“O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people. For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD.” — Psalm 117
There are few things more deadening than spiritual pride. It blinds us to our own needs and tends to make us indifferent to the needs of others. It was one of the great plagues of Israel, generating in the nation generally a sense that they were the “chosen people” and the rest of the world (the Gentiles) hopelessly lost and beyond their concern.
Like many in the church today, neglect of their scriptures or indifference toward them, left them in a state of spiritual myopia not shared by the prophets who were in touch with God. Our text for today is the entire 117th Psalm, “at once the shortest chapter of the scriptures and the central portion of the whole bible.” And its reach, in this short compass, is as great as the gospel of the grace of God. An invitation is here extended to all nations, peoples and individuals to join in praise to the Lord of glory. No one is excluded. No one is excluded from the scope of “His merciful kindness.”
It is a brief, but telling reminder to us of this later dispensation that in His merciful kindness that “the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world [I John 4:14],” and that when Christ died he died “not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world [I John 2:2].” “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself [II Cor 5:19].” These are representative of the grand emphasis in the New Testament of the ground and validity of the scope of this wonderful gem of a Psalm; like a diamond, it is small, but of immense worth. And let me note in passing, it is the ground upon which all our efforts in world evangelism rest.
Justification for this emphasis is made clear by the reference to this Psalm in Paul’s epistle to the Romans:
“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust [Rom. 15:8-12].”
The Psalm is not only precious, but prophetic. When the King comes back “some from every tribe and nation” will be in the chorus of adoration, “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” The apostle John saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” and “the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.” When he finishes his description of it he declares, “And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour unto it… And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.”
The emphasis in the Revelation on the coming international community is, in fact, quite remarkable. In chapter 12 the “woman” “brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron” (v. 5). In ch.15 the great choir sings, “…all nations shall come and worship before Thee…” (v.4). And in Ch. 22, wrapping up his vision of the Holy City the prophet observes, “He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (v. 1-2, my italics).
Beloved, the nations are not going to be healed at the ballot boxes, nor by armies of liberation nor by becoming “democracies,” The problems of the nations, including this one, are the result of sin and idolatry, and the only cure is in the disclosure of the merciful kindness of our God Who has made the “water of life” available to all who will “come and drink.” Let the church not waste her energies on campaigns to correct the wrongs in human government which, like every other dispensation is doomed to failure, but on getting the gospel out, which alone can change the hearts and destinies of men. Let us remember that the Savior said, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall first be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come [Mt. 24:14].”
For a world in desperate need,
"Pastor" Frasier
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