Psalm 18:43-45 God, the Head of Nations

Sometimes the Psalms can be difficult to read as their authors seem to go back and forth between different emotions, times, and even perspectives. This is what happens when we are expressing deep emotions. Even modern worship songs will switch back and forth between talking about God in the third person (He, Him), to talking about Him in the second person (You, Your).

In the beginning of Psalm 18, David expresses a desire to worship God. In verses 4-15, he shifts into a prophetic voice, speaking from the perspective of Christ on the cross. In verses 16-42, he speaks from his own perspective. Then, in verses 43-45, David shifts back into prophetic mode and speaks from the perspective of the resurrected Christ. It is that perspective that we will focus on today.

Please read Psalm 18:43-45 now.

We know that David is speaking in the prophetic voice because at no point in King David’s rule was he made “the head of nations.” But many years after King David’s death, His descendant, the Son of Man would be made the Head of Nations.

When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He did so to pay for the sins of the whole world. The door was then open for peoples from all nations to have a relationship with God the Father through the sacrifice of God the Son.

His Jewish disciples struggled with this at first, but the Book of Acts describes how they slowly began to understand that God was calling all peoples to Himself. One did not need to become a Jew in order to be saved. The disciples began to witness to Gentiles of different nations and saw people from different nations turn to Christ and get saved. This will be complete one day in the future, when people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” will sing a new song in worship of Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:9).

Yet, until that day comes, we may still be encouraged that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Nations. People who never used to know the One True God now freely serve Him as their Lord and Savior. 

What’s more, missionaries to foreign nations should be encouraged to hear the speed at which people will turn to Christ. David says “as soon as they heard of me they obeyed me.” It is possible for someone to experience 'love at first sight,' when the object of their love is Jesus Christ.

This is hard for some of us to believe. We have all had the experience of sharing the gospel with someone, only to have them reject the truth. Many of us have shared the gospel with a particular person over and over again, only to have them reject the truth each time. We know that there are many people in our country who have heard the name of Jesus so much that they use it as a curse word, instead of bowing in worship. This can lead us to a sense of jadedness, where we start to think that it will take a miracle for someone to get saved.

In a sense, this is true: it is a miracle every time someone gets saved! But this does not mean that the miracle must take time. There will be instances (and there have been many instances in the past) where a person will hear the name of Jesus for the first time and immediately surrender to Him. There will be great revivals that have immediate impacts on the lives and eternities of foreign peoples. Whole tribes and people groups will come trembling out of their strongholds and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ when a missionary preaches the gospel to them.

This isn’t normative. It will not happen every time. It will not even happen the majority of the time. But it will happen. Missionaries must not lose heart: Christ is not the Savior of the Jews only, or only of Americans or some other nation, but the Head of All Nations. He has come to save all people, if the people would but turn to Him and be saved.