Witnesses to the Nations

So in Psalm 67 here, there are several words that that seem to want to repeat themselves, and the word bless comes up a few times, as well as the word all nations or the concept of all nations, as well as the word praise. In fact, verse three and verse number five are exact copies of one another. But I wanted to before we get into the main the main verse I want to look at, I noticed in verse number one, the word bless, he the psalmist asks God to bless them. So remember The Us in this passage, this will be a little bit important as we go go a little bit further on, that The Us in this passage is referring to to Israel, to the writer who is a who is a Hebrew, and so there’s a there’s that context related here, and in fact, you take this psalm, there’s actually three layers of this Psalm, three layers of understanding in this Psalm that you can kinda derive from it as we as we go through it. But so the first one is that the Psalmist the Psalmist is part of Israel, and he’s of course serving God, trusting in God and he’s asking God to bless him. And then he says at the very end in verse number seven, he says, or verse number six, he says, even our own God shall bless us, God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. So this idea of blessing.

Now I’m sure that when you pray, you ask God to bless you from time to time, do you not? I know I do, but recently something has been in my mind and in my heart about blessing. I don’t know why it’s been in my mind, but as I’ve been thinking about what it means for God to bless us and thinking about asking God to bless us, what do you mean when you say, God, would you bless me today? What are you asking God for exactly?

What kind of blessing? What do you want him to do specifically? Sometimes we just, you know, it’s kind of like this, dragnet term, we just kind of throw everything. Everything that’s good, that’s what I want. I don’t want anything bad, that’s what I mean when I say bless. But I think sometimes what God says and thinks when he says bless, like in this case, versus what we think when we say the word blessed, I think sometimes it’s a little bit different, and are not exactly the same. I wanna give you one example of this to kind of broaden our understanding of this blessing. Look if you would at Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. Look, if you would, at verse number one. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house into a land that I will show thee. Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt thee a blessing. Notice bless thee, thou shalt be a blessing. Verse three, and I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So God says multiple times, I will bless thee. Verse two, I will bless thee. And here’s the issue, we here’s the thing we usually do, is we we we connect, I will bless thee with and make thy name great. Even though they’re not they’re not actually connected, there might be obviously making Abraham’s name great is definitely a blessing to Abraham, but Galatians chapter three tells us something different about this blessing. Because the blessing in verse number three, notice what it says, I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Genesis or rather Galatians chapter three tells us exactly what that blessing is. Do you know what that blessing is? Is that Abraham would The blessing that God gave to Abraham was the blessing of righteousness by faith. And then when it says in verse number three, he says, I will bless thee. That was the blessing. Galatians three says that. You can check me on it later but and then when you go down to verse three and it says, and and thee shall all families of the earth be blessed, the blessing of Abraham is passed on to all nations, not just Abraham and his family and his descendants but is passed on to all nations by the gospel. What blessing? The blessing that we are made righteous by faith.

Now, that, how many of you have ever thought that is a blessing from god that, you know, that that I pray for, right? That this, you know, usually when we think of the blessings of God, we think of making our name great. We’re thinking of we’re thinking of take care of the bills that I have, give me good health and strength, I don’t wanna be sick, I don’t wanna have bad things to happen, I don’t wanna lose my job, and we think of, we want those kinds of blessings. We want to have a, we wanna have a lot of children, and we wanna be blessed in our, and they have children, and we, you know, we want all of those things that that might be considered blessings, and those are all fine and good.

But what God, the blessing God is talking about here is not a blessing that can be measured in dollars and cents in that way. It is a blessing of righteousness by faith. So this is the thing that made me think.

What are the blessings that God intends on giving us? When we say, Lord bless me, we want, you know, we want, you know, a raise at our job. But when God says, I want to bless you, It might not have anything to do with our our family situation or or our health. Of course, all of us want good health. That’s it’s not to say those things are bad, obviously, but I think the Lord often, when he says I will bless you, he might be thinking of something eternal.

Something more persistent. He might be thinking of something that’s far greater. In this case, righteousness by faith. Think about this, what if God blessed Abraham with wealth, but not righteousness by faith? What good what good would that have done him? You see, this is a this is a supreme blessing that’s passed down to us. And God gave you and God gave me a great blessing when he saved us simply by our faith in Christ.

But think about the other things that God might bless you with. When we and I just wanna challenge you, when you pray, pray and you pray for yourself, when you pray for other people, think about what you’re praying. Think about how you’re asking God to bless them. When you pray, when I might pray for miss Elsie or pray for Moses back here, and I pray, God, would you bless them today?

It’s this kind of thing has kind of changed what I’m thinking when I say that. And of course the Lord knows the heart. From wellness in body, although that might be part of it, to God, would you give them an open and tender heart to you today? Would you give them a, would you give them humility? Would you increase their faith and their joy?

Those kinds of things have have been things that have been coming more into my mind as I think about people. And you know, for a long time I thought, you know, what a cop out. You know, you pray for someone, Lord bless James, Lord bless Tammy, Lord bless Lynn, you know, and it’s so generic. But the Lord has kind of filled some of that in with actual substance, at least in my mind, and it made me think, man, what if God gave us zeal?

What if God gave us joy? What if God gave us a hunger and a thirst for righteousness, and to read his word, and to walk with him? Gospel? What if God gave us those blessings? I fear that many of us, especially in our, in America, we can live without all of those things so long as we had a fat bank account and everything’s well, you know, everything’s well in body and you know, all the circumstances are good, but the Lord wants to bless us with many other things.

And this is just one of them with Abraham. Now going back to Psalm 67, when you now when we see it, it says, God, be merciful unto us and bless us. God shall bless us. Even our God shall bless us. Maybe there’s more to that than just the fruits of our field yielding or increase like in verse six. Maybe there’s something something bigger that includes that but is greater than that.

Now, you’ll notice in verse number one of Psalm 67, be merciful unto us and bless us, make his face to shine upon us. And then in verse two it says, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. And then verse four, judge the people, the nations of the earth. Then verse seven, the ends of the earth. So there’s kind of a contrast here between us and the ends of the earth.

Us and the ends of the earth. And to us, in this case, as I said before, refer refers to the nation of Israel, god’s people, the nation that god had chosen among all the nations of the world and there is a there’s a real and this is one of those layers I was talking about in this Psalm. There’s a real truth here that god expected that among the nations at this time in his, if you wanna call it redemptive history, that he expected the nation of Israel to shine for him. In other words, he expected people to know about him by by means of Israel. Israel, in fact, Jeremiah I’m sorry, Isaiah forty four forty five says, that Israel was his witness.

Israel was his witness. But just as a few examples, listen to these. Joshua four verse 23 says this, for the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you until you were passed over as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over. That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you might fear the lord your god forever. You see that? God did these things to Israel that all of the earth might know god. You see how he’s he’s showing them his glory, he’s revealing himself to them by means of what he how he uses and by means of his people Israel. First Samuel 17, you know this, David and Goliath.

Here’s what David says, this day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee and take thine head from thee, and I will give the carcasses of the hosts of the Philistines this day into the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

First Kings eight, listen to this, moreover concerning a stranger that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name’s sake. For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched shalt arm, when he shall come and pray toward this house. You see, it was supposed to be that Israel was a holy nation for God, and that other nations around them would be drawn to the Lord God. That’s one reason their laws were so unique.

It made a distinction. That’s sounds kind of familiar, right? With with Christians today. Just one more, second Kings nineteen nineteen. Now therefore, oh lord our god, I beseech thee save us out of his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the lord god, even thou only. So from these verses, and there are probably some others you could cite, God intended to use Israel as his witness in the earth. He was going to bless them and increase them, so that they would be a testimony to the nations around them, so that those nations that’s different than what we have in the New Testament, is it not? It is different.

They were not commanded to go out and preach the gospel. The gospel wasn’t even Didn’t exist yet, because Christ had not yet come. But they were not commanded to go and evangelize those around them. No, the Lord was going to draw those nations by means of his blessing Israel and increasing Israel both both physically and spiritually.

And so from time to time, you see it. You see people like Ruth, like Rahab. You see people like Naaman, some of the Egyptians, Nebuchadnezzar. You see individuals who were not Jewish come to the Jewish people because of the Lord God, and that’s exactly what the Lord intended. That’s exactly what the Lord intended. But the reverse is also true. You know, there were whenever Israel went away from God, God would chasten them. Firstly, to bring them back to himself, but he would chasten them and and his judgments on them would also redound to the glory of God among the nations because in Deuteronomy 29, first Kings chapter nine, Jeremiah 22, all the these these are all references where the where the Bible says that god would make their name a byword, a rumor, a a form of gossip.

So, after they were completely destroyed and plundered, all the nations around them would say, what happened to this great kingdom? And the answer in scripture is, they forsook the Lord God of their fathers. So even in the negative, it was intended to glorify God and exalt him. Now, does this have to do with us? Here’s what it has to do with us. In our day, we look at this Psalm, and although this Psalm is written by a Hebrew, and the us in this case refers to God’s people to the Jews, yet we are God’s people, we are God’s spiritual people.

The Bible calls us a holy nation as well. We are the spiritual people of God among the nations, and just like this verse says, it’s clear to us, God have mercy on us, bless us, make your face to shine upon us, that thy way may be known earth, thy saving health among the nations. This is how, by the people of God, by the believers in Christ of every tongue and tribe and nation and family, that are spread throughout the whole world, God intends that we serve as a similar role, as Israel did in their day, that we should serve in that same role to show forth the praises, the ways, and the salvation of God among all nations.

We dwell among them. And so that’s it. That’s what the Lord expects us to do as a New Testament Christian. That is our job. That means we we live for god and shine light and and we we’re light and salt in the world, but that also means that we we bear witness like the Jews were supposed to have been doing. We bear witness to the God of the Bible, to the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, because we dwell among the nations, and God wants all of the nations, both in the Old Testament and in the New, to know about him.

And here’s what we have to understand. He says, verse one and two, God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, Selah, that Thy way may be known upon earth, and thy saving health among all nations. The only way for this world, the only way for the nations of this world to know about God’s saving health, His salvation, about His ways, about His truth, is if we tell them there’s no other source on this planet.

There’s no other source. Islam is not promoting the of God’s salvation. Buddhism is definitely not. Roman Catholicism is also not. They’re not promoting God’s truth in this world. You know who has that privilege and who has that duty and honor? The Church of the Living God. And it is our, the Lord has committed that to us.

That is the method God has chosen to make his name known in the world, to make his gospel known. We are that method. We are that method. This is how the world knows about God because there is no other source. Now that might be good and bad. That might have good and might have bad. You know, because there’s good and bad among the people of God, are there not? There is.

But this is God’s way. This is God’s way. So listen, it matters if you live uprightly on your job. It matters if people know you’re a believer. That’s not something you should should keep hidden or hide under a bushel. It matters if you’re upright and you’re holy and you’re a sweet spirited and kind and giving and generous. It matters. It matters that that you actually speak up and don’t hold your tongue when you have an opportunity to speak the name of Jesus to others.

And to give him glory. You know one of the best ways that you have, that we have to give glory to God? You know, if we try to live for God, other people notice because we’re different. Right, this world has a facade of kindness and sincerity and generosity and all those things, but it’s a facade, it’s on the surface. But when they see you sincerely out of pure heart, serving, giving, loving, and being upright, and sometimes that means not doing things, right? Sometimes it looks like that too.

When they see that, they recognize the difference, and that sometimes leads to them giving you praise. Man, what an opportunity to say, I have nothing. I know it’s hard to say this sometimes without being just flat out rude, but it does give us an opportunity to say, listen, I appreciate it, but I have nothing the glory of. The only good in me is Christ.

You know, that’s how the Lord intends it. The light causes people to notice it, which draws attention. That’s exactly what was happening with Israel, was it not? They saw that temple in Jerusalem. They saw all the different things, all their laws, all those things. That’s what drew the Queen of Sheba to Solomon in the glory days of Israel? That’s what we are. But this brings me to brings me to one one point, you know, in in context to the Independence Day in our country.

Look at verse number four. Or verse number two rather, it says this, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. Verse four, for thou shalt judge the people, it says, oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth. Then verse seven, all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

Where is America in the Bible? Where is The United States in the Bible? It’s right there. Right there. Where do we find our our country in this Psalm? It’s in all nations in verse two. It’s in the nations upon earth, verse four. It’s in all the ends of the earth in verse number seven. Our nation, you know what our nation is? Our nation is not Israel. Our nation is one of the Gentile nations in the world.

You know what? You know what that means in a way? You know, we we look at our country and we think it’s the greatest thing ever. And you know what? I think it too. I don’t wanna live anywhere else. And I know you you probably don’t either. But prophetically, prophetically, our nation is one of the nations in the world. We’re not like on a good list of God.

The Lord is looking at our nation and judging our nation just like any other, just like he did Rome or Greece or Persia or any of the other nations that have gone throughout history.

And we, American Christians, or even non American Christians, what are we? In our nation, you know, we’re supposed to be the people in verse one and verse two. In our nation, that’s our role in our nation. That we show the glory of God in our nation.

And not just expect, well, we’re America, so everybody’s Christian. No, they’re not. No, they’re not, I mean, just look around. And I’ll say this as well concerning our nation, you know, we give thanks to our nation just like the sign says out there. We give thanks to God for our country.

But our country needs a deep sense of humility about who it is. Our country is the sole superpower in the world, they say. And with that, combined with the pride of man, to a large degree, we’ve lost any kind of humility before God. And I’m talking about people who are patriotic. But the best thing that we can do as the people of God in our country is to be lights among our, in our society, but also to remember as Americans that we do need humility, and the only reason our country has its place in the world is number one, is because God in His power has so ordained it to be so.

Not because we’re better than everybody else, and number two, because we should be seeking God, right, with humility. And you know this doesn’t exist in our society. We have to understand with humility where we are on God’s prophetic plan, and the truth is it kinda busts us down a little bit. People have, in vain, looked for our country in prophetic scripture, and it’s just not to be found. It’s just not there. You know why? Because it’s it’s mingled with all the other nations of the world.

But that’s okay. Because Israel as a nation was mingled among all the nations, and Christians Christians in our country are mingled among all the other nations, and we have a job to play. Not to make our country better, no, but to glorify and exalt and make known our god, our savior. That’s our job. That’s our primary duty.

That’s our primary duty. You look at verse number four, oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Just, I mean, just let’s be honest here. Is that what’s happening in our country? Are people glad in the Lord and singing joy in God? No. You know, I was saddened. On social media I saw it, I guess in Death Valley, they had this enormous concert, had over 100,000 people at this concert, some country singer I think. Do y’all know what I’m talking about? I saw something about it on social media.

And the sad part is that probably three quarters of the people in that stadium come, going to listen to a foul country singer. Go to church and profess to be Christians.

And even some of the people that we might even look up to, we’re there. I want to tell you, I I just wanna say, verse four is not talking about America. You know what it, this, I mean, just just follow me with that. Look at verse four. For thou shalt judge the people righteously. Do we see righteous judgment in our in our in our country? Sometimes, sometimes not.

We have judges that judge us in our land, but sometimes their judgment conflict with God’s judgments. Then you got in verse number four, it says, and govern the nations upon earth. Is God governing our nation? Now, know in the broadest sense possible, there’s no power but of God, but God has delegated that power to human rulers. Are they governing our nation according to God’s laws and God’s principles and God’s truth? Well, of course not.

They don’t rule in God’s will, they don’t rule in God’s fear. Then you have verse number seven, all of the ends of the earth shall fear him. We do not see all the ends of the earth fearing God, we don’t even see that in our country. We see a portion of people that fear God, but we do not see that en masse. And yet, verse four says, oh, let the nations be glad and seen for joy. This is the third layer I was telling you about.

Thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth. Verse six, then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God shall bless us. God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. You know, this is speaking to a later day. We don’t see that here now. This is speaking of a later day, when God does indeed judge.

God does not judge in the sense of the final judgment, but judges in sense of passing justice and righteousness in society, where God governs all the nations upon the earth, where all of the ends of the earth fear God. Man, this is I know some people have taken this to me and they kinda they kinda play a little bit loose with this passage and they say, well, there are Christians from every nation that fear God, so that’s what it’s talking about. No, no, no. This is talking about all the earth acknowledging and knowing God. Look at, to finish up, look at Isaiah 11.

You could say this is a companion passage. You might not have have come across Isaiah 11 very often, but man, what a great passage. Isaiah 11 is future to us.

Part of it, anyway, is future to us. And it describes primarily what the kingdom of Christ will look like. What we’re reading in Psalm 67, it describes in in a fair amount of detail a period, a golden age, when things are far different than they are now, not just in on the earth, but also in all societies and nations. Verse one, and there shall come a forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. And he shall make him a quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge, notice the judge. That’s what we read in Psalm 67. After the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked, and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. This is speaking of Christ.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. Here it is, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And that and in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people, to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the time to recover the remnant of his people, this is Israel.

Which shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations. That’s a Remember an ensign, we talked about that before? It’s a banner.

And shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

Just skip a little bit. Verse number 16, the last verse in the chapter, and there should be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. All of these things, what do you see here? You see described an age where all nations know of God.

Not in that not like we see in the Psalm where Israel was supposed to show God’s glory to the nations, but in this third layer, all the nations know God. I just wanna tell you, living in this world will make you tired of this world. And I look forward to the day when Christ comes and sets up his kingdom, and there is righteousness everywhere. Everybody knows God.

I’m looking forward to that. And really this Psalm, although it’s talking about Israel, and although it can be applied also to the church in our time, living among the nations, it’s ultimate fulfillment is when all the ends of the earth know God’s law. And we look forward to that day. So on that note, here’s what I thought we would do to close the service. Talking about our nation, Independence Day, two fifty years, and I’m very thankful that the level of freedom, the level historically now that human rights in a line with biblical truth, not perfectly, but generally human rights have been preserved in our country. I mean we have a lot to be thankful for, but you know what we need? Our country needs a large horse pill of humility to know that the only reason we have the blessings that we have in our country is because they were given by the omnipotent, the Almighty God.

And we should pray for our country to have a serious awakening.