Psalm 96 - Say Among The Nations: The Lord Reigns
*This is another installment in an ongoing series of blogs from the book of Psalms. We hope that these bless you.
By Bunni Pounds
One beautiful warm day in Guatemala City, I was sitting on the porch at base camp for Youth with a Mission. There was a perfect breeze. I had just eaten dinner, and a feeling of contentment came over me as I thought about the service project that my friend Nita and I had worked on earlier that day. It may not sound like much, but we had spent the day painting a teeter totter for the missionary kids at the base to play on. It was hard work, sanding down the metal and then painting it two different colors. We, two 20 year-olds had accomplished this task, and we were very proud of ourselves.
I hadn’t done anything really grand per se’ that day. I hadn’t preached in an open air meeting or even shared stories with the Guatemalan children, I had just painted a metal playground toy with bright Guatemalan colors. In painting that teeter totter though, I had invested in the lives of the missionary kids who were giving up their childhoods to live in another country so their parents could spread the gospel. In that thought, I was content.
As I sat on that Guatemalan porch, I opened my Bible and read this Psalm – Psalm 96. It meant so much more to me in the context of being outside of America, outside of my comfort zone, and seeing God in the context of His global vision and story. I pray that it raises our vision and our eyes even today to look outside of ourselves – away from just our own lives and our daily bread.
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.
Declare His glory among the nations,
His wonders among all peoples. (Verses 1-3)
The act of singing a new song throughout the whole earth is definitely a prophetic statement about the new heaven and the new earth. This statement gives us a picture of what our eternal home is going to be like and what the most important element of heaven will be – the singing of a new song, true worship of the Son of God.
Heaven will be a place where the bride of Christ will be all together in one place singing a new song that has never been sung before – the song of the redeemed.
Who is the bride of Christ?
The bride is a massive group of people from throughout human history from every tribe, language, and nation – Jew and Gentile as “one new man”. The human race together under the blood of Christ crying out to the One who has redeemed them and saved them.
Rev. 5:9 – And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
Rev. 14:3 - They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth.
Whenever we sing or speak of the glory or the goodness of the Lord in a multicultural setting, it is a perfect picture of heaven and our final ending. This is one of the reasons why it moves us so deeply when we put ourselves in the middle of a cross-cultural opportunity and look beyond our nation and our land. We see a glimpse of heaven on the earth when we interact with our brothers and sisters in Christ from another culture or nation.
For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the Lord made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. (Verses 4-6)
No matter what culture we are from, we all have idols that we hold on to. Our idols in America might not be little wooden statues from India or little Buddhas, but we have “gods” and “idols” just the same.
Our message as Christians to the nations should be – there is no god greater than our God.
American Idol doesn’t compare to our God. Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson or Taylor Swift have no comparison to our God. The NBA or the MLB don’t compare to our God. Working ourselves to death trying to capture the “American Dream,” for sure, doesn’t compare to our God. All of these lesser things, pale in comparison to the greatness of our God.
Commit to stop worshipping fleeting things, that have no eternal value. Put your focus and use your energy into things that cause lasting impact for eternity.
When we go to our eternal God and spend time with Him, we leave refreshed, awakened, and energized for the day ahead with purpose and destiny in our hearts. When we spend massive amounts of time with our idols, we feel stimulated, but it is debatable whether they leave us with any lasting impact on our lives.
Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
Give to the Lord glory and strength.
Give to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts.
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns;
The world also is firmly established,
It shall not be moved;
He shall judge the peoples righteously. (Verses 7-10)
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord.
For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth. (Verses 11-13)
I love the fact that all the “families of the people” have something to give God. We are different in our cultures, our styles, and our languages, but no nation is better than the other when it comes to what we can offer God. America is not greater than Germany or Zambia. In the eyes of God, every nation has beauty, value, and an offering to bring Him. We are all called to worship and to enter into His courts of praise. This picture of family worship will be culminated in heaven when we are all gathered in one place worshipping together the Lamb of God.
The same thought can go for us as individuals as well - we all have different gifts, talents, and expressions of who God is in us and through us. All of us are beautiful in the different ways that we express ourselves.
The writer of this Psalm says, “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns’. This is an important command because the people of Israel, from the beginning, were created to be a light to the other nations. God didn’t just set them apart, show them His ways, and protect them from their enemies because He wanted a “special people”. It wasn’t that God didn’t want to have anything to do with the other people of the world. No! God wanted Israel to make an impact and convert the other nations to the “one true God.” God always had the nations of the earth in His heart.
God told Abraham, “I will make you the father of many nations.” (Gen. 12). Abraham wasn’t just the father of Israel, but of all men who would come into the community of faith. (Heb. 11) God just had to start somewhere. He chose to work through a group of people called Israel, and he still works through His people today - a mix of Jews and Gentiles from all over the earth. They are His people who are “called by His name.” God wants to use us to impact the nations with His light. He wants the nations to be transformed by the power of His glory.
Jesus even showed His heart for the nations by talking about them in His last command before He ascended up into heaven. This is the last command of Jesus that we all know so well.
Matt. 28:16-20, Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
I am going to end my thoughts on this Psalm with a few quotes from one of my new books – Radical by David Platt.
“Making disciples by going, baptizing, and teaching people the Word of Christ and then enabling them to do the same thing in other people’s lives – this is the plan God has for each of us to impact nations for the glory of Christ.”
“The key is realizing – and believing – that this world is not your home. If you and I ever hope to free our lives from worldly desires, worldly thinking, worldly pleasures, worldly dreams, worldly ideals, worldly values, worldly ambitions, and worldly acclaim, then we must focus our lives on another world. Though you and I live in the United States of America now, we must fix our attention on “a better country – a heavenly one.”
“The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven’t heard.”
“When a group of people decided to give 2 percent of their lives to making the gospel known in another context around the world, they had no idea how radically it would transform the other 98 percent of their lives in their own context.”
May we say among the nations through our lives that the Lord reigns. May we realize that perfect praise is found in the final song of the redeemed and that when we find eternal perspective - we find real life.
Political Corner: In American government and politics it is easy to lose focus and think that America is the best country in the world and that we are loved more by God than others. This is untrue according to scripture highlighted here in this Psalm. We do have a responsibility to take ownership of our prosperity in this nation and use what we have been given to bless the world. We are a nation or a city on a hill for a reason – the biblical reason is to share the gospel with the world. Let’s not forget our purpose.
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