“God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us!”
As I prepared to do today’s chat, the old invitation hymn “Trust and Obey” came to
my mind. The first verse and chorus goes like this: “When we walk with the
Lord in the light of His Word, What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do
His good will, He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and
obey.” I wish we had space to do all
the verses of this wonderful hymn with its powerful message.
This hymn is about the truth that we find in Psalm 67. Matter of fact the entire Bible from cover to
cover, teaches us this foundational principle. And this truth and principle is,
that when we truly trust the Lord and obey His precepts and commandments, we
will find our greatest satisfaction. Someone said, “God is most glorified when
we are most satisfied in Him”. To be blessed by the LORD is to find true
happiness! Remember the “Beatitudes” in Matthew 5:1-12!
Some people’s happiness is totally dependent upon “happenings”. In other words, what
happens around them determines whether or not they are happy. If things are
going well their way, then they are feeling happy. But if circumstances are
going bad and they are experiencing some sort or suffering, then they are sad
and miserable.
The believers who love the Lord and desire to obey Him and surrender their lives to
Him, as they live by His truths and principles, will find like the Apostle
Paul, “In whatever state they are in, they are content” (Philippians 4:11-13). They are satisfied in whatever circumstance
they find themselves in, because their “happiness” comes from their intimate
relationship and fellowship with the Lord!
Psalm 67:6-7 closes with the promise that when God’s people are praising and blessing
the Lord, He will make the earth fruitful. What does the harvest have to do
with the conversion of the nations, of the world? The phrase "Then the
land shall yield her increase" (v. 6) is a quotation from Leviticus
26:3-4: “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them,
then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its
increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit”. Leviticus 26
is a summary of God's covenant with Israel along with Deuteronomy 28-30.
God made it clear that His blessing on the land depended on Israel's obedience to
His law (Lev. 26:1-13). The blessings He would send Israel would be a witness
to the pagan nations that Jehovah alone is the true and living God, and this
would give the Jews opportunity to share the Word with them. “The LORD will
command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set
your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving
you. The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has
sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His
ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name
of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you”. (Deuteronomy 28:8-10).
But if Israel disobeyed the Lord, He would withhold the rain and their fields would
yield no harvest (Lev. 26:14-39), and this would put Israel to shame before the
Gentile nations (Jer. 33:1-9; Joel 2:17-19; Deut. 9:26-29). Why would "all
the ends of the earth" fear a God who didn't provide food for His own
people?
The application to the church today is obvious: as we obey the Lord, pray and trust
Him, He provides what we need, and the unsaved around us see that He cares for
us. This gives us opportunity to tell them about Jesus. While verse 6 speaks of
a literal harvest, it also reminds us of the "spiritual harvest" that
comes as we witness for the Lord (John 4:34-38). God blesses the nations
through His people Israel and through His church, and all the nations should
trust Him, obey Him, and fear Him. Praise the Lord!
God bless!
