“Let All the Nations Praise the Lord!”
[Psalm 67]
Today, we received some very sad news. Among the 23 brothers and sisters from Bundang Saemmul Church in Korea who had been taken hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, the leader of the group, has been killed.
I saw a photo on CNN's website showing Pastor Bae’s body wrapped in cloth like a scroll and loaded onto a truck. On Yahoo News, I read an article under the headline: “Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu Killed Tragically on His Birthday.” The article read:
“Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu (42), who was killed by the Taliban, an armed group in Afghanistan, tragically died on his birthday, adding to the sorrow. Pastor Bae was born on July 25, 1965. On the day he turned 42, far away in a foreign land, he was shot ten times in the head, chest, and abdomen by armed militants. Pastor Bae, who was the lead pastor of the youth ministry at Bundang Saemmul Church in Gyeonggi Province and also served as an associate pastor at the church, was originally from Jeju Island. He leaves behind his wife and a young daughter currently in elementary school.” (Internet)
It is truly heartbreaking.
We sincerely pray that God's comfort will be with his wife, his daughter, his entire family, relatives, the members of Saemmul Church, and all his friends.
As I received this news of Pastor Bae's death, I was reminded again of Acts 16, a passage I’ve preached many times, where Paul and Silas, while imprisoned and possibly facing death the next day, prayed and sang praises to God.
In reality, the late Pastor Bae and the remaining 22 Korean brothers and sisters still held captive by the Taliban are, in many ways, in a situation very similar to that of Paul and Silas—standing at the very brink between life and death.
I imagine they can relate to Acts 16 and the experience of Paul and Silas much more realistically than you or I could.
And I ask myself: if I were being held hostage like them, in the midst of such danger, would I truly be able to pray—and even praise God?
C. S. Lewis once said this about praise:
“The most humble, balanced, and spiritually capable people are always those who praise, while those who grumble the most are the ones who praise the least.”
I believe this is a very accurate observation.
When our hearts are filled with complaints, praise does not come easily.
But when we stand humbly and with a balanced spirit before God, we cannot help but praise Him.
Why should we praise?
There may be many reasons, but here are three to consider:
First, because God is worthy of praise (Psalm 18:3; Psalm 96:4).
Second, because praise is the very purpose of creation (Isaiah 43:21; Ephesians 1:13–14).
Third, because praise pleases God (Psalm 69:30–31; Psalm 147:11).
Today, looking at the identical verses 3 and 5 of Psalm 67, the psalmist prays to God as follows:
“May God be praised by the peoples; may all the peoples praise you.”
Today, focusing on this verse, under the title “May All the Peoples Praise the Lord,” I want to explore three reasons from the text why we all should praise the Lord.
In doing so, I pray that our lives will be established as worshippers who praise the Lord.
First, we must praise the Lord because of God’s grace.
Look at Psalm 67:1:
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us. (Selah)”
The psalmist interceded to God on behalf of the people of Israel (“us”), and his first prayer request was that God’s grace would come upon the people of Israel (according to Park Yun-sun).
Why was that?
Why did the psalmist pray that God’s grace would come upon the people of Israel?
The reason was nothing other than the salvation of the people of Israel.
In other words, the psalmist sought God’s grace because he wanted the people of Israel to be saved by God’s grace.
Furthermore, he prayed for God’s grace so that through the people of Israel all nations of the world might be saved.
He prays to God like this:
“May your way be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” (verse 2)
Salvation is entirely by God’s grace.
Yesterday, during early morning prayer, while meditating on Isaiah chapter 59, I was once again reminded that salvation is completely by God’s grace.
The prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 59:1-2 that the reason God does not hear our prayers is because of “your iniquities” / “your sins.”
The list of those sins continues from verse 3 onward in Isaiah 59.
I thought about three of those sins:
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Trusting in worthless things (v.4),
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Thoughts of iniquity (v.7), and
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Making crooked paths for oneself (v.8).
Even with just these three from the list starting in verse 3, it is clear how grave human sinfulness is, to the extent that we cannot solve it by our own strength.
Before this list of sins, we cannot but admit again the weakness of humans.
We are weak humans who cannot save ourselves.
But Isaiah 59:16 says:
“He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.”
God knows that humans cannot save themselves from sin and therefore with His own arm, He brings salvation.
Therefore, you and I have been saved entirely by God’s grace, never by our own deeds or merits (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Having received this grace from God, it is right that you and I praise the Lord.
As the hymn 410, verse 1 says:
“Oh, by God’s grace, I cannot understand why He would redeem such a worthless one as me.”
Second, we must praise the Lord for His fair judgment.
Look at Psalm 67:4:
“Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. (Selah)”
The psalmist teaches that the reason all the nations (verse 2) should praise the Lord with joy and gladness is first because they have been saved by God's complete grace (verse 1), and also, in verse 4 of today’s passage, we are taught the second reason: that the Lord judges the peoples with fairness and also rules over them.
Dr. Park Yun-sun said:
“If God did not execute justice by rewarding the good and punishing the evil, the lives of the righteous (the saints) who follow goodness would be meaningless and joyless. But since He does this justly and rules, how could their lives not be joyful?”
God, who does justice by rewarding good and punishing evil, ultimately saves the righteous (the saints) who follow goodness through His just judgment.
The world we live in is truly full of many injustices.
In this sinful world, there are people who are falsely accused and imprisoned because of unfair judgments in courts, while many others who commit evil crimes go unpunished and are set free.
Not only judges in courts but also national leaders and church leaders seem to be losing their ability to judge fairly.
When thinking about the cause, it is because the distinction between good and evil is becoming increasingly blurred in the world we live in.
The reason is, of course, the denial of the existence of absolute truth.
“‘Justice’ in Greek means ‘conformity to the will of God.’” (Internet)
We live in a world that cannot discern God’s will, and due to insufficient knowledge of the absolute truth, which is God’s word, we ourselves, in ignorance, gradually fail to discern God’s will in our faith life.
As a result, there are many times when we do not live in conformity with God’s will.
But our God is a just God.
Even if we cannot judge fairly, our God judges fairly; He is a just God.
He is the God who rewards the good and punishes the evil with just judgment.
Psalm 96:13 says:
“For He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with His truth.”
God judges His people with faithfulness. He is the God who rises up to “bring just punishment to the proud” (Psalm 94:2), and our God is also the God who “repays the righteous” (Psalm 58:11), as the Bible says.
Therefore, we, the saints (the righteous), should praise the Lord because of God’s just judgment.
Finally, thirdly, we should praise the Lord because of the blessings God gives.
Look at Psalm 67:6:
“The earth has yielded its harvest; God, our God, will bless us.”
This refers to the blessing of a bountiful harvest that Israel received.
Here, the word “harvest” (소산) may mean ‘increase’, ‘growth’, ‘expansion’, or ‘production’. This word was primarily used in reference to agricultural productivity. It probably carries the concept that the land produces fruit because of God’s blessing (WBC).
In other words, God blessed the land where the people of Israel live so that it would bear fruit, thereby granting them the blessing of a plentiful harvest.
Of course, before this blessing of the harvest, we must not forget that God graciously gave the people of Israel the greatest blessing—the blessing of salvation.
By His just judgment, He judged the wicked and saved His people. Therefore, the psalmist prayed, “Let all the nations praise You” (verses 3, 5). We should praise Him with a reverent heart (verse 7).
Our God is a God who desires to bless us. Blessings can be divided into three types: ‘God’s blessing,’ ‘blessing from people,’ and ‘material blessing.’ Among these three blessings, priority is important.
First, we must receive God’s blessing. In other words, we must first seek spiritual blessings. In that context (or after that), we should pray for blessing from people. We should pray that God will provide faithful and loyal workers.
But the fact we must not forget is that the greatest blessing of all is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of all blessings.
In Ephesians 1:3, it says we have already received “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” We have received God’s love, His choosing, His predestination, we have become children of God (adopted), and we have also received redemption (forgiveness of sins) (verses 4–7).
Therefore, we must give praise to God.
Thinking of the late Pastor Hyeong-kyu Bae, this evening I want to look with you at the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. I want us to remember the love and grace of Jesus who suffered the heavy pain of the cross and died in our place for our salvation.
Therefore, as we confess in hymn 403,
“How can we not praise Him who shed His precious blood and redeemed us from eternal death caused by sin?”
You and I, who have received God’s grace of salvation, no matter what situation we face, let us praise the Lord.
Therefore, we pray that through us, all the nations may praise the Lord.
With a heart praying to always approach the Lord in praise until the moment we take our last breath,
Pastor James Kim
(shared only by God’s grace)