My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
Psalm 67:4-5
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!
Can you hear the Psalmist? If only the nations understood the judgement and guidance the Lord provides. The psalmist rightly speaks of the nations being glad and singing for joy if they understood His judgement and guidance!
But, alas, the nations are blinded, and the people are deceived. Out of this deception comes misunderstanding, confusion and bickering. No joy, but jealousy of His power. No gladness, but grievances of His ways. No praise but only put downs and complaints of His Person!
Now I do not want to forget that this deception is accepted by a fallen people, a people who seek to find fault with God, who want to turn away from God and to follow their own way. But these are two different topics. The truth of God’s judgements and guidance, as compared to our ability/desire to accept this truth. I do not think the Psalmist is communicating the ability/desire of the nations/peoples, but simply that if they understood, the outcome would be praise, joy and gladness!
Before we follow God (and if we are honest with ourselves after we commit to Him), we are a people that tends to look the other way, to avoid the truth, to seek our own ways. We have an old man’s heart that surely likes to say no to God and His truth.
The psalmist is speaking of the judgement and guidance of God, and not necessarily how it is accepted by those of us below. It is as if the psalmist moans that the peoples/nations would open their eyes to the truth, to see how righteous and good God is in His judgements, in His guidance of the nations. Patience and mercy exude from the Father in all His ways, and a correct understanding of God’s judgements and guidance, to those who correctly understand it, perceive it, receive it and take it in, will produce a response of gladness, praise, and joy, even singing.
A correct understanding of God’s judgements and guidance will produce a response of gladness, praise and joy, even singing.
On a personal note, it must be understood that even in church, as I try to sing, my voice is such that it perturbs me. I can’t image the poor folks who may hear me! An exercise of mercy towards me for them!
I mess up, muddle through and am off tune, out of tune and without any talent. Yet as I grow into the Lord, and understand His holiness towards us, His mercy and patience, His many gifts of blessing to us, I find I cannot help but sing, even to the detriment of those around me.
Occasionally a tear will fall down my cheek, simply because He loves me, and somehow, in song, that reality hits me harder than during the day to day grind we all experience. And yet He loves us each and every day, whether we feel it or not. It is a truth we can settle into, lean upon and run to in times of trial.
He loves the nations. He loves people. He loves me, and for the life of me I don’t understand why – but He does and it simply pulls me in!
If only the deceptions could be pulled away from our minds, and if only our souls would seek the truth. May God have mercy on us, and reveal the Son of God in all His grace, in His resurrection, and in His patience to us, a people that are very slow to learn.
Praise Him for His judgements and guidance toward each of us each day. May we seek to understand Him and His ways more everyday!
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Considering the Bible 