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A Missionary Psalm
By
Rev.
Todd W. Allen
4/25/04 Villa Rica
Psalm 67:1-7
1
God be gracious to us and bless us,
And
cause His face to shine upon us —
Selah.
2
That Your way may be known on the earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
3
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
4
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
For You will judge the peoples
with uprightness
And guide the nations on the
earth.- Selah.
5
Let the peoples praise You, O God;
Let all the peoples praise You.
6
The earth has yielded its produce;
God, our God, blesses us.
7
God blesses us, That all the ends of the
earth may fear Him.
Psa. 67:1-7
The
intense desire of the Psalmist is that the
whole world might know the salvation of
God. This is the only proper attitude of
any born again person. I should rather say
that it is the only truly spiritual
attitude.
I. God's
Grace Is The Source Of Blessing
Paul wrote
to the Corinthians that the same God who
said, "Light shall shine out of darkness,"
is the One who has shone in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Cor. 4:6
First
comes the shining of God's truth upon our
own hearts and then we understand the
meaning of the word "grace." The Psalmist
wanted God to bless the Israel of God with
His light so that they might in turn be
the instruments of God's grace to others
in the world.
Let us
look for a moment at the connection
between our own salvation and that of
others.
We must
first see the hopelessness of our own
sinful condition before we are able to be
His witnesses. This is so because first of
all the sinful heart is selfish and
uncaring about the spiritual needs of
others. How can a person be concerned
about someone else if he is not even
concerned or enlightened to the wretched
condition of his own soul?
Before I
became a Christian I had a concern for
people's physical needs. I went to work in
a restaurant as a teenager and continued
in that line of work for some time, even
rising to management positions. I enjoyed
serving others tasty and nourishing food.
There is a ministry of people in the
service industries to simply help people
enjoy life more than they otherwise
would.
I later
went to work as a labor organizer so that
people could attain to a higher standard
of living. That seemed to me to be a
worthy way to help others who were lower
on the economic ladder than I thought I
was. That was practically a religion with
me before I was converted. But I had no
concern for anyone's soul because I was
myself unsaved and in darkness about my
spiritual condition.
When the Lord revealed His Son
to me it completely changed me. I now felt
that the greatest need for others was to
have the light of the Gospel that I had
been given. I still had a concern for
people's physical needs but it was not
nearly so high on my priority list. After
I had been called to the ministry and had
gone through seminary and was established
as a minister of the gospel I was asked to
go back to work in the Labor Movement by
my former superior in the Union, but I
declined his offer. I simply no longer had
the zeal or the concern that I had
previously had for improving people's
standard of living or job security.
The
psalmist does not ask that God cause His
face to shine upon us so that he could
take some system of economics to other
people. No. What he says in verse 2 is,
That Your way may be known on the earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
We are a
saved people and salvation becomes the
all-important thing in our lives. Now we
have a heart for others to have the same
benefit.
When Jonah
was ordered by God to go to Nineveh he
balked and didn't want to go. He took a
ship to Tarshish to try and evade the
call, but God saw to it that he went
anyway. However, he continued to feel
unkindly toward those hated Assyrians. His
heart was not disposed to see any of them
enjoy the salvation of God or the mercy of
God. He would rather see them perish than
gain heaven. This should not have been his
attitude.
When the
king issued a proclamation that the whole
nation should fast and put on sackcloth
and turn from its wicked ways and pray to
the Lord for mercy and that He would turn
from His burning anger, the king himself
did according to his decree and even sat
in sackcloth and ashes. Then God relented
and did not bring the calamity on Nineveh
that he had said he would do.
But the scripture says that it
greatly displeased Jonah, and he became
angry, and he prayed to the Lord this
prayer, “Please
LORD, was not this what I said while I was
still in my own country? Therefore
in order to forestall this I fled to
Tarshish, for I knew that You are a
gracious and compassionate God, slow to
anger and abundant in loving kindness, and
one who relents concerning calamity.
3“Therefore now, O LORD, please take
my life from me, for death is better to me
than life.”
And the
Lord said to Jonah,
“Do you have good reason to be angry?”
(Jon. 4:2-5)
Jonah did
not have good reason to be angry. Jonah
certainly knew what the psalmist knew,
namely that God is merciful to all who
call upon Him and that he relents of
sending calamity and judgment on those who
repent of their wickedness. He tells us in
his prayer that he knew
God to be
gracious and compassionate God, slow to
anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and
one who relents concerning calamity.
God
expects those upon whom he has bestowed
his grace and salvation to be merciful as
he is merciful and to be desirous of
seeing others receive the same grace,
mercy and salvation that they have
received. Surely it ought to come
naturally to all who have received
salvation to proclaim the message of
salvation to others, even to one’s
enemies.
But there
is more reason for us to want others to
know the Lord than only that the Lord
would have us see others be saved. There
is a reciprocal benefit when others are
saved that touches us and blesses us. When
other nations are praising and blessing
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, then there is peace and greatly
improved relations between us. Jonah
didn't see that if the Assyrians came to
know His God it would mean they would no
longer be the enemies of Israel but their
friends.
We see
attempts at peace in the Middle East
between the Arabs and Israel. But we also
see how much hatred there is between these
two groupings of people. In the case of
Israel, unfortunately, at the present time
there is no national Christianity. The
Jews for Jesus and other Jews who know the
Lord have great difficulty in trying to
take the gospel to their own people. And
if the people of Israel do not know Jesus
Christ as their Messiah and Lord then they
can hardly be in a position to take the
Gospel of His love to their neighbors.
They will first have to come to know the
Lord as I did before they will have a
heart for their neighbors’ souls.
The
Psalmist's prayer in verse 1 is most
appropriate for the nation of Israel
today,
"God be gracious to us and bless us, and
cause His face to shine upon us -- that
Thy way may be known on the earth, Thy
salvation among all nations."
What a
difference it would make if the ancient
people of God would return to Him and be
saved! When they turn to Him many others
will also turn to Him. Then there can be
peace in the Middle East. But until that
happens I predict that there will be no
lasting peace in the region. Jonah was
sent to Assyria
as a missionary but he never wanted the
Assyrians to know His God. His heart was
never in the work.
II.
God's Mercy Multiplies Blessings To People
When
people know the Lord they cannot help but
praise Him and love Him. Their joy is a
garland to their heads, and the government
of God turns to be a source of great
blessing. God will smile upon the people
whose God is the Lord (see Deuteronomy
28 for the blessings of God when there is
obedience and then the curse when there is
disobedience).
The
Psalmist is saying much the same thing in
Psalm 67. When people know the Lord then
the Lord causes them to prosper. The earth
yields its produce. There is increased
fertility and bountiful harvests.
When Adam
sinned God cursed the ground because of
him. The earth was not responsive to his
touch as it once was. Thorns and thistles
and briars came upon the ground making it
more difficult to farm. But when God
shines the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ
into a person’s heart, then all is
changed. The curse of Adam was put upon
Christ and the land can be reclaimed and
be caused to yield abundantly as in the
beginning.
Have you
come to Him? Is he your God today? He
invites you to come to him through His Son
who died for my sins and your sins. He is
the only way to the Father. As he said, No
one comes to the Father but by Me. Come to
him. Ask him to be gracious and merciful
to you. Repent of your sins and trust him
today.
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The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
are made freely available for review and
distribution. We only request that proper
web page attribution be provided if
distributed for any reason. Please be
gracious to forgive typos and errors of
expression. These notes are faithful
approximations of what has been preached.
May God be glorified in the preaching of
His Word. |