Psalm 66 Commentary by Dennis Edwards
Psalm
66:1-2 Make a joyful noise unto God,
all ye lands: Sing forth the honour of His name: make his praise glorious.
God doesn’t
want us to be complaining. He wants us to be happy. He wants us to praise Him
for all of our blessing. He wants the name of Jesus to be song across the land.
He said, happy would the people be where there was no complaining in their
streets. He said, happy is the people whose God is the Lord. That Lord is none
other than Jesus Christ, the Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the
everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and end, the first and the last, the root and the offspring of David, the
bright and morning star, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It’s
the joy of the Lord that gives us strength.
Psalm
66:3-4 Say unto God, How terrible are You in your works! through the greatness
of your power shall your enemies submit themselves unto You. All the earth
shall worship You, and shall sing unto You; they shall sing to your name.
Selah.
The day of
the earth’s submission unto God is slowly coming. First, we must go through
great tribulation and the wrath of God until men will be ready to finally yield
and submit to the Lord their God. But the day will come, when every knee shall
bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. “You are worthy,
O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for you have created all things,
and for your pleasure they are and were created,” Revelation 4:11.
Psalm
66:5-6 Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the
children of men. He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood
on foot: there did we rejoice in him.
In our own
lives, we need to look back and remember all the good that the Lord has done
for us. It is good to give thanks to the Lord for all the many blessings we
have received at His hand. Before Joshua died, he made the children of Israel
remember their own history. “I am going the way of all the earth: and you know
in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing has failed of all
the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you; all are come to
pass unto you, and not one thing has failed thereof,” Joshua 23:14.
Psalm 66:7 He
rules by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the
rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.
God
promises to bring low the proud and exalt those of low degree. If you’re
feeling low, if you’re comparing yourself with others of high degree, don’t do
it. Rejoice and be thankful for the day of small things. If we are faithful
where we are with the little God has placed in our hands, He will multiply it
in His time. If He doesn’t, it’s one thing to stick. Trust that He will move
you, or in some way improve, or change the situation you are in for the better,
in His time. “He that is faithful in that which is least, shall be faithful,
also, in that which is much.,” Luke 16:10.
Psalm
66:8-9 O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be
heard: Which holds our soul in life, and suffers not our feet to be moved.
Our times
are in God’s hands. Our lives are but a vapour, here a little while and then
they are gone. We’ve got no guarantee for tomorrow. As our days, so shall our
strength be. Let us give thanks to the Lord for the life He’s given us. With
every breath let us praise the Lord.
Psalm 66:10
For thou, O God, has proved us: You have tried us, as silver is tried.
God tries
our hearts or allows Satan to tempt us with afflictions, but it’s all for our
good.
Zechariah
13:9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as
silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my
name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say,
The Lord is my God.”
Proverbs
17:3 “The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the Lord
tries the hearts.
1 Peter 1:7
“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that
perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
As silver
and gold are refined in the fire of affliction, so the Lord refines us through
the various problems we encounter in life. He tries our hearts to purify us and
prepare us for death, when we will go into His presence. It’s called in
religious circles as sanctification. The Holy Spirit is helping with our
sanctification on our journey back to God. We are sanctified by abiding in and
obeying the truth of God’s word.
Psalm
66:11-12 You brought us into the net; thou laid affliction upon our loins. You
have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water:
but You brought us out into a wealthy place.
What every
problem God allows in our lives, He has promised to be with us through the
problem. In Isaiah 43:2 we find, “When you pass through the waters, I will be
with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk
through the fire, you shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon
you.”
The end
goal is not to destroy us, but to ultimately bless us and use us for His glory.
In Jeremiah 29:11 the Lord says, “For I know My thoughts that I think towards
you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in
your latter days.”
Hebrews 12:11
“Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous:
nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto
them which are exercised thereby.”
Proverbs
3:11-12 “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of
his correction: for whom the Lord loves he corrects; even as a father the son
in whom He delights.”
All the
purification God allows in our lives, is for our good, and is preparing us for
the day when we will come into His presence.
Jesus,
also, spoke of the pruning that must take place in the lives of His followers.
John 15:2
“Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away; and every branch that
bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”
God is in
the business of producing fruit. Our yielding to Him enables Him to bear fruit
in our lives. The end goal is that our lives can affect others, that they too
can bear fruit. The fruit being new believers in Christ, new disciples.
Psalm 66:13-14 I will go into your house with burnt offerings: I will pay You my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth has spoken, when I was in trouble.
Jesus said
we would give account for every idle word, for by our words will we be
justified and by our words will we be condemned. Therefore, we should let no corrupt
communication proceed out of our mouths, but that which is good to the use of
edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearer, Ephesians 4;29. Let our yea, be yea; and our nay, nay.
Numbers
30:2 “If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with
a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceeds
out of his mouth.”
Deuteronomy
23:23 “That which is gone out of your lips you shall keep and perform.”
Ecclesiastes
5:5 “It is better not to make a vow, than to make one and not fulfil it.”
Psalm
66:15 I will offer unto thee burnt
sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with
goats. Selah.
The true
sacrifice the Lord wants he has clarified in Isaiah 58:6-7. He said we should deal our
bread to the hungry. We should bring the poor that are cast out into our homes.
We should cover the naked. We should free the oppressed and those in bondage.
We should be compassionate to those of our own family who need our help.
In Psalm
51:17 the Lord says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a
contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Psalm
66:16-17 Come and hear, all ye that fear
God, and I will declare what he has done for my soul. I cried unto him with my
mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue.
Apostle
Paul has given that old familiar formular for prayer: “Be anxious for noting,
but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known
unto God, And the peace of God, that passes understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord,” Philippians 4:6-7.
Psalm
66:18-19 If I regard iniquity in my
heart, the Lord will not hear me: But verily God has heard me; he has attended
to the voice of my prayer.
Apostle Paul
tells us that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:1. The
enemy of our soul tries to put us under condemnation for our mistakes and
errors. But as Apostle John has written, when our heart condemns us, we need to
remember that God is greater than heart and understands all things, 1 John
3:20.
If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 1 John 1:9. There is no sin too big that
God cannot pardon. But if we observe lying vanities, the lies of the enemy that
we have sinned beyond God’s power to forgive, we forsake the mercy that God is
freely offering us. Read Jonah 2:7-9.
Psalm
66:20 Blessed be
God, which has not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.
“Let the
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him
return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He
will abundantly pardon,” Isaiah 55:7.
“As far as
the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
Psalm 103:12.
“For I will
be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
Hebrews 8:12
“I am He
who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your
sins.” Isaiah 43:25
“Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of
the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He
delights in mercy. He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will
subdue our iniquities, and You will cast all their sins into the depths of the
sea.” Micah 7:18-19
“Surely it
was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish: but You have in love to my
soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for You have cast all my sins
behind your back.” Isaiah 38:17
“O give
thanks unto the Lord, for He is good: because His mercy endures forever.” Psalm
118:1.
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