"O praise the LORD, all ye nations: Praise Him, all ye people."
A. The World in Its Totality Is Lovingly Invited to Adulate Him
"O praise the LORD, all ye nations." The word for "praise" is hallel from which comes our transliterated "Hallelujah!" It means "to shine" or "to glorify" or, more commonly, simply "topraise." The invitation is given to the millions of mankind, red and yellow, black and white, oriental and occidental, from pole to pole, from sea to sea, to come and praise the Lord. "The Lord" is literally Jehovah Himself. Nobody else. Jehovah Himself — Jesus Himself.
How the heart of our God yearns over lost men and women. He sees the Russians, Chinese, Cubans, Vietnamese, and His heart longs over them. They are seeking to build secular paradises on earth, motivated by the vision of Karl Marx, the visionof man without God: brainwashed to believe that God does not exist, that all things result from the blind working of evolutionary force, that man is simply a social insect caught in the web of time. The psalmist calls to them too: "O praise the Lord, all you atheist nations."
God sees Europeans and Americans seeking a solution to their problems in humanism and materialism, in pleasureseeking and money making, in permissiveness, in drugs and drink. He sees lands once ablaze with gospel truth now wrapped in darkness. "O praise the Lord, all you Western lands."
God sees the millions of India and Japan bowing down to wood and stone. He sees the clever Japanese make pilgrimages to shrines to worship the spirit of their ancestors. He sees Hindus chained to idols, revering cows, crocodiles, insects, vermin,and rats.
What abysmal folly to worship a rat, the most destructive creature on earth, which devours the grain the starving millionsof India need.
Some years ago National Geographic carried a series of photographs, one of which showed a Hindu shrine dedicated to rats. It pictured a distinguished, greyhaired man in an attitude of worship. Other people, including a young boy, were in posturesof adoration before the objects of their worship: a dozen wild rats were crowded around a dish thoughtfully provided to feed their ravenous appetites, given to them as an act of worship, an offering to the gods. God's heart weeps. "O praise the Lord, allyou idolatrous lands."
B. The World by Its Tribes Is Loudly Invited to Adore Him
"Praise Him, all ye people." The psalmist now uses a different word for praise, a comparatively rare word, one that occurs only four times in the Psalms. It is translated "Laud Him!" by some scholars. It means to "sing aloud." It conveys the idea that God should be praised with a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
It is amazing how reserved we are in most of our services. This is one reason why the charismatics are so appealing: they get excited about their religion and put enthusiasm into it. They may go to excess and sometimes border on the blasphemous. They may get carried away with tongues. They may let themselves go, foolishly handing mind and body over to the control of they know not what. But at least they enjoy their religion.
