All nations, praise the Lord!
I just listened to an incredibly challenging message on Psalm 117, the shortest chapter in the Bible. . (You can google A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE OF COVID-19 by David Platt.)
O praise the Lord, all ye nations:
praise him, all ye people.
For his merciful kindness is great toward us:
and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.
Praise ye the Lord. Psalm 117
In this sermon, Pastor Platt brings out the purpose every life, which is to PRAISE THE LORD AMONG THE NATIONS. How are the nations going to praise Him if they don’t know Him—if we don’t share Him? “The nations” does not mean the 200+ countries of the world, but people groups, and there are thousands of them, many of whom are unreached, meaning there is no Gospel witness among them. Why should the nations praise the Lord? Because of His great, merciful kindness. This short psalm is rich with meaning!
At first the thought is overwhelming. How am I to praise the Lord among the nations? The Lord enables us to work in His harvest field in various ways. Basically, we can pray/give/go in any combination. Some can do all three. Some cannot go, but they can pray and give. Some can “only pray.” I used quotation marks because prayer is literally the most powerful thing we can do and we have a tendency to minimize it, saying “Well, all I can do is pray.” Many of you do pray specifically for missionaries and their needs and the needs of the people with whom they work. Please don’t give up on this incredibly important ministry of prayer! If you can give along with praying, do as God leads you. If you can go, please do! The needs are many and the nations are vast.
There are some good resources available for praying for unreached people groups. Operation World and The Joshua Project have websites and apps to guide prayer for the nations. Prayercast.com has a tremendous collection of moving video prayers for various groups. You can pray along with these videos while becoming more aware of needs in our world.
Togo, West Africa has unreached people groups. Today I am praying for a number of our missionaries specifically working with some of these groups. And I am praying as the Lord continues to develop our ministries of literature, literacy, radio, and audio-visual that He will guide our every step, so that the nations will will come to know Him and praise His awesome name.
A number of you have been praying for wisdom for me as I reschedule church reports and I am so grateful to you. The Lord willing, I will be in New England for a few weeks in July & August, and then I have some visits to churches in the South. I’m praying and asking you to pray for continued wisdom as I set the schedule. It is a wonderful privilege to share what the Lord is doing in Togo, and I hope to be able to visit these churches that pray and give so faithfully.
Some of you have asked about my family—thank you for caring! We would appreciate your prayers for the resolution of my dad’s headaches. We know this is no mystery to the Lord.
