Psalms 66

Who led you through that terrible wilderness that he might humble you and prove you. Affliction is the touch-stone of sincerity (Psalm 66:10-11). You, O God, have proved us: You have tried us as silver: You laid affliction upon our loins.

2 Timothy 4:17: And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, namely, from Nero. Psalm 66:11-12: You laid affliction upon our loins, but you brought us out into a wealthy place. Psalm 30:5: Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

God loves the music of prayer, therefore does not presently let us hear from him; but in due season he will give an answer of peace. Psalm 66:20: Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer nor his mercy from me. If God does not turn away our prayer, then he does not turn a…

10. We take God's name in vain, by rash and unlawful vows. There is a good vow, when a man binds himself by vow to do that which the Word binds him to; as if he be sick, he vows if God restore him, he will live a more strict holy life (Psalm 66:13). I will pay you my vows, which…

None but saints can in a right manner thus hallow God's name by praising him. As every one has not skill to play on the viol and organ, so every one cannot rightly sound forth God's harmonious praises; only the saints can do it; they only can make their tongue and heart join in…

God has thundered out threatenings against such sins. Psalm 66:21: God shall wound the hairy scalp of such a one as goes on still in his trespasses. Yet though God set the point of his sword to the breast of a sinner, yet he will commit sin.

I was bemiracled with mercy: as the sea overflows and breaks down the banks, so the mercy of God did break down the banks of my sin, and mercy did sweetly flow into my soul. You that have been monuments of God's mercy, should be trumpets of praise: You that have tasted the Lord…

The cross though it be of God's laying, it is of our own making; say then as (Micah 7:9) I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him. 5. Consideration, to cause submission to God's will in affliction; God is now about to make an experiment, he does…

Jeremiah 3: The people afflicted say, you have sent a fire into our bones. Psalm 66:12: We have gone through water and fire. Malachi 3:3: The children of Levi must be purified in a purging fire of affliction.

Therefore take heed of confining God to your way or limiting him to your time: that's the third. 4. Communicate your experiences: and thereby commend this duty to others: Thus David, "Come," he says, "and I will declare what he has done for my soul" (Psalm 66:16). "This poor man…

But Christ prescribes to us this defense of our life, that we should be always exposed to death, and walk through fire, and water, and sword, (Psalm 66:12.) And, indeed, no man will commit his soul into the hands of God in a right manner, unless he has learned to live from day t…

And of the Fear of God, as in the Samaritans, who feared the Lord, and served their own Gods at the same Time; 2 Kings 17:32, 33. And those Enemies of God we read of Psalm 66:3 who through the Greatness of God's Power, submit themselves to him, or, as it is in the Hebrew, lie un…

So the Apostle Paul speaks of that expensive duty of parting with our substance to the poor, as the proof of the sincerity of the love of Christians, 2 Corinthians 8:8. And the difficulties of religion are often represented in Scripture as being the trial of professors, in the s…

That downcast look and seeming reverence is not from any honor you have to God in your heart; though you would have it go so, and would have God take it so. You who have not believed in Christ have not the least jot of honor to God; that show of it is merely forced, and what you…

It is truth, that all we have is in the hand of God; but God keeps our life in his hand last of all, and he has that in his hand in a special manner. So David expresses it (Psalm 66:9), "You hold my soul in life"; though the soul continue, life may not continue, there is the sou…

The second thing here commended, reaches more inwardly, and it is in these words, honey and milk are under your tongue: There will be sometimes smooth words as butter, when there is much venom within; it's not so with Christ's Bride. By under the tongue, which is the part commen…

The words, as they are in the original, are, "cause me to hear me"; which occasions a twofold reading: 1. Cause me to be heard, and let me be the subject of your discourse to others, being they give ear to you, improve that credit which you have with them for that end. Thus this…

Whereupon he sweetly concludes, One morsel of God's provision, (especially if it come unexpected, and upon prayer, when wants are most) will be more sweet to a spiritual relish, than all former full enjoyments were. Many mercies come unasked for, and they require thankfulness; b…

Thus the tribulations of the godly, and the persecutions they suffer, do oppose their graces, but because they cannot overcome them, they strengthen them: As we read Psalm 45. when the Church forsakes all, when she leaves her fathers house, and her kindred, then does the King gr…

How should they be talking of all his wonders! How should you call upon each other, as David did, Psalm 66:16. Come here, and I will tell you what God has done for my soul, at such a time, in such an extremity. How should you call upon one another, to pay the vows your lips have…

Well then; go to God with the words of David. Psalm 66:13, 14. and say to him, I will pay you my vows which my lips have uttered, and my tongue has spoken when I was in trouble. Pay it, Soul, and pay it speedily to God, else he will recover it by Justice, and fetch it out of you…

But this foreknowledge here is peculiar to the elect. Verba sensus in sacra scriptura connotant affectus, as the Rabbins remark, so in man (Psalm 66), if I see iniquity, and in God (Psalm 1; Amos 3:2), and in that speech of our Saviour, relating it as the terrible doom of reprob…

(2.) If we would have our prayers successful. (Psalm 66:18) If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Clearly, if we will not do God's will, there is no reason he should regard our will.

If God does so Honor his People, let them Honor him; Malachi 1:6. Where is my Honor? let the Saints be God-exalters, let them lift up his Name in the World, and make his praise glorious, Psalm 66:2. But I only glance at this.

Hierom thinks they did speak something in defense of the Providence of God, they vindicated God in his dealings, and exhorted one another not to be discouraged at the Virulent speeches of the Wicked, but still hold on a course of Piety. Thus (Christians) when you meet, give one…

He teaches us therefore that we ought to follow him, and this very thing in David is set before us as an exemplar to be imitated. For when God helped David, exercised in such various ways and so many temptations, with his help, and freed him from dangers, we are admonished that…

The meanest have their use, quickening, and strengthening one another. This mutual edification differs from ministerial or church society, because the one is an act of authority, the other of charity, the one in the face of the congregation, the other by a few Christians in priv…

When the heart is deeply affected, the tongue cannot hold, but will run out in expressions of it; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, when cheered and revived in their afflictions. They are transported with the thought, with the excellency of God (Psalm 66:15…

So (Psalm 18:44): Strangers shall submit themselves to me. (Psalm 66:3; Psalm 81:15) and many other places. The word implies feigned submission.

2. Affectu: There must be a sincere affection to all, or a care to keep them. We must not entertain affection to any known sin (Psalm 66:18): If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me. A man may have a great deal of sin in his heart, but if he cherish and dandle it,…

Earnest endeavors must be used to grow up to a more exact conformity to all; (Philippians 3:14) I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Some corruption may remain after all our endeavors, but none must be reserved or cherished in the hea…

They are spectacles and monuments of mercy for the saints to look upon, that they may learn thereby to depend upon God; just as in converting Paul, a persecutor, the Apostle says (1 Timothy 1:16), Christ did show forth all long-suffering in me, for a pattern to them that should…

3. A man may pray and yet love sin, as Austin, before conversion, prayed against his sin, but was afraid God should hear him, and take him at his word. Now God hears not such prayers (Psalms 66:18). If I regard iniquity in my heart God will not hear my prayer.

Third, he has an impure heart who regards iniquity in his heart. Psalm 66:18: If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. In the original, 'if I look upon sin' — that is, with a lustful look.

Oh then, what cause have you to admire and love your physician! The Lord Jesus has taken out the core of your disease and the curse; publish your experiences (Psalm 66:16): I will tell you what God has done for my soul. As a man who has been cured of an old disease — how glad an…

6. A Spiritual Prayer is a holy Prayer, 1 Timothy 2 verse 8. Wherefore lift up pure hands: Prayer must be offered upon the Altar of a pure heart; sin lived in, makes the heart hard, and Gods ear deaf; sin stops the mouth of Prayer, it does as the Thief to the Traveler, puts a Ga…

The trial of a Pilot is seen in a storm; so is the trial of a Christian seen in affliction; he has the right art of navigation, who when the boisterous winds blow from heaven, does steer the ship of his soul wisely, and not dash upon the rock of impatience; a Christian should al…

And the third, from that particular, and most significant metaphor of gold tried in the fire; by which I here understand, a real and solid work of grace, evidencing itself to be so, in all the proofs and trials that are made of it; for whatever is probational to grace, and puts…

Indeed the prayers of Britain are not heard, nor their solemn fasts accepted; for iniquity has separated between God and us (Isaiah 59:2). 3. God hears not when there is a heart-love to vanity (Psalm 66:18, Job 35:15). 4. God hears not malignants, nor us, when many are heart-ene…

Reason 4 is taken from the approach we are daily making toward God — we are to resort to God to call upon his name, and to hear his word. Nothing so much hinders us from finding God in an ordinance as an unkept heart (Psalm 66:18), which shows you that if there be any evil in a…

To show you, that it is faith that helps a man to pray, and by praying for pardon of sin, God answers the desire of a man's soul, and seals up to him the pardon of it, for, The Lord will fulfill the desires of them that fear him (Psalm 145:18). When God bows our hearts to obey h…