Isaiah 54:1
Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.
The prophecy belongs to Isaiah 52-54 concerning the work of Christ, given to help and bless His people when the liberty of the church is endangered. It summons the barren who has not borne and has not travailed to break forth into singing and cry aloud, because the children of the desolate will be more numerous than the children of the married wife. That promised fruitfulness brings enlargement of the tent and dwellings by stretching curtains, lengthening cords, and strengthening stakes, by breaking forth to the right and to the left, with descendants inheriting the nations and causing desolate cities to be inhabited. It removes fear, shame, and confusion, so that the shame of youth is forgotten and the reproach of widowhood is remembered no more, because her Maker named the Lord of hosts and her Redeemer the Holy One of Israel called the God of the whole earth is her husband.
The verse promises victory for God's people and forbids discouragement even when oppression of the church appears to give victory to transgressors of the Sabbath and causes rejoicing among evildoers. It means enlarging the work rather than hovering around a little church or a larger church. Believers are not merely to sit in their churches Sabbath after Sabbath only listening to preaching, and ministers are not merely to stay about the churches repeating the same truths to believers week after week.
In the last days of this earth's history God's people have a precious and extended work of lifting up Christ before the world. Every soul must become a missionary to those around them and then educate others to do a similar work for a larger work, so that when the call comes for missionaries to go to foreign countries it can be answered. Every church must stand as laborers together with God without separating from Him, with all working intelligently together with God to be saved by visiting friends, neighbors, and families, seeking to create an interest in the truth for this time, planting the Word in many hearts, and giving the bread of life to many hungering souls. The verse calls for true missionary work in public ministry and house-to-house labor, for waking from sleep to do the assigned work in neglected cities in clear lines and in the power of the Spirit, with wide-awake watchfulness, earnest faithfulness, separation from all selfishness, seeing eye to eye, and unity and restored confidence in the churches, through which the effectiveness of Christ's grace and the arm of the Lord seen in Christ's life will be revealed.