Trivia:
We were all wrong in this one. The president who performed at the Grand Ole Opry was Richard Nixon. When they moved to a new venue in 1974 President Nixon played the piano and led the crowd in singing "God Bless America".
While we are thinking about presidents, Do you know what JFK's nick name was among his family and close friends? Was he called, Jack; Joe; Fitz; or Johnnie?
Challenge:
Psalm 66:1-4 "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 sing your praises, shouting you name in glorious songs."
This Psalm was a written by Hezekiah, the king of Judah, after the Lord delivered the people of Jerusalem from the attack of the Assyrian army which surrounded the city with 185,000 soldiers. Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 37:33 "And this is what the Lord says about the kings off Assyria: "His armies will not enter Jerusalem. They will not even shoot an arrow at it. They will not march outside its gates with their shields nor build banks of earth against its walls. Verse 36 says, "That night the angel of ther Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. ... Sennacherib ... broke camp and returned to his own land ... to Nineveh and stayed there."
With that background to this first part of Psalm 66 we can recognize why the people of Israel were amazed with the glory of God and why they were anxious to tell the entire world of His works toward them. No armies of that age was able to experience such utter destruction against their army.
So many times in my life I have witnessed God's faithfulness to me when there was no solution to my dilemma, from my childhood. Where God caused people who had owed our family for years for our services of a decade, to suddenly send a check for payment of their debt and our need to make the doing payment on a more adequate home. To protection when while swimming a tree fell on top of me while I was swimming under water and friends recognizing my absence and lifting the tree to allow me to escape. These and many more provisions were poured out on me and our family over the many years of ministry.
In this first stanza the writer calls the whole earth to join in signing their praises to God. To celebrate His many excellencies, His powerful praises of God's care for them. Can you imagine the words of this Psalm being sung in heaven by a choir of billions of people who have experienced His watch care. When we went to Promise Keepers a men's gathering and 50,000 men sang to God to their loudest ability to sing praise to Giod that was a memory I will never forget, but imagine the glories of the believing world singing to the Lord in heaven?
SO GO WITH GOD for He faithfully provides for us as we come before Him in praise and adoration. As in verse 3 "Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! " If God just provided for us the payment for our sins wouldn't that be enough to be deserving of all of our praises?
When we set here before His presence this morning my dear ones, Let's stop and join in singing along with Bill & Gloria Gaither-Ten Thousand Years (Live). on You Tube. He will carry you through each time
of struggle, each day of challenge my dear one. Look and Live to our Savior, for He will carry you through.
Jack