Would you turn to the 67th Psalm. Psalm 67. Psalm 67. God. Be merciful unto us. And bless
us. And cause his face to shine. Upon us. That thy way. May be known upon
Earth. Thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise Thee, O
God. Let all the people praise Thee.
O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For Thou shalt
judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth. Let the people praise thee, O
God. Let all the people praise thee. He repeats what he said
in verse three. Then shall the earth yield her
increase, and God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless
us and all the ends of the earth. shall fear him. Let's pray together. Lord, we. Ask that we might be
enabled. By your spirit, by your grace. From our hearts. To praise the. Lord, we praise and give thanks
for who you are. Lord, make that real to each
heart here that we might be enabled to praise thee for who you are. Lord, we ask that you would have
mercy on us and bless us and cause your face to shine to us
for Christ's sake. In his name we pray, amen. If I were going to give this
psalm a title, I would call it the missionary psalm. Now I want
you to notice in verse two that thy way may be known upon earth,
thy saving health among all nations. Let the people, the Gentiles,
everyone, praise thee, O God. Verse four, O let the nations
be glad and sing for joy. Verse seven, God bless us and
all the ends of the earth shall fear him. asking for the Lord's
mercy and grace and blessing upon the nations, the Gentile
nations, not just the Jews. He's praying for the Gentile
nations. And this is something that's
certainly been on my mind and heart, and I ask that you pray
about this. Moose Parks is going to be coming
back to the states this month. And for the first time in, I
reckon, 35 years, we don't have a missionary that we support
on a regular basis. And I think that is so important.
for us to know that things are not just happening in these four
walls, but outside. And I pray that the Lord would
send a missionary. And by missionary, I'm talking
about somebody who preaches what we preach, who believes what
we believe. Somebody that believes the exact
same thing. But right now, as if, This month,
there will not be a missionary that we actually support. We support missionaries' wives
who have died and so on, but I pray that the Lord will send
us somebody to be behind and support. So as the Lord enables
you, make that a matter of prayer, that the Lord would bring us
somebody. Now let's look at this song.
the missionary psalm, but here's what must take place first. God
be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine
upon us. Before we can think about being
his witness, here's what I need. I need mercy. I need his blessing. I need him to cause his face
to shine upon me. You know, this is the benediction
of the great high priest in Numbers chapter 6. Would you turn with
me there? Numbers chapter 6. Now the Lord said, follow me
and I will make you fishers of men. But before I can be a fisher
of men, the Lord's going to have to do something for me or I can't
do it. And that's what he's asking. Mercy, blessing, God's face to
shine. Look in Numbers chapter six,
beginning in verse 22. And the Lord spake unto Moses
saying, speak unto Aaron and to his sons. saying on this wise,
you shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
the Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face
shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his
countenance upon thee. and give thee peace. And they
shall put my name upon the children of Israel. The Lord our righteousness. They'll put my name upon the
children of Israel and I will bless them. And this is what
the psalmist is asking for. God be merciful unto us, be gracious
to us is the word. I need his grace. Moses said,
oh, that I might find grace in thy sight. I need the same grace
that Noah found. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Pure, free grace. I need grace. God be gracious to us and bless
us. his spiritual blessings in Christ
and cause his face to shine upon us. Verse two, here's why. That thy way may be known upon
earth and thy saving health upon all nations. Now here's once
again why we would call this the missionary psalm. Do you
know that if you and I know the Lord, if we do, we want others
to know him. And we want everybody to know
him. We want all nations to know his way, don't you? Whatever country it is, whatever
language it is, whatever culture it is, whatever ethnicity it
is, It is, don't you want people to know His way? Isn't it a blessing
of grace to know the way to God? Christ said, I am the way. There are people who have never
heard that. Now that doesn't take away from their responsibility
to Live up to the light God gives them. The light of creation tells
everybody God ought to be sought. All you got to do is look at
this creation and know God is and I must seek his face. That's
evident. But there are many nations that
have never heard the gospel. And you and I, this ought to
be foremost in our thinking, that all men might know the way."
May the Lord impress that upon us, that all men might know the
way. That's what the psalmist wanted
at this time. That thy way, the way of grace,
the way of righteousness, the way of peace, the way of truth,
the way of Christ, that thy way might be known among the known upon earth. And I love
the way he says, this is thy saving health among all nations. I like the way this is translated,
thy saving health. You know, the most healthy thing
in the world is the gospel. You know, we could send medicine
and food and those are good things. I'm not saying anything against
that, but what's the most healthy thing in the world? The gospel.
What's the most healthy thing for you, emotionally, spiritually?
The gospel. I love this term, thy saving
health. There's nothing more healthy
than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the cure. You know, if I told you I've
got a pill that'll take care of every disease, you'd say,
what? The gospel. by saving health
to be known among all nations. I hope the Lord will put in us
a light of fire in us that we might want his saving health
to be known among all nations. Now he says in verse three, let
the people praise thee. Let all the people praise thee. Now, in the Psalms, we find 136 exhortations to praise the Lord. Now, that's something done from
the heart. It's going to come out in the
mouth, but it's something done from the heart, this praise the Lord. I know people use it flippantly. Would they have the PTL club
years ago? Praise the Lord club? That's
blasphemous. That's an irreverent use of his
name. But let all the people praise
the Lord because of this. He's worthy to be praised. He
is utterly worthy to be praised. Let me ask you this. If he didn't
save you, would he still be worthy of praise? That's the point. He is worthy
of praise. And this is the desire of the
psalmist. Let all the people praise thee. The Lord ought to be praised.
Turn over to the 150th Psalm for just a moment. The last five Psalms begin with
the praise the Lord, but this 150th Psalm, let's read this
together real quick. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in the firmament of
His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according to His excellent
greatness. Praise Him with the sound of
the trumpet. Praise Him with the psaltery and harp. Praise
Him with the timbrel and dance. Praise him with stringed instruments
and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals. Praise him upon the high-sounding
cymbals. Let everything that hath breath,
the breath of life, praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Let all the people praise him. Look in verse four. Oh, let the nations, Jew and
Gentile, oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For thou shalt judge the people
righteously and govern the nations upon earth. Now, here is the
reason for praise. Thou shalt judge the people righteously. Shall not the judge of the earth
do right? Now, the gospel we believe, the
gospel of the scriptures, is preeminently with regard to the
righteousness of God. There's no more important than
that, the righteousness of God. Let me quote you some scriptures.
Romans 1, 16 and 17, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein,
in the gospel, is the righteousness of God revealed. Now, if you
ask the average person out on the street, what's the chief
attribute of God, you know what they'd say? Well, it's love.
His love. Well, we love his love. But their
understanding of the love of God, it's an unrighteous love. The gospel is about the righteousness
of God. Romans 3, turn with me there. Romans 3. Verse 23, For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth. foreordained to be a propitiation,
a sin removing atoning sacrifice, whom God had foreordained a propitiation
through faith in his blood. What's the evidence that he's
propitiated to you? You have faith in his blood.
You really believe that the blood of Christ is everything in your
salvation and you're relying on what his precious blood accomplished. Now look what it says to declare
verse 25, his love to declare his mercy. To declare His grace. That's all it says, is it? To
declare His righteousness. For the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at
this time, His righteousness. that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. What is declared? His
righteousness. Now let me show you what I believe
this looks like. I don't believe this is what
scripture teaches. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And this is on my
mind so much because I got a letter just a few days ago from a man
who said he believes grace, he believes it's all of grace, but
he just can't get past this one verse. 2nd Corinthians chapter
5 verse 10. For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things
done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it
be good or bad. Now. You're going to receive. I'm going to receive. The things
done in my body, according to what I've done, whether good
or bad. Because of the gospel, everything
done in my body is good. It's what the Bible calls justification. He shall judge righteously. And he will be giving every believer
exactly what they deserve according to righteous judgment. Now, if this verse means anything
else, it doesn't, I'm sure of that. But if it does mean anything
else, that calls into the very question the hope of the gospel. I'm saved by grace, but I'm gonna
have some kind of judgment where I'm gonna be receiving the things
done in my body. Now, I would never sin again. I would never be disobedient.
I would never sin again. But if God judged me on the things
I've done, I'd be in trouble. He would too. But this is Christ's
righteousness literally being my righteousness. So that the
things done in my body are all good. This is the great mystery
of the gospel, isn't it? And here is what we praise him
for. He'll judge the nations righteously,
according to strict righteousness. Everybody is going to receive
the things done in their body. Turn with me to Revelation 20
for a moment. Verse 11. And I saw a great white throne
and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away. There was found no place for
them, and I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God,
and the books were opened. And another book was opened,
which is the book of life, And the dead, those dead in trespasses
and sins, were judged out of those things which were written
in the book according to their works, the things done in their
body. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them, and they were judged every man according to their
works, the things done in their body. Death and hell were cast
into the lake of fire, this is the second death, and whosoever
was not found written in the book of life. That book with
all the names of the elect written in it, the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, a book of life, all their works are
works of life. Whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Now, don't
you want everybody in the world to hear this message? The message of the righteousness
of God. We want everybody and we want
to give ourselves to everybody hearing this message. Back to our text. Oh, let the
nations be glad and sing for joy. For thou shalt judge the
people righteously and govern the nations which are upon the
earth. Aren't you thankful right now
that the Lord is governing every nation? You know, I read every
day about what's going on in the Ukraine, and I always have
to remember this. God's governing everything that
takes place. And whatever he does is right.
And we rejoice in that. But we do pray for them. We pray
for that conflict. We pray for the Lord to stop
the bloodshedding at that time. And we pray for the world. But
I'm thankful the Lord governs every nation, every event. The government is upon his shoulders,
isn't it? Verse five, he repeats himself. Let the people praise thee, O
God. Let all the people praise thee. He repeats what he said in verse
three. Everybody ought to praise the Lord. Then, verse six, then shall the
earth yield her increase, and God, even our God, shall bless
us. We do not praise the Lord in
order that he would bless us. That's mercenary. That's mercenary. We don't praise
the Lord in order to get the increase of the earth. If I praise
the Lord, what I do will be blessed. I'll have more money. I'll have
more health. I'll have all these blessings. Let me remind you. The Lord's blessing is spiritual
blessing. Ephesians 1, 3, blessed be God,
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings. Now, every one of us want health. I don't wanna be sick. I've been
sick. I'd rather be healthy. Every
one of us want money to pay our bills. I don't want to be in
debt. I don't want to be under the
gun all the time. We want money to be generous to the cause of
Christ, to support the gospel. We want blessings, material blessings,
physical blessings, and so on. But those things, I'm thankful
for them. But those things are not God's
spiritual blessings. You can have all the money in
the world and be the most healthy man in the world and be under
the curse of God. His blessing are spiritual blessings, being
chosen in Christ, being justified, being holy and unblameable and
unreprovable in God's sight. That's God's blessing. Now we're not saying praise you,
then the earth shall yield her increase as a result of us giving
proper praise. That's not what the psalmist
is saying. We praise him, and the earth yields forth her increase,
and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. You know why he can speak with
such confidence? God said he would. This is a part of his grace.
God's determined to do this. We are confident in his blessing
for Christ's sake. Now, here's why I believe God
will bless me. One reason, for Christ's sake.
Ephesians 4.32, be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. even as
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. He didn't forgive you for
any reason, but for Christ's sake. And if you're a believer,
that's the way you want it. You want everything you have
to be for Christ's sake. God shall bless us and all the
ends of the earth shall fear him. The people in the uttermost
parts of the earth, the people in the other nations that have
never heard in his blessing. Oh, what a blessing that those
people shall fear him. Now that's talking about the
fear of the Lord, the reverence of the Lord, the awe of the Lord.
That's the beginning of wisdom. We haven't even commenced to
get started in wisdom apart from this thing of the fear all the
reverence, the respect of the Lord, and the only thing that
demonstrates a true fear of God is you're afraid to look anywhere
but Christ alone. Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross. I claim, there is the fear of
the Lord.