WELCOME TO WELLING: for your spiritual health and growth. “Blessed Beyond” is our series to make a case that we are the recipients of God’s blessing so that the whole world will reverberate with His blessing on them–starting with salvation and more.
This is an agricultural psalm we are looking at in Psalm 67, where the cycles were important in terms of harvest blessing, which will result in their thanksgiving to God. But they never wanted blessing for their own sake. They wanted blessing simply as a means to the world as far as the psalmist was praying in his concerns for the whole world. That’s why Israel was brought to be, to be a kingdom of priests for the whole world, not to just be selfish, centered on themselves. And yet, Israel began to look upon themselves not only as the means, but as the ends of all blessing.
We can fall prey to the same tragedy. When we list blessing, it is for us to rejoice, for us to exalt, enjoy. But then, to be able to be a blessing to the whole world. That’s the ethos and the argument of Psalm 67, this wonderful global psalm, the psalm that is meant for the world–through you, through me–that we become in an assertive contagion the means by which the whole world enjoys salvation and more. The psalm is divided like a song.
We talked about stanzas one and chorus one. We are looking now at stanza number two. The reason God has blessed us is for global knowledge of the saving grace, as found in verses one and two; that’s stanza one.
Then we looked at verse three and five, which are identical, much like a chorus in a song. It’s for global praise. But the center of the psalm is verse four. After the psalmist calls for all the peoples to praise God, he makes a statement which does not seem right for the world at the moment. Does the psalmist really know what is happening in this third decade of the third millennium when he says in verse four, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You will judge the nations with uprightness.
You will guide the nations on the earth. You will judge the peoples. You will judge the nations. Let them sing for joy.” You know, I’ve been to a few nations and I see anything but joy. When you look at the economic situation, the political situations, the social situations … presently, the world is focused on the land of Haiti.
I’ve been there a few times. It seems like the land never gets over our global conscience. They recently had an assassination. They’ve had kidnappings. They’ve had earthquakes. Bonnie and I went there and saw just tears and tears and tears after the earthquake.
I saw a man burying his head in his hands because he lost his two best friends in the space of ten minutes, which happened to be his daughters, in the earthquake. My friends are having to negotiate the ransom charges for fellow pastors who are in kidnap situations where they demand 8 million U.S. dollars.
Can Haiti sing for joy? Other places of the world, the coronavirus, the pandemic, which hit the whole world in 2021. Beginning in the early part of 2020, we are still not yet out of it. Some think it’s a three- to seven-year consequence.
“Let the nations sing for joy.” Doesn’t the psalmist know what he’s talking about when the world has crossed the five million death mark, my adoptive land and my birthland competing for first place for the most number of deaths and infections and hospitalizations?
Seems like the psalmist’s call, “Let the nations sing for joy. Be glad,” seems so vacuous. So empty. So superficial. More like a political slogan than the true promise of a future. Well, I want you to notice the tense, the tense of the translation that I’m using because in a moment we’re going to look at a past tense explanation and an exclamation, but here is a future tense explanation and exclamation. He says, “You will judge the peoples with uprightness. You will guide the nations on the earth.” What is he saying? This is not the moment of total resolution.
We can spend a lot of time and energy and talk and thought about all the matters of justice and uprightness and peace, but it’s not going to be so till He comes back. And when the Lord Jesus comes back, every question that you have asked, every resolution you’ve ever made, every problem you have ever faced–whether it is personal or societal or national or global, all of them will no longer be puzzles and dilemmas. There will be solutions. Because God, the Creator, who carries all right now, will come one day and bring it all to fruition, consummation.
And the earth will again be as it was intended. I was in Kolkata, this amazing city filled with people; nobody knows the population of Kolkata. Speaking to us at our meetings and the host committee said to me, Brother Ramesh, there are no systemic hopes for this city and for this community till Jesus comes back.
But we rejoice in the fact that He’s going to come back. So I want to ask you, my dear friend, how will we know that Jesus is going to come back? Well, His first coming was guarantee of His second coming.
In fact, when He ascended, the angels from heaven said He will return in the same way. Those who know He’s going to come back can rejoice now. Sing for joy. That is, one day He’s going to set all things right.
How will they sing for joy now if they don’t know He’s coming back? Except for those who’ve been blessed? That’s you. That’s me. Get the good news to the nations that there will be a final reckoning. A final resolution of final reconciliation of all reality.
There will be peace on this earth. It’s not a political slogan. It’s the promise of God Himself. His Son is going to come back. We can get the message out. That’ll bring hope as we wait eagerly for the resolution and the redemption of this world towards a new creation and a new earth and a new heaven.
“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.” Now! Because of what He’s going to do in the future, since all of us who are blessed went beyond our blessings and sent the blessing of salvation and more all across the world.