THURSDAY 2nd
Psalm 98
NIV – (v2) ‘The LORD has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.’
ESV – (v2) ‘The LORD has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.’
This is another psalm that calls the people to come and to sing to the LORD because of what he has done, within the realm of salvation and deliverance for the house of Israel, which as verse 3 says, ‘all the ends of the earth have seen’.
Today it would seem that the ends of the earth are blind towards the salvation of God, it is as if the enemy has put mankind into a drunken stupor so that they cannot see the hand of God at work, they fail to see his majesty in the heavens, they fail to see his amazing love and abounding grace at Calvary, they fail to see that the One who has created them has reached down to embrace them and welcome them into his presence, they walk on the road to destruction without an ounce of thought toward the destiny of their soul.
The same psalm says in verse 9, that the LORD comes and ‘he comes to judge the earth, he will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity’, what an awful day this is that is coming, when every man and woman will be judged, and the reason for the judgment is man’s sinfulness, and the Scripture says that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’, and the basis of the judgement will be in regard to what man has done with God’s Son, the One who was sent to be the Saviour of the world, for the free gift of God is eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the means of eternal redemption.
This takes me to some well-known verses from Romans 10 where Paul says concerning those who are still lost and blinded to the good news of the gospel, ‘How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?’ This is the challenge to us who have heard, who have believed, yes it is good as this psalm commences to ‘sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done excellent things’ but equally of importance is that we should also be telling the good news of the gospel, for without us sharing it, those in a drunken stupor, blinded to the things of God, will remain on the road that leads to destruction, we cannot and must not keep the good news of the gospel to ourselves, we need the help and the power and the boldness of the Holy Spirit to be the ones with the beautiful feet ‘who preach the good news! . . . for faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ’ (Romans 10:15-17)