Our God has done many miraculous things as told in the Bible. From the Creation to the 10 plagues of Egypt to the parting of the Red Sea. However, He was not done and He still isn’t finished! Psalm 66 praises God for all He’s done and actually foretells what the Jews will go through during the Great Tribulation. Let’s dig in…
Psalm 66
For the choir director: A song. A psalm.
1 Shout joyful praises to God, all the earth!
2 Sing about the glory of his name!
Tell the world how glorious he is.
3 Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
Your enemies cringe before your mighty power.
4 Everything on earth will worship you;
they will sing your praises,
shouting your name in glorious songs.” Interlude (Selah — pause and reflect)5 Come and see what our God has done,
what awesome miracles he performs for people!
6 He made a dry path through the Red Sea,
and his people went across on foot.
There we rejoiced in him.
7 For by his great power he rules forever.
He watches every movement of the nations;
let no rebel rise in defiance. Interlude8 Let the whole world bless our God
and loudly sing his praises.
9 Our lives are in his hands,
and he keeps our feet from stumbling.
10 You have tested us, O God;
you have purified us like silver.
11 You captured us in your net
and laid the burden of slavery on our backs.
12 Then you put a leader over us.
We went through fire and flood,
but you brought us to a place of great abundance.13 Now I come to your Temple with burnt offerings
to fulfill the vows I made to you—
14 yes, the sacred vows that I made
when I was in deep trouble.
15 That is why I am sacrificing burnt offerings to you—
the best of my rams as a pleasing aroma,
and a sacrifice of bulls and male goats. Interlude16 Come and listen, all you who fear God,
Psalm 66 NLT
and I will tell you what he did for me.
17 For I cried out to him for help,
praising him as I spoke.
18 If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
19 But God did listen!
He paid attention to my prayer.
20 Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer
or withdraw his unfailing love from me.
Come and see what our God has done
What miracle has God done in YOUR life?
For me, He answered many, many prayers. Earlier in my life, when I was lost, I didn’t recognize His power nor His miracles in my life. In hindsight, He was with me all along. I always say that I know now that He had a plan for my life because I survived college.
Now, I see them every time I get a new client out of the blue. Or make a new friend in my building who has a similar former Catholic background and is going to the same church. Yes, sometimes they are small miracles. That’s why we need to thank God each and every day. That’s living in an attitude of gratitude.
In Hebrews we read…
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Hebrews 13:8 NLT
Jesus was with God in the beginning creating the world and humankind. While He was a living human being, He performed many miracles. Furthermore, He is STILL performing miracles through His Holy Spirit who lives indwelled within each and every born-again Christian believer.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews, which I heard might be Barnabas, wrote…
7 That is why the Holy Spirit says,
“Today when you hear his voice,
8 don’t harden your hearts
as Israel did when they rebelled,
when they tested me in the wilderness.
9 There your ancestors tested and tried my patience,
even though they saw my miracles for forty years.
10 So I was angry with them, and I said,
‘Their hearts always turn away from me.
They refuse to do what I tell them.’
11 So in my anger I took an oath:
‘They will never enter my place of rest.’” (Psalm 95:7-11)12 Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. 13 You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. 14 For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. 15 Remember what it says:
“Today when you hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts
as Israel did when they rebelled.”16 And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? 19 So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.
Hebrews 3:7-19 NLT
A Place of Great Abundance
Verses 11 and 12 speak of how God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and guided them to the Promised Land. It’s also prophetic. Like Psalm 65, it’s the song of the Jews at the point when the final Antichrist desecrates the 3rd temple and God leads the Jews to Petra. Jesus warns the Jews in His Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:15-22.
Come and listen, all you who fear God
What does it mean to “fear God”? We are not to be afraid of God. We are to be in AWE of Him — to have reverence for Him. Moreover, it’s respect for who He is, what He’s done in the past and what He will do in the future.
Write this psalm in a journal in your own words then pray it back to God. Use it as a template for praising and honoring God for what He’s done in your life.
What’s Going On?
I turn to the folks at Spoken Gospel for more insights on this psalm…
Psalm 66 invites the entire world to praise God because he is the one who destroys our enemies (Psalm 66:1-4). The psalmist invites the nations to “come and see” what God has done on behalf of Israel (Psalm 66:5). God defeated their Egyptian slave masters (Exodus 6:1). He parted the sea and led his people across on dry ground (Psalm 66:6). He fought for them through fire and water and brought them into their own land (Exodus 14:24-27; Joshua 21:43). Israel’s freedom is a warning to the watching nations. It encourages them to join instead of rebel against God’s Kingdom (Psalm 66:7).
But God not only rescued them from slavery, he also wanted to free Israel from sin–the slave master in their heart. Sin bound them from being truly free to love God and each other. God disciplined them with fire and water in order to break their bondage to any power lesser than himself (Psalm 66:9, 11-12). He refined their hearts like silver in a crucible (Psalm 66:10). Now the people of God praise him with offerings of gratitude (Psalm 66:13-15). God’s salvation is not only global and national, it’s personal (Psalm 66:16-17). [Emphasis mine]
The psalmist cries out to God in prayer, knowing that if God were to detect Egypt-like rebellion in his heart his prayer would be rejected (Psalm 66:18). But God has found his heart sin-free so the psalmist bursts into praise (Psalm 66:19-20). God will never fail to answer his prayers. The powerful God who liberates the world from enemies and saves a nation from slavery has reached his heart in love, freed him from sin, and listens when he prays.
Where is the Gospel?
Our world is still plagued by enemies. Wars, famines, and diseases ravage lands and nations. [Not to mention earthquakes and floods!] The apostle Paul says that all creation groans in bondage waiting to be liberated (Romans 8:20-22). And that liberator is Jesus.
Once, at the start of his ministry, Jesus’ disciples asked him where he was going. He told them to “come and see” just like our psalmist did, because he was going to achieve an even greater salvation than the deliverance from Egypt. Jesus went to battle against the greatest enemies of his people–death and sin. He fought on behalf of his enslaved people, freeing them from physical oppressors like disease and from Egypt-like sin in their hearts (Matthew 4:23; Mark 5:12-15). His death on the cross crushed the power of sin and his resurrection proved that death had finally met its match (Acts 2:24; 2 Timothy 1:10). As the waters swallowed up Egypt, Jesus will swallow up death forever (1 Corinthians 15:54). He walked out of the grave to lead a new nation into a land where no dark power will ever rule over his people again (Revelation 22:3).
Jesus’ power is both national and personal. On Jesus’ cross, the Kingdom of Death and the Empire of Sin were toppled and the Egypt in us has been destroyed. We are now sin-free in him (Romans 5:8). Which means God will never fail to answer our prayers (Romans 5:8, 8:32). We always have the ear of the God who destroys our enemies and he is on our side.
I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the God who has conquered all slave masters, including sin. And may you see Jesus as the one who saves the world, the nations, and individuals in his love.
Spoken Gospel
Have YOU accepted Jesus’ salvation?
Confess the sin in your heart for God is listening AND He will forgive you!
If you’re not sure if you’re saved or not, if you truly want to be born again and have the assurance of salvation, receive the Holy Spirit, feel His Shalom — a peace that surpasses all understanding, and get a 1-way, non-stop ticket to Heaven after you die, or that you won’t be left behind at the Rapture, which can happen at any moment, this is what you have to do…
Believe. Repent. Be Baptized. Receive the Holy Spirit.
- Believe — have Faith — that Jesus is the Christ and He died taking your sins away forever and that He rose from the dead 3 days later.
- Repent of your sins — stop sinning! Do a complete 180-degree turn in your life and surrender your life to Him. When you ask Jesus to forgive you He will. ALL your sins will be wiped clean — past, present, and future! And All means ALL!
- Be Baptized by water baptism — show the world and yourself that you have died to your old life and are born again in Christ.
- Receive the gift of Holy Spirit in your heart.