Is this just wishful thinking? Psalm 67 (from the 1650)

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Ed Walsh

Puritan Board Senior
Greetings pilgrims,

Is this just wishful thinking? The Old Testament is filled to the brim with sentiments just like this one. What does it all mean? As I said, is it just wishful thinking? Pie in the sky false hopes. Is it all reserved just for the eternal state? That doesn't make any sense to me. How are we to take the hundreds if not thousands of positive statements about the future of the world that saturate the Old Testament.

1 Lord, bless and pity us,
shine on us with thy face:
2 That th' earth thy way, and nations all
may know thy saving grace.
3 Let people praise thee, Lord;
let people all thee praise.
4 O let the nations be glad,
in songs their voices raise:
Thou'lt justly people judge,
on earth rule nations all.
5 Let people praise thee, Lord; let them
praise thee, both great and small.
6 The earth her fruit shall yield,
our God shall blessing send.
7 God shall us bless; men shall him fear
unto earth's utmost end.​
 
I sang it yesterday morning!

Thank you for posting it Ed. It is a thrilling prospect. Here are a couple of quotes I mined from past PB threads.


Psalms 86:9, 10, ‘All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.’


Revelation 15:4, ‘Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.’

“Some observations:

1. The Scriptures manifest that Christ is the King of all the earth, the heir of all things. Nothing less than all nations is worthy of Him.

2. Our commission is straightforward -- teach all nations. In terms of labour, prayer, and hope, the church is to have nothing less than the harvest of the nations as its goal of witness.

3. Christianised nations are of the same nature as Christianised churches; yes, there are hypocrites in them; but it is for the Lord of the harvest to separate the tares from the wheat.

4. It sounds ludicrous to Christianise nations; but it sounds ludicrous to Christianise a sinner. God can and does do it. Abraham believed it when it looked less like a reality than it does now, Romans 4:17, 18. Let us believe in Him who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”


“Where did these "nations" come from? With just a little concern for the salvation historical use of this term it will be seen that it is impossible to relegate these visions to an idealised, heavenly state, which has no historical precursor.”



God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; selah; That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
 
Greetings pilgrims,

Is this just wishful thinking? The Old Testament is filled to the brim with sentiments just like this one. What does it all mean? As I said, is it just wishful thinking? Pie in the sky false hopes. Is it all reserved just for the eternal state? That doesn't make any sense to me. How are we to take the hundreds if not thousands of positive statements about the future of the world that saturate the Old Testament.

1 Lord, bless and pity us,
shine on us with thy face:
2 That th' earth thy way, and nations all
may know thy saving grace.
3 Let people praise thee, Lord;
let people all thee praise.
4 O let the nations be glad,
in songs their voices raise:
Thou'lt justly people judge,
on earth rule nations all.
5 Let people praise thee, Lord; let them
praise thee, both great and small.
6 The earth her fruit shall yield,
our God shall blessing send.
7 God shall us bless; men shall him fear
unto earth's utmost end.​

As far as physical Israel was concerned, where this was penned, whether you go as far as East or West as you can go, you end up in China or Japan, or you end up in North America. You can go a little further into the Pacific Islands and find churches. We have two missionaries on this board who minister in the far ends of the earth, over in Asia, far as can be (the islands excepted) from any hope of the Gospel reaching there.

And so, we are the ends of the earth. This psalm was talking about us, 3000 years before it happened, at a time when one was more likely to say this was reserved for the heavenly state than we are today, because the knowledge of God was generally confined to one place on the coast of the Mediterranean.

Approx AD 30, Christ and the apostles begin their ministry to the house of Israel, the disciples being given specific instructions to not even go to Samaria, let alone the Gentiles. For the time being, Samaritans and Gentiles were doggish thieves of the bread of the children.

Three years later, there is a worldwide Gospel explosion. What Jew in that time really thought (or desired) that Samaria or Rome or Europe or Britain or Germany or Egypt or Africa would be filled with believers? Quite unexpectedly, the Lordship of Christ is being proclaimed to Herod, to Felix, to Agrippa, and the house of Nero! That is Psalm 2 fulfilled.

I can't imagine thinking that what we see now is the most we are going to see. History proves that the church has often set the expectations low, and God has often exceeded them. "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"
 
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