So we see here, God's mercy is a subject that comes up over and over again in the Old Testament.
And it's not just, "Oh God, be merciful to me because I'm David, because I'm one of the
chosen ones."
He's saying, "Sing it among the nations because His mercy is great under the heavens."
"For thy mercy," in verse number 10, "for" means because.
So because God's mercy is so great, sing this to the nations.
Why?
Because there's forgiveness available to the nations also.
There's mercy available.
The Israelites are not at the corner on the market on God's mercy, but His mercy is available
for anybody who will call upon Him and be saved.
That's why throughout the Old Testament it talks about people hearing about the fame
of the Lord and coming from all lands and just flocking to the nation of Israel and
worshiping the Lord and seeking God.
That happened all throughout the Old Testament.
It's predicted that it would happen in the book of Deuteronomy.
He says, "Hey, when people hear about your laws and they hear about your God, they're
going to come from all over the place and hear about this."
Not to mention the missions that happened in the Old Testament where prophets of God
traveled throughout the world preaching, and that's recorded in the Old Testament.
But you've got to read the whole book and not just get the Cliff's Notes from somebody
who has no understanding.
If you read the whole book, you'll find lots of verses like this about the nations and
reaching out to other people.
Thy truth unto the clouds, thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let thy glory be above all the earth.
God is to be glorified and praised throughout the entire world.
The Bible says that someday the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Now in many ways that's already been fulfilled in a sense because of the fact that the gospel
of Jesus Christ has gone all over the world.
And you'd be hard pressed to find a group of people in this world that don't know who
Jesus is.
You travel all over the world, I don't care if you're in Europe, well what about in the
jungles of Africa?
That's where the most missionaries have gone.
You know, Africa, Asia, India, Europe, Australia, you know, Jesus Christ is being preached in
all these places, there are Bibles and hymns and all kinds of testaments to Christ in all
these places.
So, you know, in one sense, that's already been fulfilled, that the gospel has been preached
in all kingdoms of the world and that the earth is filled with the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
But then, ultimately, it's going to have a literal fulfillment in the book of, or I'm
sorry, not in the book of, in the millennium.
It's going to have a literal fulfillment where, actually, the Bible says that nobody's going
to have to teach their neighbor or teach their brother saying, "Know the Lord, for all shall
know me from the least to the greatest."
It's not going to be like you're going out soul winning and saying, "Hey, everybody,
let me tell you about Jesus."
People are going to be like, "We know."
So soul winning isn't going to be the same in the millennium, is it?
That's why you've got to do the soul winning now.
Now is the time to go soul winning.
When there are people who don't know much about Christ, sure, like I said, everybody's
heard the name of Christ, so there's a loose fulfillment of that, that the earth is filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.
But just because somebody knows who Jesus is or has heard about Jesus, it doesn't mean
they've heard a clear presentation of the gospel.
And it's our job to bring them a clear presentation of the gospel.
And not only do I want to just present a clear presentation of the gospel, you know what
I want to do?
I want to grab people and drag them into salvation.
I want to compel them to come in.
I want to persuade them to be saved.
I'm not meaning that literally, all right, but I want to actually pull people out of
the fire, as the Bible says.
And so that's what soul winning is about.
Now is the time to do the soul winning because guess what?
When the millennium happens, you're not going to be able to say to people, "Hey, know the
Lord.
Let me introduce you to Jesus," because everybody's going to know who he is at that point.
But does everybody know who he is right now?
Well, not as much as they should, and they don't necessarily know what is the way of
salvation.
They might have had a misconception about who Jesus is, or a false teaching about who
Jesus is.
So, we want God to be exalted above the heavens, let his glory be above all the earth.