia and Egypt and perhaps beyond.
- Israel, in spite of her failings, was a great light to the nations. God’s dealings with Israel were world renowned. See Ex. 18:11; Nu. 14:13-14; Jos. 2:9-11; 1 Sa. 4:8; 6:6; 1 Ch. 17:21; Jer. 32:20-21; Da. 9:15.
- The law of Moses was a great light to the nations. The skeptic’s idea that Moses borrowed from the pagan nations is ridiculous. The law of Moses, in its description of God and its principles of righteousness and justice and love, is infinitely higher than anything produced by the ancient pagan nations.
- Israel’s temple in Jerusalem was a light to the nations. On the day of its dedication, Solomon prayed, “That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else” (1 Ki. 8:60), “... that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee” (2 Ch. 6:33). Jesus said God intended the temple to be “a house of prayer for all nations,” not just for Israel (Mr. 11:17), so this was true both of the first and the second temples. Solomon spoke of strangers who would come to Israel “from a far country for thy great name’s sake” (2 Ch. 6:32). This happened on a wide scale in that day. “And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart” (2 Ch. 9:23). The story of those visits and the effect of that light on benighted people has never yet been told.
- The queen of Sheba is an example. In this woman we are given a peek into the light that spread in those times from Israel’s magnificent temple. She was from a wealthy but idolatrous kingdom that worshiped the moon god, and she put her faith, rather, in Jehovah. She came to Israel for the very purpose of looking into “the name of the LORD [Jehovah]” (1 Ki. 10:1). She twice called God Jehovah and blessed Him as the only God (1 Ki. 10:9). She acknowledged that God chose Israel as His witness. The fact that this queen of ancient Sheba will condemn unbelievers is clear evidence that she put her faith in the true God (Mt. 12:42).
- In the days of Hiram, king of Tyre, the Phoenician trading empire was closely aligned with Israel. Thus, it is certain that some light of Old Testament Scripture was disseminated across the Mesopotamian region and beyond. The Phoenician language was similar to Hebrew and would have been understood by many literate people. Hiram was a friend of David and Solomon and assisted in building David’s palace (2 Sa. 5:11) and the LORD’S temple (1 Ki. 5:1-12). Hiram personally blessed the LORD (1 Ki. 5:7; 2 Ch. 2:12). Hiram was aligned with Solomon in international trading. Phoenician sailors and navigators worked in Solomon’s navy (1 Ki. 9:26-28), traveling as far as Ophir for gold. The location of Ophir is not known for sure. It could have been India or Africa, but it is more probable that Ophir was in the region of India. “The Hebrew words translated ‘ivory,’ ‘apes’ and ‘peacocks’ in 2 Chronicles 9:21 are all of a foreign origin, relating commonly to India. Gensenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon says the word used for ape is ‘a word of Indian origin.’ It’s likely that travelers from the land of Israel would have learned the foreign names for these exotic items” (“Gold of Ophir,” Watch Jerusalem, Dec. 14, 2020). Further, Ophir was the source of almug wood, which could be the sandalwood of India (1 Ki. 10:11). “This large timber was most likely a sandalwood or ‘grecian juniper’ that originated in Ceylon or India. Biblical and ancient Near Eastern sources indicate that it was used in the construction of large buildings and musical instruments alike” (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds). Almug was used in Israel to make harps (1 Ki. 10:12). In 1946, an 8th century BC ostracon was found in Israel with the inscription in Hebrew, “Gold from Ophir to bet Horan - 30 shekels.”
- Solomon’s navy also journeyed to Tarshish (1 Ki. 10:22), which was the region of Spain in the western Mediterranean. It is highly likely that Hebrew Scripture traveled to western Europe in those days.
- The ancient nations had libraries of books collected from far and wide. Archaeologists have unearthed large libraries from the city-state of Ebla (17,000 tablets), Ugarit, Mari, Nineveh, and many other places. The library at Pergamos consisted of 200,,000 volumes. The ancient library of Alexandria, Egypt, was world renowned. Ptolemy II (283-246 BC) appointed Demetrius of Phaleron royal librarian and commissioned him to collect all of the books of the literate world, either by purchase, confiscation, or copying. Books flowed into the library from across the world by ship and caravan. Visiting ships were required to surrender their books to be copied by the library’s scribes. Books in foreign languages (Assyrian, Persian, Hebrew, Sanskrit) were translated into Greek. There can be no doubt that many libraries contained the Jewish Scriptures. Before Christ, some parts of the Hebrew Scripture, particularly the Pentateuch, were translated into Greek, the trade language of the Greek Empire.
- God had witnesses in high places in the kingdoms of Babylon (Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego) and Persia (Daniel, Esther, Mordecai, Nehemiah).
- We know of Gentiles who had faith in the living God before the time of Christ, and these are only the ones mentioned in Scripture, doubtless representative of many others, probably a great many others. They include Job, Bildad, Zophar, Elipaz, and Elihu of Uz (the book of Job), Rahab (Jos. 2), Ruth (Ru. 1), the queen of Sheba (1 Ki. 10:9; Mt. 12:42), the widow of Zarephath (1 Ki. 17:8-16), Naaman (2 Ki. 5:15), Hiram king of Tyre (2 Ch. 2:12), Ahimelech the Hittite (1 Sa. 26:6), Uriah the Hittite (2 Sa. 23:29), Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon (Da. 4), Darius king of Persia (Da. 6), and the Ninevites who repented at Jonah’s preaching (Jon. 3:5).
- Israel’s light spread throughout the nations by the multiplication of synagogues after the Babylonian Captivity. Many Gentiles learned of the true God through the synagogues where the Scripture was read and studied. This prepared the way for the gospel in Paul’s day. On his travels, he first visited the synagogues and preached to Gentile proselytes (Ac. 13:32; 14:1). They were called “devout persons” (Ac. 17:17).
- The Ethiopian eunuch’s journey to Jerusalem and experience with the book of Isaiah is a glimpse into how the Scriptures traveled before Christ (Ac. 8:26-40). The eunuch lived in the time of Christ, but he had not heard the gospel. He obtained a copy of Isaiah or at least a portion thereof and was trying to understand it. He was taking it back to Africa with his entourage when God sent Philip to preach the gospel to him. Only the Lord knows how many copies of precious Scripture portions journeyed across the earth from Israel and bore fruit for God’s glory in Old Testament times!
- The Lord Jesus Christ commanded that the gospel be preached to every nation and every soul (Mt. 28:19; Mr. 16:15). It was preached far and wide even in the days of the apostles (Col. 1:23), to Europe, England, Africa, and many parts of Asia, perhaps India. Over the past 2,000 years the gospel has been preached to every nation and the Bible has been translated into every major language and a great many minor languages, yet the world remains largely in darkness because, for the most part, the nations have treated it with disdain and the vast majority of people have rejected it.
- Oftentimes benighted people have retained slimmers of spiritual light that has prepared them for the gospel. Don Richardson gave many examples in Eternity in Their Hearts. For example, in the time of the early modern missionary movement, the Karen people of Burma and Thailand knew that they had lost God’s book and they were expecting a white man to bring it back to them. They knew that God’s name was “Y’wa” that He is the supreme, sovereign God, the creator of all things, dwelling in Heaven, perfect in good character, eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent. They knew that the first man and woman were placed in a garden and had a “fruit of trial.” They were tempted by Mu-kawlee (Satan), who slandered God and said the man and woman would gain all knowledge by eating the fruit. Because they did not obey Y’wa they became subject to sickness, aging, and death. The Karens knew these things, but they had lost the saving knowledge of God. Yet they refused to accept the Buddhism that was the main religion of Burma. The account of the Karen’s lost book and their belief that it would be brought back to them by a white man was first recorded in 1795 in An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, but the few British that visited remote Ava at that time did not know the gospel. The expectation of the Karan people was fulfilled some 30 years later after Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist foreign missionary from America, began to preach in that part of the world. “The Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000-member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of deliverance from God” (Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts). Judson co-laborer George Boardman was the first to preach the gospel to the Karens, and Ko Thah-byu, a robber and murderer, was the first convert in 1828. He realized he was the first to learn of the “lost book of Y’wa,” learned to read, and began to travel to Karen villages and preach Christ. Tens of thousands of Karens professed Christ as Lord and Saviour. Richardson tells of similar events among the Lisu, the Lahu, the Kachin, the Wa, the Kui, the Naga, the Mizo, and others.
- God has made every attempt to fill the world with light, but men love darkness rather than the light. See Jer. 7:25-26; 25:4; Mt. 23:37; Joh. 3:19.
- Men lost the light of God through rebellion and inexcusable carelessness. They lost it by wicked unthankfulness (Ro. 1:21). They lost it by willful rejection of the true God and the creation of false gods (Ro. 1:23, 25). They lost it because “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Ro. 1:28).
- Men do not perish because they are not sovereignly chosen for salvation; they perish because they do not respond to the light God has so graciously and mercifully and persistently given. “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Th. 2:11-12).
Acts 3:21 say God has spoken “by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” See also Luke 1:70.
Acts 14:17 says, “he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
Acts 17:26-27 says, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.”
It is not God’s fault that men sit in darkness. He is the Good Shepherd who has sought lost sinners from the time of Adam and Eve.
God planned salvation before the world was made and has worked it out in history. Christ is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Re. 13:8). God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” and Christ “gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Ti. 2:3-6).
The Bible says that Christ lights every man (Joh. 1:9). Every man has the light of creation, which is so bright that it leaves men without excuse (Ps. 19:1-6; Ro. 1:18). Every man has the light of conscience, which is bright enough to condemn men at God’s judgment (Ro. 2:14-16). It is man’s responsibility to seek God (Ac. 17:26-27). When men respond to the light they have, God gives more light. We see this in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch (Ac. 8:26-40) and Cornelius the Roman centurion(Ac. 10-11). God is working in men’s hearts, using the light that they have and sending more light when they respond.
Consider some of the ways that God has given light to men through all times:
- God sought Adam and Eve after their fall and personally taught them about the coming Saviour through prophecy (Ge. 3:8-15) and through the typology of clothing them in the skins that were acquired through the slaying of innocent animals (Ge. 3:21).
- Abel, Adam’s second son, was a prophet who preached salvation by grace through faith in the blood and death of an innocent substitute (Lu. 11:50-51).
- Adam lived for 930 years, so he was alive during the lifetimes of the men mentioned in Genesis 5 except for Noah. Noah was born about 150 years after Adam died. Thus, the knowledge of the truth was readily available.
- Enoch was a prophet who proclaimed the Second Coming of Christ and end-time judgment (Ge. 5:24; Jude 1:14-15).
- Methuselah was given his name by his prophet father, Enoch (Ge. 5:21, 27). It means “it will come” and was a prophecy of the coming flood. He died that same year as the flood.
- Noah was a preacher of righteousness and preached as he was building the Ark before the Flood (2 Pe. 2:5).
- After the Flood, Noah lived for 350 years and Shem lived for 500 years. They knew about the true God and salvation and doubtless witnessed for Him, yet most men rejected the truth and followed the rebellion of Babel.
- Melchizedek was a priest who preached the Word of God in Abraham’s day (Ge. 14:17-20). He was the king of Salem which later became Jerusalem. The writer of Hebrews said that there are many things that we don’t know about Melchizedek (Heb. 5:10-11), but we do know that he was “a priest of the most high God” (Elyon El), which is repeated four times in this account (Ge. 14:1, 19, 20, 22). God is also called “possessor of heaven and earth” (Ge. 14:19, 22). Melchizedek was thus a witness for the living God in those dark times. By his very name and city, he proclaimed righteousness (zedek) and peace (Salem). Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, thus honoring him as God’s representative on earth.
- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were prophets who knew about Christ’s coming kingdom (Ac. 3:21). The “restitution of all things” refers to this kingdom. Abraham saw Christ (Joh. 8:56). The Patriarchs were a light to the nations of Canaan and Mesopotamia and Egypt and perhaps beyond.
- Israel, in spite of her failings, was a great light to the nations. God’s dealings with Israel were world renowned. See Ex. 18:11; Nu. 14:13-14; Jos. 2:9-11; 1 Sa. 4:8; 6:6; 1 Ch. 17:21; Jer. 32:20-21; Da. 9:15.
- The law of Moses was a great light to the nations. The skeptic’s idea that Moses borrowed from the pagan nations is ridiculous. The law of Moses, in its description of God and its principles of righteousness and justice and love, is infinitely higher than anything produced by the ancient pagan nations.
- Israel’s temple in Jerusalem was a light to the nations. On the day of its dedication, Solomon prayed, “That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else” (1 Ki. 8:60), “... that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee” (2 Ch. 6:33). Jesus said God intended the temple to be “a house of prayer for all nations,” not just for Israel (Mr. 11:17), so this was true both of the first and the second temples. Solomon spoke of strangers who would come to Israel “from a far country for thy great name’s sake” (2 Ch. 6:32). This happened on a wide scale in that day. “And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart” (2 Ch. 9:23). The story of those visits and the effect of that light on benighted people has never yet been told.
- The queen of Sheba is an example. In this woman we are given a peek into the light that spread in those times from Israel’s magnificent temple. She was from a wealthy but idolatrous kingdom that worshiped the moon god, and she put her faith, rather, in Jehovah. She came to Israel for the very purpose of looking into “the name of the LORD [Jehovah]” (1 Ki. 10:1). She twice called God Jehovah and blessed Him as the only God (1 Ki. 10:9). She acknowledged that God chose Israel as His witness. The fact that this queen of ancient Sheba will condemn unbelievers is clear evidence that she put her faith in the true God (Mt. 12:42).
- In the days of Hiram, king of Tyre, the Phoenician trading empire was closely aligned with Israel. Thus, it is certain that some light of Old Testament Scripture was disseminated across the Mesopotamian region and beyond. The Phoenician language was similar to Hebrew and would have been understood by many literate people. Hiram was a friend of David and Solomon and assisted in building David’s palace (2 Sa. 5:11) and the LORD’S temple (1 Ki. 5:1-12). Hiram personally blessed the LORD (1 Ki. 5:7; 2 Ch. 2:12). Hiram was aligned with Solomon in international trading. Phoenician sailors and navigators worked in Solomon’s navy (1 Ki. 9:26-28), traveling as far as Ophir for gold. The location of Ophir is not known for sure. It could have been India or Africa, but it is more probable that Ophir was in the region of India. “The Hebrew words translated ‘ivory,’ ‘apes’ and ‘peacocks’ in 2 Chronicles 9:21 are all of a foreign origin, relating commonly to India. Gensenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon says the word used for ape is ‘a word of Indian origin.’ It’s likely that travelers from the land of Israel would have learned the foreign names for these exotic items” (“Gold of Ophir,” Watch Jerusalem, Dec. 14, 2020). Further, Ophir was the source of almug wood, which could be the sandalwood of India (1 Ki. 10:11). “This large timber was most likely a sandalwood or ‘grecian juniper’ that originated in Ceylon or India. Biblical and ancient Near Eastern sources indicate that it was used in the construction of large buildings and musical instruments alike” (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds). Almug was used in Israel to make harps (1 Ki. 10:12). In 1946, an 8th century BC ostracon was found in Israel with the inscription in Hebrew, “Gold from Ophir to bet Horan - 30 shekels.”
- Solomon’s navy also journeyed to Tarshish (1 Ki. 10:22), which was the region of Spain in the western Mediterranean. It is highly likely that Hebrew Scripture traveled to western Europe in those days.
- The ancient nations had libraries of books collected from far and wide. Archaeologists have unearthed large libraries from the city-state of Ebla (17,000 tablets), Ugarit, Mari, Nineveh, and many other places. The library at Pergamos consisted of 200,,000 volumes. The ancient library of Alexandria, Egypt, was world renowned. Ptolemy II (283-246 BC) appointed Demetrius of Phaleron royal librarian and commissioned him to collect all of the books of the literate world, either by purchase, confiscation, or copying. Books flowed into the library from across the world by ship and caravan. Visiting ships were required to surrender their books to be copied by the library’s scribes. Books in foreign languages (Assyrian, Persian, Hebrew, Sanskrit) were translated into Greek. There can be no doubt that many libraries contained the Jewish Scriptures. Before Christ, some parts of the Hebrew Scripture, particularly the Pentateuch, were translated into Greek, the trade language of the Greek Empire.
- God had witnesses in high places in the kingdoms of Babylon (Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego) and Persia (Daniel, Esther, Mordecai, Nehemiah).
- We know of Gentiles who had faith in the living God before the time of Christ, and these are only the ones mentioned in Scripture, doubtless representative of many others, probably a great many others. They include Job, Bildad, Zophar, Elipaz, and Elihu of Uz (the book of Job), Rahab (Jos. 2), Ruth (Ru. 1), the queen of Sheba (1 Ki. 10:9; Mt. 12:42), the widow of Zarephath (1 Ki. 17:8-16), Naaman (2 Ki. 5:15), Hiram king of Tyre (2 Ch. 2:12), Ahimelech the Hittite (1 Sa. 26:6), Uriah the Hittite (2 Sa. 23:29), Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon (Da. 4), Darius king of Persia (Da. 6), and the Ninevites who repented at Jonah’s preaching (Jon. 3:5).
- Israel’s light spread throughout the nations by the multiplication of synagogues after the Babylonian Captivity. Many Gentiles learned of the true God through the synagogues where the Scripture was read and studied. This prepared the way for the gospel in Paul’s day. On his travels, he first visited the synagogues and preached to Gentile proselytes (Ac. 13:32; 14:1). They were called “devout persons” (Ac. 17:17).
- The Ethiopian eunuch’s journey to Jerusalem and experience with the book of Isaiah is a glimpse into how the Scriptures traveled before Christ (Ac. 8:26-40). The eunuch lived in the time of Christ, but he had not heard the gospel. He obtained a copy of Isaiah or at least a portion thereof and was trying to understand it. He was taking it back to Africa with his entourage when God sent Philip to preach the gospel to him. Only the Lord knows how many copies of precious Scripture portions journeyed across the earth from Israel and bore fruit for God’s glory in Old Testament times!
- The Lord Jesus Christ commanded that the gospel be preached to every nation and every soul (Mt. 28:19; Mr. 16:15). It was preached far and wide even in the days of the apostles (Col. 1:23), to Europe, England, Africa, and many parts of Asia, perhaps India. Over the past 2,000 years the gospel has been preached to every nation and the Bible has been translated into every major language and a great many minor languages, yet the world remains largely in darkness because, for the most part, the nations have treated it with disdain and the vast majority of people have rejected it.
- Oftentimes benighted people have retained slimmers of spiritual light that has prepared them for the gospel. Don Richardson gave many examples in Eternity in Their Hearts. For example, in the time of the early modern missionary movement, the Karen people of Burma and Thailand knew that they had lost God’s book and they were expecting a white man to bring it back to them. They knew that God’s name was “Y’wa” that He is the supreme, sovereign God, the creator of all things, dwelling in Heaven, perfect in good character, eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent. They knew that the first man and woman were placed in a garden and had a “fruit of trial.” They were tempted by Mu-kawlee (Satan), who slandered God and said the man and woman would gain all knowledge by eating the fruit. Because they did not obey Y’wa they became subject to sickness, aging, and death. The Karens knew these things, but they had lost the saving knowledge of God. Yet they refused to accept the Buddhism that was the main religion of Burma. The account of the Karen’s lost book and their belief that it would be brought back to them by a white man was first recorded in 1795 in An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, but the few British that visited remote Ava at that time did not know the gospel. The expectation of the Karan people was fulfilled some 30 years later after Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist foreign missionary from America, began to preach in that part of the world. “The Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000-member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of deliverance from God” (Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts). Judson co-laborer George Boardman was the first to preach the gospel to the Karens, and Ko Thah-byu, a robber and murderer, was the first convert in 1828. He realized he was the first to learn of the “lost book of Y’wa,” learned to read, and began to travel to Karen villages and preach Christ. Tens of thousands of Karens professed Christ as Lord and Saviour. Richardson tells of similar events among the Lisu, the Lahu, the Kachin, the Wa, the Kui, the Naga, the Mizo, and others.
- God has made every attempt to fill the world with light, but men love darkness rather than the light. See Jer. 7:25-26; 25:4; Mt. 23:37; Joh. 3:19.
- Men lost the light of God through rebellion and inexcusable carelessness. They lost it by wicked unthankfulness (Ro. 1:21). They lost it by willful rejection of the true God and the creation of false gods (Ro. 1:23, 25). They lost it because “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Ro. 1:28).
- Men do not perish because they are not sovereignly chosen for salvation; they perish because they do not respond to the light God has so graciously and mercifully and persistently given. “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Th. 2:11-12).
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