Psalm 145: 12- Here comes the evangelist!

OK folks, this is one of my favorite verses in this text because it is the evangelist verse. What do I mean by that? As we did previously, we need to set up today's verse in its context, so we know who the players are in our little drama as it unfolds in Psalm 145. We will pick up at verse 10 and then head into today's verse, the equipping verse, the pastoral verse, the parenting verse:

"10 All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord;

and thy saints shall bless thee.

11 They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom,

and talk of thy power;

12 To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts,

and the glorious majesty of his kingdom."

You may be wondering what all the hoopla is about in my introduction, but if you bear with me a little, I want to share with you a little wider angle on what David was saying here. I believe the Holy Spirit put a lot of great truths in the Old Testament that the original hearers only knew in shadow, looking forward to when the Messiah would come and they would see greater things than the splendor of Solomon's Temple or his lavish home, to see the Kingdom of God established on the Earth through this descendant of David, by the God-man who would be born in the city of David, but that this Messiah would not come to rescue the Jews from political turmoil and oppression, but from the penalty of their sin against Almighty God, a peace maker, a heart changer, with a glorified body which offers hope beyond the grave to those who will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it was said "The Lord said to my lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet". Let's return from the shadows to the present, where the mystery is revealed and the Savior reigns. 

Virginia is a faithful witness of the Gospel. She learned from her Daddy, who was taught by many including "Bible Bill" Welzein who has preached in the open air at Key West's Sunset Celebration for over 30 years while pastoring the local OPC church and raising a pile of kids. Three generations of heralds of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

As all the works of God praise Him, and the saints bless Him, as these saints speak of the glory of His Kingdom (that requires use of the mouth and vocal cords) and talk of His power in Creation, in sending a catastrophic worldwide flood and saving one righteous family  along with the animals by the various kinds. The power of that work also is evident in the confounding of languages and dispersal of mankind from Babel, God's judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt after the unspeakable plagues.... I could go on forever telling of God's power to other people. But my experience with God's power I pray is something that each of my readers also experience. 

When one is dead in their sin, refusing to seek God, denying His authority over us as lowly created beings, when we are at enmity with God and had done nothing to deserve His favor, then BAM! God opened my eyes to see His beauty, my ears to hear His truth, to drive me to brokenness over my sin such that I could echo the words of Isaiah, "Woe is me, I am undone!" in light of His glorious grace and mercy toward me, a wicked and undeserving self-righteous sinner. That God would send His Son to die in my place, that Jesus would willingly go, when you read verse 11, isn't that just like the Christian who has dedicated themselves to God entirely, to depart from pursuing anything this world has to offer, only to follow our Shepherd, to serve in battle under the Captain of our salvation, and then comes verse 12. After all this glorifying God in word and deed, having understood God's plan from eternity past to send His Son as a ransom for many sinners, who were washed clean in the crimson flow of the blood of Christ, to look forward to that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Then verse 12.

God reveals Himself to men, to the coming generations of mankind, throughout all the Earth beginning at the Great Commission and then on into the Acts of the Apostles, through Paul's missionary journeys to the Christian man, woman, boy, or girl who takes the truths they have learned from God's people, from God's Word, from testimonies of faithful saints of the past to the example of each saint in the local church. To know God is to wish to tell others. To be saved from eternal condemnation demands joyful proclamation of that message of hope to others. To love God and enjoy Him forever starts not after death in eternity, but today, the day that God gave you to live for His glory alone. We all fail at that, but we should never accept our failure, but repent and ask for God's strength to press on in sanctification, with every victory over sin celebrated and testified about to any who will listen. 

Christian, if you are still reading this, then you are probably stirred in emotion, as I am in sharing this with you. Don't let the passion of the stirring speech of men be the impetus to prompt you to obedience of the principle of this passage, to faithfully proclaim God's truth to all mankind. Let it be the Holy Spirit of God which, as we read the Scriptures, that continues to reveal the fullness of the mystery of God from ages past. We serve a known Savior, a Savior who died, but lives evermore, a Savior whose great love and mercy, grace and compassion, are lined in every Gospel account of His words and deeds. Go love your neighbor while they are dead in sin, because you were dead in sin and without any hope of salvation until someone proclaimed to you the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus. Let His suffering, majesty, and glory motivate us all to fuller commitment to His commands, to build His Church, to purify His Bride. 

This need to teach the coming generations is not limited to parents and children, but brother to brother, sister to sister, church member to elder and so on. If your church has 100 Christians in it, then each of them faithfully prays for and witnesses to 1 person every month, then by the end of one year, that church will have not only grown immensely in their corporate faith and be blessed by the fellowship of the Gospel, but also have spent time praying and sharing the Gospel in grace and love with 1,200 people in their community. In most towns in Maine, you would have reached everyone in town in the first 3-5 years. So why, after hundreds of years of churches dotting the landscape of Maine do we still have many congregations under 50, buildings that once bursted at the seams now empty? We can't blame the culture, because God's salvation doesn't depend on culture. Rather, it depends on the faithfulness of those who began the work to teach and train, to disciple and encourage others. 

We might say that somewhere along the way, someone dropped the ball. I would call it the Judges cycle in application to our day. The first generation Christian usually is faithful to their death, having been born again. Their children often make professions that turn out to be false in the long run, or by God's grace, He regenerates them at the age of 30. The third generation carries significantly less conviction and more tradition, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Barna has researched this as has America's Research Group. People agree on the trends, but tend to not agree on the remedy to the apathetic professing Christian toward personal holiness, evangelism, solid doctrine, and accountability. I have the answer:

Obey Psalm 145 and trust God for the results!