Here's how he will win the nations

The famous hymn by William Young Fullerton says:

I cannot tell how he will win the nations,
how he will claim his earthly heritage,
how satisfy the needs and aspirations
of east and west, of sinner and of sage.

But surely we have been told quite a bit about how the nations will be won? Psalm 2 - the source of "I will make the nations your inheritance" - is quoted 7 times in the New Testament, twice in the Book of Acts which is basically a manual on how exactly the nations will be won.

But even in the Old Testament, the Lord lays out the means by which the nations will be won. Continuing our thoughts from Jeremiah (Jeremiah for planters and Shepherds after my own heart) here are two wonderful verses from the beginning of chapter 4:

“If you, Israel, will return,
    then return to me,”
declares the Lord.
“If you put your detestable idols out of my sight
    and no longer go astray,
and if in a truthful, just and righteous way
    you swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’
then the nations will invoke blessings by him
    and in him they will boast.”

How will the promise of Jeremiah 3:17 - "all the nations will gather in Jerusalem to the name of the LORD" - be fulfilled?  Answer: Jeremiah 4 - through a repentant Israel.¹  The logic is clear: "If you... If you... If... then the nations."²  A repentant church is God's plan to bring the nations to his Son.

Vision of nations won

It's an amazing vision: "the nations will invoke blessings by him" - or literally: the nations will "get themselves blessed in him."  It's the fulfilment of Genesis 12 (interpreted by Galatians 3) - all peoples on earth will be blessed through Christ Jesus - blessed with justification and the Spirit of sonship.  "And in him they will boast" - anticipating Jeremiah 9:24: "let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have understanding to know me."  This is 'peak humanity' - this is what we were made for.  People from all nations will be simultaneously brought low and lifted up - they will throw away all other invocations and boasts (all -isms and idols) and find their joy and confidence, security and identity only in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But what exactly is a repentant church?

1. Actual repentance not just words.  "If you will return... then return."  Don't just talk about it; do it!  "If in a truthful... way you swear..." - i.e. if you actually mean what you say - walk the talk.  You get the same idea in Jeremiah 7 - the people are using a lot of religious language: "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" and "We are safe."  But it is cladding over lives of stiff-necked rebellion, evil, complacency and boasting in everything but the Lord.
2. Returning to the Lord himself.  "Return to me."  The foundational evil exposed in Jeremiah 2 is forsaking the spring of living water.  The call is not to return to "Judeo-Christian values" or "Christianity as a civilization-forming worldview".  Neither is it a call simply to clean up your life and reform your habits.  The call is for the church to corporately return to the Lord - to find our salvation, our life, our joy, our boast in him.
3. Putting away idols.  Literally: "get your detestable idols out of my face" (Jer. 4:1).  Stop committing spiritual adultery in front of your Husband.  Stop boasting in wisdom, strength and riches - the classic middle class complacent respectable idols.  Cleanse your detestable abominations from the church (Jer. 7:30) - whether lovelessness, false teaching, false practice, spiritual sleep or lukewarmness (Rev. 2-3).  Stop drinking out of filthy cracked worldly cisterns; leave cohabitation with life-sucking dead idols and return to the fountain of living waters.
4. Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  "Justice and righteousness" (Jer. 4:2) - that was the fruit the Lord wanted from his vine in Isaiah 5:7.  Jeremiah picks up the same vine imagery (Jer. 2:21) and justice and righteousness are a key couplet throughout his oracles.  The famous Jer. 9:24 continues: "that they have understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight."  We boast specifically in a Lord who delights in justice and righteousness.  In the Branch prophecy - repeated in chp. 23 and 33 - we are given the good news of a "righteous Branch" who will "execute justice and righteousness."  He is the LORD our righteousness. That is the gospel - righteousness from outside to clothe us.  But an alien righteousness is not a reason to continue in unrighteousness - rather the reverse.  In the new covenant the Torah will be written on our minds and hearts (Jer. 31:33).  The vine/branches share the life of The Vine/Branch and so will bear good fruit - Christ-like justice and righteousness - particularly in relation to the vulnerability triad of "foreigner, fatherless, widow" (Jer. 7:6).  What might that mean for our churches in 2025?  How about repentance from our silence and inaction about the slaughter of the 300,000 unborn babies a year in the UK (cf. Jer. 7:31) and our lack of compassion for the mothers involved and for the 107,000 children in the UK 'care' system for starters?  But also what would it mean to bring justice and righteousness to the spiritual foreigner, fatherless and widow?  We have the message of a Jesus who will "satisfy the needs and aspirations" (to use Fullerton's language) of each of them - welcome, sonship, betrothal.  
5. Relating to the Lord who lives.  "As surely as the Lord lives."  This is a return to the fountain of living waters. The world has only dead useless idols and sadly the church has often operated in such as way that the world might assume, "Their God is dead."  But what if we lived and worshipped and proclaimed in such a way that it was clear that we are relating, in our gatherings, to a living, reigning Lord Jesus - risen, ascended, ruling, shepherding, husbanding, ready to return? What if we were fellowships where there was active actual repentance going on - where we didn't just give lip service to the idea that we are sinners but confessed that we are actual sinners, in the presence of a living holy God who is putting his finger on our specific sins and bringing forgiveness and freedom? Then it is quite possible to imagine "an unbeliever or an enquirer comes in... and they fall down and worship God, exclaiming, 'God is really among you!'" (1 Cor. 14:24-25).³

Let's pray that through repentant churches the Father would bring the nations to his Son. 

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¹ Interestingly the LXX adds "in Jerusalem" to the end of Jer. 4:2, tying it even more closely to Jer. 3:17. ↩

² Admittedly the third "if" and the "then" are not super clear in the Hebrew but scholars point out that a double waw can easily function as if-then, especially as there is a change from second to third person and there is the initial hanging "if" from verse 1. ↩

³ I'm increasingly persuaded that 1 Cor. 14:24-25 is not an exceptional, accidental, rare, hypothetical event but rather a key purpose of the church. Paul has been building an argument through the letter, right from 1:2 echoing Malachi 1:11: "My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered"; through the section which twins the paradoxical power of a weak message with the paradoxical power of a weak church (1:17-2:5); through the reminder of the planting of the church (3:6-7); through the concern for the purity of the church and its living in step with the gospel (ch. 5-8) always with a concern also for the reputation of the church before a watching pagan world; through to the section talking most explicitly about missional flexibility concluding with the call to the whole church to follow his example of seeking the salvation of the lost (1 Cor. 10:33-11:1); through the discussion of body/gifts (where possibly 1 Cor. 12:7 could refer to the church seeking the "common good" not only of the body itself but of the world); through to 1 Cor. 15:58 and the call to give yourselves (the whole church) to the work of the Lord (meaning in context the work of gospel proclamation). So 1 Cor. 14:24-25 is close to the climax of this train of thought - that the church Paul has planted, as a physical gathering, worshipping, united, loving one another, disciplining one another, preaching the gospel, experiencing God amongst them, should be God's means for reaching the nations. ↩