Psalms 117:1—Oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations!
This is an unwonted summons from Jewish lips. For the most part the Jews looked with little sympathy on their Gentile neighbors, and had no desire that they should laud Jehovah, save as they became proselytes of Judaism. But where the love of God is strong in the heart, it overleaps the bounds of custom and racial prejudice, and yearns that all the world should know and love the Savior.
"If all the world my Savior knew,
Sure all the world would love Him too."
We all need more of the emancipating power of the love of Christ, to thaw the icy chains that hang around us, and bid words flow freely from our lips to those whom we had been accustomed to look on as outside the range of our influence. Oh for the passionate desire that God should be universally praised and loved! Oh to be willing to be accounted fools and enthusiasts, if only we may start to praise, lips that otherwise had remained sealed and dumb! Are we doing all we can to kindle the nations to praise? They cannot praise Him whom they do not know. It is mere hypocrisy to bid them praise Him, if we have never sought to spread, by lip or gift, the mercy and truth revealed in Jesus our Lord. Oh that each might ponder the paradox!—
"Christ, alone, can save this world;
But Christ cannot save this world, alone."
What a lesson is given us by Lough Fook, a Chinese Christian, who, fifteen years ago, was so touched with the condition of the coolies in Demerara, as to sell himself into slavery that he might win them for Christ! He was the means of two hundred joining the Church before he died, five years afterwards.