Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; Sing of the honor and glory and magnificence of His name;Make His praise glorious. Say to God, “How awesome and fearfully glorious are Your works!Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will pretend to be obedient to You. “All the earth will [bow down to] worship You [in submissive wonder],And will sing praises to You;They will praise Your name in song.” Selah. Come and see the works of God,He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land;They crossed through the river on foot;There we rejoiced in Him. Who rules by His might forever,His eyes keep watch on the nations;Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah. Bless our God, O peoples,And make the sound of His praise be heard abroad, Who keeps us among the living,And does not allow our feet to slip or stumble. For You have tested us, O God;You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net;You laid a heavy burden [of servitude] on us. You made men (charioteers) ride over our heads [in defeat];We went through fire and through water,Yet You brought us out into a [broad] place of abundance [to be refreshed]. I shall come into Your house with burnt offerings;I shall pay You my vows, Which my lips utteredAnd my mouth spoke as a promise when I was in distress. I shall offer to You burnt offerings of fat lambs,With the [sweet] smoke of rams;I will offer bulls with male goats. Selah. Come and hear, all who fear God [and worship Him with awe-inspired reverence and obedience],And I will tell what He has done for me. I cried aloud to Him;He was highly praised with my tongue. If I regard sin and baseness in my heart [that is, if I know it is there and do nothing about it],The Lord will not hear [me]; But certainly God has heard [me];He has given heed to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God,Who has not turned away my prayerNor His lovingkindness from me.

Psalm 66

My minister dad was “out of the church,” a term used to describe an unemployed pastor. A congregation invited him and two others to preach as candidates on successive Sundays. Being the first of three candidates, Dad was sure that by the time the third minister had preached he would be forgotten.

The day of the church election my dad stayed in bed all day, sick. Without a paycheck for several months he feared he would have to leave the calling he felt God had placed on his life.

But at 10pm the phone rang. It was the head deacon warmly conveying the invitation of the church for Dad to become pastor.

The next day my dad looked and acted like a completely different man. In his whole life I never saw him more satisfied and happy. What a difference a day makes. This psalm is one you sing when all has turned out well.

Like my dad during his months of unemployment, you may feel like this psalm will never describe you since you presently have no shout of joy, no sense of God’s powerful sovereignty, no overflowing praise, no desire to invite anyone to remember Gods past miracles, and little confidence in God’s power.

George Wood

The gladness of Psalm 66 does not hide the deep trial or the dark passage that precedes the victory: “He has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.” Looking back, the psalmist remembers the moments when he was on the edge of the cliff of despair and need.

There are those moments when it is necessary to look in the rear view mirror of our own personal history so we might have the opportunity to meditate on how God has been involved with us in those difficult times of adversity: “For you, O God, texted us; you refined us like silver.”

Silversmiths know that fire refines and the hotter it is the more pure the silver becomes. Fire purifies. Long before antiseptics, surgeons purified their instruments by passing them through the fire. In the same manner, what often appears to be the plans of evil people or adverse circumstances designed to take us out are often instruments that God turns into things that makes us better persons and more in his likeness. We only have to read the story of Joseph or that of the three Hebrews to know that God uses adversity but He is also with you in the furnace!

As Hudson Taylor would say, “There are no second causes.” God is in control at all times and in each circumstance. Romans 8:28 tells us that “all things” work for our good. God not only refines us in our trials but He also uses the exaltation of the enemy over us in our confinement as a product of His work: “You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water “

It is a mistake to view this life as all there is or as the most important. Paul reminds us that “if in this world we have hope only, we are men most miserable. Let us not forget that Christ Himself said, “In this world you will have tribulations.” Thankfully He didn’t stop there for He also said, “But be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”

George Wood offers the following prayer:

“So Lord, it was You all along who made the going rough. My adversity, my enemy, my loss was your doing. O God, I was hurt so badly in that place of confinement. My burden was heavier than I thought could be carried. And You let another gain mastery over me-and put me through burning and floods. I thought I was done for in the searing heat or raging waters. But Lord, just as surely as you brought me into that painful place, also, ‘You brought us into a place of abundance.”

The fifth through the seventh verses of Psalm 66 records the review of the writer’s battlefield of his own trial. He invites us, much like battlefield guides invite tourists to, “Come and see what God has done.” Every one of our trials in some way recreates the Red Sea experience of the Israelites. In order for us to pass over, God has to part the water and dry the way so we can pass “through the waters on foot.”

The psalmist says, “He rules forever.” Not just in the past nor in our present difficulty, but in all the trials and triumphs of tomorrow, God reigns.

In verses 13-17, the psalmist in response to God pledges his word: “I will….fulfill my vows to you- vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.” Before the trial we rested in the stories of what God had done for others, In the trial we resort to what God has done previously and that get us through the long night of adversity, but now the testimony of the Lord’s help has become our own story.

It is in the testing that we become purged of sin: “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

Often in the early days of our difficulty, there may be much sin, but the fire has melted the dross. Joseph’s trials transformed him from a prideful, spoiled child into a compassionate man who looked to the betterment of others. David’s trials taught him to walk humbly before the Lord with his whole heart. The benefits of trials if we walk through them with good conscience and without offense toward God is the purging of sin. If we allow sin to remain in our hearts as we pass through the dark valleys of adversity, we will not emerge whole. Trials expose us and as wrong attitudes, motives, and actions are discovered, they must be dealt with. God doesn’t expose us to adversity for no cause. Adversity is designed to bring the “dross” to the surface so that it can be “skimmed” off.

If we will open ourselves to the refining fire of God, in the end we will sing Psalm 66 and conclude the sing with: “Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me.”

We can trust in this truth given to us by the apostle Paul: “He that has begun a good work in me will complete it.”

Dr. John Thompson