1. The Thesis of Psalm 66 The L ORD is worthy of universal praise because of His mighty works of deliverance in the past and because He is ever faithful to deliver His praying people from distress at all times.

2. Themes of Psalm 66 1.God directly causes trials in order to refine His people’s character. 2.God is faithful to show “loyal love” to His chosen. 3.God will answer His servants if their praise and prayer come from a pure heart. 4.Believers should not neglect public praise and thanksgiving when God has done a work of grace.

3. Introductory Comments About Psalm 66 Author: Unknown 1. Superscriptions are not inspired, so they neither prove nor disprove Davidic authorship. 2. The psalm itself provides no internal evidence of the authorship. Date: No indisputable evidence to prove the approximate date.

4. OT History Jacob’s Last Words: How Many Are Positive? (Gen. 49) – Only Judah and Joseph; Gad, Asher, and Napthali are only relatively good. Moses’s Last Words to Israel (Deut. 33) – Seems to point to Israel’s future glory in the kingdom Joshua – Rahab and family (Josh. 2) Ruth – Moabite woman rescued Kings of Judah – Solomon’s wisdom influenced Queen of Sheba and others

5. Matthew 23:15 Jesus said, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

6. William Carey: The Father of Modern Foreign Missions Paraphrasing the elders: “Sit down, young man. When God wishes to save the heathen, He will do so without your help or ours.” A Word to Hyper-Calvinists: “Those who do not evangelize will fossilize.”

7. Are You a “World Christian”? Bibles International – A conservative Bible translation ministry of Baptist Mid- Missions Gospel Literature Services – A ministry that distributes gospel literature to indigenous peoples worldwide.

8. Deuteronomy 29:29 As part of the covenant renewal in Moab, Moses asserts the following conclusion: “The secret things belong to the L ORD our God, but those things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

9. Judges 2:10 During Joshua’s time: When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers—that is, died and joined their ancestors—another generation arose after them who did not know the L ORD nor the work He had done for Israel.

10. Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxieties (anxious thoughts). And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

11. Malachi 3:3 Speaking of what the L ORD will do to Israel when He returns to the Earth, Malachi wrote: “He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the L ORD an offering in righteousness.”

12. Hebrews 12:10-11 “For they (human fathers) indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening (discipline) seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”